Two lawsuits challenging Alabama’s new congressional map were filed this week, arguing that the map unlawfully dilutes African Americans’ voting strength because the map has only one majority Black district out of the seven districts. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed the new congressional, legislative, and school board districts into law Thursday after they passed the [...]

Environmental activists protesting climate change inaction who shut down the largest US energy export port for a day agreed Friday to pay for the cost of first responders and court costs to settle state criminal charges, according to Reuters. Greenpeace members had dangled from ropes off a bridge that crossed over the Houston Ship Channel to [...]

The Chinese government has established a set of rules Friday that criminalizes any person or entity with pro-democracy inclinations for Taiwan. This was a follow-up to China’s proposal in 2020 when the CCP announced a global blacklist structure to proscribe Taiwan secessionists. The rules will work with the global blacklist, banning and imposing lifetime criminal [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will review a conviction of several climate activists for protesting on Swiss bank Credit Suisse’s grounds. While the activists were initially acquitted in January 2020, the Swiss appeal court reversed that decision. The case was seen as an important precedent for climate protestors. The climate protestors were university [...]

Italy’s senate agreed Friday to ban any adverts which consist of sexist, discriminatory, or anti-abortion content from appearing anywhere across their entire transportation infrastructure. The new transport and infrastructure decree will ban adverts in public that are seen to perpetuate a stereotype of women, minority ethnic or religious groups, as well as any adverts that [...]

Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit Thursday on behalf of a transgender boy prevented by Tennessee law from joining the boys’ golf team at his high school. The suit challenges S.B. 228, which requires that a middle or high school student’s gender, for purposes of interscholastic athletics, be determined by the student’s assigned sex at [...]

United Nations human rights experts Thursday called on both Saudi Arabia and Viet Nam to “crack down” on human trafficking following reports of women and girls recruited in Viet Nam to serve as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. The experts noted that traffickers “target[] Vietnamese women and girls living in poverty” because of their vulnerability. Girls [...]

A Staff Correspondent for JURIST in Mauritius says that a new petroleum bill advancing in that Indian Ocean country off the coast of Africa has significant implications for climate change and raises concerns about corruption, conflict of interest, and government mismanagement. For privacy and security reasons we are withholding his name and institutional affiliation. Last [...]

The President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, signed a letter of understanding with the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim A.A. Khan QC against atrocious crimes. The agreement between the two was signed Wednesday during the three days of work with the ICC prosecutor. The Venezuelan government has agreed to cooperate and comply with the [...]

India’s Ministry of Law and Justice released Friday the Draft Mediation Bill, 2021, inviting comments and suggestions from all stakeholders. The bill aims to promote, encourage and facilitate mediation in the country, particularly institutional mediation. In a press release, the Ministry said, “since the laws on Mediation are contained in several enactments including rules and [...]