The Africa deputy director at Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday expressed concern over the arrest of well-known government critic Sarah Bireete in Uganda ahead of the country’s upcoming elections. Ashwanee Budoo-Scholtz stated: “Sarah Bireete’s arrest is a demonstration of the Uganda government’s continuing intolerance of dissent. The Ugandan authorities should release Bireete, drop all [...]

The UN Special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar urged the international community on Thursday to reject Myanmar’s current election, describing it as a “sham” that exposed the “coercion, violence, and exclusion” behind the polls. After the first round of voting, Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews said the polls failed to meet any [...]

Across the past eight decades, the international community has experienced successive “waves” of atrocity accountability—periods in which global norms either strengthened or eroded in the face of mass violence, authoritarian resurgence, and geopolitical disruption. Today, the world stands at the threshold of a fourth wave: the Age of Aggression, a moment defined by the collapse [...]

The recent unveiling of Russia’s Selena project, a nuclear power plant slated for the lunar surface by 2035 under the joint Russo-Chinese International Lunar Research Station program, has been hailed as an unprecedented ambition of engineering. But beneath the proposed cooling towers lies a volatile reality. We are about to place the highest-stakes technologies of [...]

Amnesty International, together with 13 civil society organizations, called on candidates in Benin’s upcoming legislative and presidential elections on Thursday to prioritize human rights protection within their political programs. The rights organization noted that the deteriorating human rights situation in Benin demands political action in order to align with international human rights standards. It also [...]

A US Customs and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot a Minneapolis woman on Wednesday during continuing agency operations in the city. The next day, CNN reported that Minnesota officials told the news outlet that “the feds have blocked them from investigating the fatal ICE shooting” of Renee Nicole Good, 37-year-old mother and [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Wednesday that UK authorities have “severely restricted” the right to protest, contravening international human rights obligations and creating an environment in which peaceful dissent can be treated as a criminal act. The report noted that the UK’s Labour government has not reversed extensive anti-protest laws introduced by the previous [...]

The US State Department on Wednesday announced that it will halt all assistance programs that benefit the Somali Federal Government after a report that a US-funded World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse was demolished and its contents seized by Somali officials. The online post said that President Donald Trump has a “zero-tolerance policy for waste, theft, [...]

Google and Character.AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) firm, agreed Wednesday to settle a lawsuit linked to a teen’s suicide in 2024, a landmark settlement for AI-related harm cases. The US District Court for the Middle District of Florida dismissed the lawsuit following the agreement  between the plaintiff and defendants. The parties have 90 days to [...]

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will begin hearings on the merits of the Rohingya genocide case on January 12, marking a crucial stage in the process of prescribing legal accountability for the atrocities that have taken place in Myanmar since 2016. In November 2019, The Gambia requested that the court institute proceedings against Myanmar [...]