The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Friday ruled that a copper mining project did not violate local Apache American Indians’ First Amendment religious rights. A 2014 Congress act requires the US secretary of agriculture to give mining company Rio Tinto land called Oak Flat, which is to Apache American Indians a sacred site. In [...]

As a criminal defense attorney practicing post-conviction law for nearly twenty years, I’ve watched the Supreme Court whittle away convicted defendants’ right to contest their wrongful state convictions. The most recent example is the Supreme Court’s opinion in Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez, which prevents prisoners from entering federal court to litigate claims that were forfeited [...]

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Friday stated that he had sought authorization from the ICC to resume investigating the Philippine government’s “war on drugs” as quickly as possible. In September last year, the ICC authorized the prosecutor’s office to investigate the Philippines’ alleged crimes against humanity committed between November 2011 and March 2019. The [...]

The US Supreme Court Thursday held that prisoners on death row may challenge their state’s method of execution under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In Nance v. Ward, the court addressed the issue of whether a death row inmate could bring a case challenging the method of execution they will face. Petitioner Michael Nance received a death [...]

Tom Andrews, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Thursday called on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to put increased pressure on the Myanmar junta, following his eight-day visit to Malaysia. In February last year, a military coup took place in Myanmar, in which the junta deposed the civilian government and arrested [...]

The German Bundestag Friday abolished paragraph 219a of the Strafgesetzbuch, the German Penal Code, as part of the new government’s campaign to fully decriminalize abortion. Paragraph 219a law read: Anyone who publicly, in a meeting or by disseminating content… for their pecuniary benefit or in a grossly offensive manner own or third-party services to carry [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Friday in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that there is no constitutional right to abortion, overturning the landmark decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The decision comes in a case involving a Mississippi law banning all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Mississippi’s Gestational Age [...]

The United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack Thursday heard testimony from former Acting Attorney General (AG) Jeffery Rosen outlining that former president Donald Trump tried to influence the Department of Justice (DOJ) to interfere in the certification of the 2020 election. Trump pressured the DOJ to examine claims of fraud despite [...]

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Thursday ruled that Harvard University does not need to relinquish slave photos taken for a Harvard professor’s racist 1850 study to the photo subjects’ descendant, Tamara Lanier. However, Lanier can sue Harvard for emotional distress “as a result of Harvard’s mistreatment of her” In 1850, a Harvard professor conducted [...]

The UK Government Thursday announced a law to minimize the impact of strike action on businesses by authorizing the use of temporary staff. The government aims to reduce business disruption caused by strike action by “removing the restrictions on employment businesses supplying temporary workers to cover striking staff.” As a result, companies’ freedom to fill [...]