Bridget Kelly and William Baroni, former New Jersey officials under Governor Chris Christie , were found guilty Friday of all counts against them for the 2013 lane closings on the George Washington Bridge. Kelly and Baroni were facing nine counts including conspiring to fraudulently misuse federal property, wire fraud and deprivation of civil rights. The [...]

One year after the disastrous collapse of a mining dam in Brazil, UN experts called on the Brazilian government, Samarco, Vale, and BHP Billiton Friday to refocus recovery efforts. The statement urged officials to act on issues concerning the environmental harm and human rights impact brought about by the catastrophe. While the UN acknowledged the [...]

The US Supreme Court issued an order on Thursday granting a last-minute stay of execution just as state officials in Alabama were preparing to execute Thomas Douglas Arthur by lethal injection. The application for the stay was presented to Justice Clarence Thomas, subsequently referred to the court and now stands granted pending disposition of a [...]

For the first time in history, governments around the world have agreed to legally binding limits on global temperature rises as the Paris Agreement on climate change became effective on Friday. All governments that have ratified the accord are now legally obligated to cap global warming levels at 2C above pre-industrial levels—regarded as a limit [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Thursday denied the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s effort to allow out-of-county poll watchers to monitor precincts on election day. Judge Gerald Pappert stated that the request was not in the public interest and did not meet the standard for a last-minute intervention [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected a challenge Wednesday to an Arizona election law. The Ninth circuit, in a 2-1 opinion turned down a legal challenge regarding thrown out ballots cast by voters who go to the wrong precinct. A federal judge had initially denied the challenge stating that there is [...]

The EU’s “hotspot approach” to processing refugees is pressuring Italian authorities to use illegal procedures, according to an Amnesty International (AI) report released Thursday. The report was composed after conducting interviews with more than 170 migrants and refugees, and it exposed numerous accounts of unlawful expulsions and abuse that the group claims amount to torture [...]

The justice minister of South Africa on Thursday submitted a bill to parliament seeking withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC) . Tshililo Michael Masutha , the Minister of Justice of South Africa, presented the bill due to the government’s claim that it interferes with South Africa’s Diplomatic Immunities and Privileges Act (DIPA) . A [...]

A group of UN human rights experts called on the authorities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Thursday to revoke what they consider an unjustified ban on protests in Kinshasa, the DRC capital. The statement says the rights to protest are fundamental and that, “he rights to freedom of expression, and freedom of [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Anne Herzberg of NGO Monitor reviews the recent article, “Unsettled: A Global Study of Settlements in Occupied Territory”… Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention is the most cited legal provision invoked by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the UN and quasi-judicial bodies to declare illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The language [...]