The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled Friday that an Arkansas law prohibiting state contracts with companies that refuse to pledge against boycotts on Israel is an unconstitutional violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The 2017 law prevented contractors from signing deals with the state unless they agreed to abstain from [...]

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released a report Monday denouncing attacks on Afghan journalists, human rights activists and media workers. In September, peace negotiations began between Afghan officials and the Taliban to end the ongoing war in Afghanistan. In November, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi called for [...]

JURIST EXCLUSIVE – One of JURIST’s law student correspondents in Myanmar writes Monday: There will be an internet cut off from 1 am to 9 am. The internet is very slow too. I wonder if there’s anything we can do about it. It’s worrisome to find out everything only in the morning. With the help [...]

When Democrats took control of the House of Representatives after the 2018 midterm elections, they used their first piece of legislation to announce what their priorities would be after two years of not controlling any lever of the federal government. The bill called the “For the People Act of 2019,” sought to restructure portions of [...]

The House decision to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) of committee assignments reflects a recent attempt to deal with a perceived failure in the marketplace of ideas. Oliver Wendell Holmes suggested in dissent over 100 years ago (Abrams v. United States (1919)) that the best way to arrive at the truth is by a “free [...]

Canada launched an initiative Monday to stop countries from arbitrarily detaining foreign nationals for diplomatic gain. This initiative was endorsed by 58 countries and the EU. Arbitrary arrests and detentions violate international human rights law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Canada created a declaration, [...]

Hundreds of women’s rights activists and their supporters protested in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu on Friday to call for an end to violence and discrimination against women and the scrapping of a proposed law that would restrict foreign travel for many women. The point of contention is a proposed law that would require women under 40 [...]

Homeless advocacy groups filed a lawsuit against the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) on Friday, challenging a rule that “target the manner in which homeless persons use the subway system.” New York advocacy organizations Urban Justice Center (Safety Net Project) and Picture the Homeless seek to block a rule that bans the use of large wheeled [...]

The UN Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures and human rights, Alena Douhan, on Friday urged the US, the EU and other states to lift unilateral sanctions imposed against Venezuela, claiming that they have only “exacerbated pre-existing calamities.” Douhan, who had been traveling around Venezuela for two weeks talking to “the widest range of people [...]

International Criminal Court (ICC) members voted Friday to elect British human rights lawyer and Queen’s Counsel Karim Khan as the court’s next prosecutor, taking over from Fatou Bensouda. The vote, which took place during the second resumed nineteenth session of the Assembly of States Parties, saw Khan win support from 72 nations, surpassing the 62 [...]