The Malaysian Parliament proposed a bill Monday meant to combat “fake news,” drawing sharp criticism from rights groups such as Amnesty International . The Anti-Fake News Act 2018 defines fake news as “any news, information, data and reports, which is or are wholly or partly false.” A person who creates, publishes, facilitates or does not [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases Monday. In United States v. Sanchez-Gomez the Supreme Court is determining whether the Ninth Circuit had jurisdiction to hear a pre-trial challenge by defendants about a policy that forces defendants to wear shackles prior to the decision. The government argues that the defendants’ challenge was [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear the appeal of Maurice Greenberg’s Starr International Co. The appeal argued that the federal government illegally bailed out AIG during the financial crisis of 2008 at the expense of shareholders. Monday’s order leaves in place the 2017 ruling of the US Court of Appeals for the [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday released a report alleging that former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa abused the criminal justice system to target indigenous leaders and environmentalists who protested mining and oil exploration in the Amazon. The Correa administration has continually denounced environmental activists and indigenous people mobilized to protest. In 2013 Correa issued a [...]

Government watchdog group Common Cause filed a pair of legal complaints on Monday accusing Cambridge Analytica LTD and its affiliates of violating federal election laws that prohibit foreigners from participating in the decision-making process of US political campaigns. Filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Department of Justice , Common Cause names multiple [...]

Amnesty International (AI) said Monday that the Australian government must discard two new proposed bills that they claim have the ability to infringe on civil work and whistleblower rights and limit scrutiny of the government. AI says the Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform Bill would impose arbitrary restrictions on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), impeding their ability [...]

US President Donald Trump on Friday directed JSecretary of Defense ames Mattis to ban transgender troops from serving in the military if they require surgery or significant medical treatment. The memorandum revokes the president’s August order , which reinstated a pre-2016 blanket ban on transgender military service but has been challenged in, and blocked by [...]

Spanish Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena charged 13 Catalan leaders for rebellion on Friday. The leaders include Jordi Sànchez, the former president of the Catalan National Assembly, as well as other former members of Catalonia’s Parliament. The charges came after an investigation into Catalonia’s declaration of independence last year. Llarena also charged five other former [...]

Former Bosnian military leader Ratko Mladić on Thursday appealed his conviction to the UN Mechanism for International Tribunals . Mladić was tried and convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, then sentenced to life imprisonment in November 22. On appeal, the defense cited time constraints that left them unable to review the [...]

Here’s the international legal news we covered this week: The UK Court of Appeal ruled this week that software is not a good, overruling the lower court opinion. UN human rights experts expressed concern Friday over the diminishing health of Jiang Tianyong, a prominent human rights lawyer jailed in China for inciting subversion of state [...]