Amnesty International Thursday urged Azerbaijani and Armenian authorities to conduct immediate investigations into war crimes committed during the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict after videos emerged from private social networks showing extrajudicial killings, torture, and severe abuse. In its press release, Amnesty said it analysed 22 videos that depicted, “extrajudicial executions, the mistreatment of prisoners of war [...]

The Lebanese judge investigating the Beirut shipping port explosion Thursday charged caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab and three former ministers with criminal negligence for the incident in August which killed more than 200 people, injured thousands more and destroyed large parts of the country’s capital. Fadi Sawan has charged former public works ministers Ghazi Zaeiter [...]

The Sentencing Council for England and Wales released new sentencing guidelines Wednesday that tell judges to consider their racial bias prior to sentencing. The guidelines pertain to unlawful firearm possession, discharge and acquisition offenses. The guidelines attempt to make sentences more consistent across the board. The guidelines come in response to the 2017 Lammy report that found [...]

The Finnish Parliament’s Constitutional Law Committee recommended Wednesday against prosecuting Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto for attempting to replace an official. While the committee found that Haavisto had broken the law, it ruled that his actions did not meet the threshold for prosecution required by the Finnish Constitution. Experts who spoke before the committee [...]

The Crown Prosecution Service charged four people on Wednesday for damaging the Edward Colston statue that stood in Bristol, England. The statue was torn down by Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford, Jake Skuse and Sage Willoughby during Black Lives Matter protests in June. At the time of the protests, the Avon and Somerset police did not arrest [...]

International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced Wednesday that she had decided to close a preliminary examination into alleged war crimes committed by members of the British Armed Forces in Iraq, despite confirming a “reasonable basis” to find that the crimes did occur. The prosecutor further announced she would not open an investigation. In January 2014 the [...]

The French government Wednesday formally announced its support for a bill aimed at protecting the “principles of the republic.” The new law proposes to strengthen the government’s ability to prosecute extremist religious groups that “present a serious threat to public order.” Critics have expressed concerns that the law is aimed specifically at Muslim groups, but [...]

The UK House of Lords voted to amend the Trade Bill on Monday to include performance of human rights risk assessments in proposed trade agreements, as well as revocation of trade agreements with countries that are found by the High Court of England and Wales to have committed genocide. The bill was first introduced in [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new law Tuesday giving Russia’s national legislation precedence over international treaties and rulings from international bodies. The bill was initially passed in the lower house, the State Duma, in late October, and then by the Federation Council. The law is one among many constitutional reforms approved by the Russian public between [...]

A Judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction Monday, preventing the Trump administration from prohibiting the operation of the popular China-based social media app TikTok. The order follows President Donald Trump’s signing of Exec. Order No. 13942, which identified TikTok, a short-loop video sharing app presently used [...]