Saudi Arabia issued a royal decree Sunday ending the death penalty for individuals convicted of crimes when they were minors. This decree could prevent six men from receiving the death penalty. According to Amnesty International, in 2019, Saudi Arabia put 184 people to death, the highest number on record. The President of the Human Rights [...]

The heads of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) called Friday for nations to lift trade restrictions on medical supplies amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The heads of the international agencies said that the trade restrictions on supplies used to fight COVID-19 could be “dangerously counterproductive,” adding, “what makes sense in [...]

Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court announced on Saturday that it was abolishing flogging as a form of punishment, as part of reforms aimed to advance human rights in Saudi Arabia. These reforms follow “unprecedented international criticism” that Saudi Arabia received in 2019 for its human rights record, which included 184 executions, 84 of which were for [...]

The parliament of Scotland introduced a bill on Friday to modernize hate crimes laws, including a section that would abolish the crime of blasphemy. The purpose of the proposed legislation is “to modernise, consolidate and extend existing hate crime law,” updating the list of protected characteristics, including for the first time adding age to the [...]

The First Circuit ruled on Friday that “women unable to leave a domestic relationship” are a group eligible for asylum applications and cancellation of removal proceedings. The court’s opinion overturned a rule finalized under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2018 that required the category of membership to be defined in separate terms from the [...]

The European Court of Justice Advocate General said Thursday that four migrants are being illegally detained on the Serbian-Hungarian border in an area called Röszke. The migrants in the case are an Afghan couple and an Iranian man and his son. Both sets of migrants arrived to Hungary in 2019. They applied for asylum, and the Hungarian [...]

The Court of Appeals of Versailles on Friday upheld and amended a lower court order limiting the types of goods Amazon can deliver during the COVID-19 pandemic. Amazon has faced criticism for not to prioritizing shipments of essential items, and for failing to protect the health and safety of its employees. After the lower court [...]

The trial of two Syrian government agents began Thursday at a court in Koblenz, Germany. The two men, Anwar R. and Eyad A., allegedly worked for the Syrian General Secret Service. The indictment against Anwar accuses him of overseeing a prison in which, from 2011 to 2012, more than 4,000 prisoners were tortured and sexually [...]

The state of Missouri filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Chinese government and its top institutions, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Emergency Management and the People’s Government of Wuhan City, over their role in the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. The lawsuit states that Missouri is seeking recovery for “the [...]

Amnesty International released a global report on the judicial use of death sentences and executions Monday, finding that death sentences decreased worldwide last year. The report includes 20 countries and covers January to December of 2019. Overall, confirmed executions decreased by 5 percent from 2018. In 2019 there were approximately 657 executions. Amnesty explained this [...]