The US Department of State released its 2024 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, also referred to as the Human Rights Report, months later than usual on Tuesday. The tone and scope notably changed from the 2023 report, altering or removing references to human rights abuses based on sexuality, gender or race, as well as [...]

A coalition of rights organizations on Wednesday issued a joint statement urging the Maldives to reconsider proposed legislative amendments that would reinstate the death penalty for drug trafficking, citing concerns that the punishment is archaic, inhumane, and runs contrary to international human rights standards. The nine organizations expressed alarm after Dr. Mohamed Muizzu, President of [...]

US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order directing President Donald Trump’s administration to expand and sanitize holding areas for ICE detainees at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, following a lawsuit filed by Peruvian immigrant Sergio Alberto Barco Mercado, citing cramped, unsanitary, and inhumane conditions. Judge Kaplan mandated that, by [...]

UN experts on Wednesday condemned Israeli attacks deliberately targeting Gaza’s healthcare system as gross violations of international law and “medicide.” In a UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner press release, UN experts defined “medicide” as the deliberate targeting of healthcare infrastructure and workers as a “component of the intentional creation of conditions” for [...]

The Texas Senate passed a redistricting map (S.B. No. 4) on Tuesday that has been at the center of national debate. Two Democrats remained in chambers, allowing the Senate vote to proceed and prevail 19-2. The bill’s passage does not enact the legislation; it must pass both chambers before presentation to Governor Greg Abbott, who [...]

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Tuesday called upon the Sri Lankan authorities to put an immediate end to what it called the government’s harassment of photojournalist Kanapathipillai Kumanan, after a police notice obtained by the organization revealed that Kumanan had been summoned by the counter-terrorism police for questioning. The summons comes in the [...]

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” — Winston Churchill As the world watches with bated breath, US President Donald Trump gears up for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, an encounter that echoes with eerie resonance the fateful meeting between British Prime Minister Neville [...]

When US President Donald J. Trump proposes that Russia and Ukraine “swap territories,” he is advocating multiple violations of international law and United States law. In essence, Russian President Vladimir Putin acquired Ukrainian territories by committing grievous acts of aggression, and thus has no conceivable legal right to keep them. Ipso facto, if Trump diplomacy [...]

Amnesty International on Wednesday criticized the Nigerian government’s failure to address the security crisis in the South-East region, which led to the deaths of 1,844 people between January 2021 and June 2023, along with numerous reported human rights violations against citizens. Isa Sanusi, the director of Amnesty International Nigeria, stated: No one knows exactly how [...]

The American Bar Association’s House of Delegates on Monday adopted Resolution 509, affirming that no government actor should punish or threaten lawyers, law firms, or other organizations for representing, or having represented, a client or cause disfavored by the government. The resolution further emphasizes that the legal profession must ensure counsel remains available, especially to [...]