The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Australia’s detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island in northern Papua New Guinea is illegal. The court found that the detention center violates article 42 of Papua New Guinea’s constitution , which guarantees personal liberty. The court ordered both governments to take steps to end the [...]

Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice (STJ) on Monday rejected an attempt by the opposition-led National Assembly to shorten President Nicolas Maduro’s term from six years to four. The opposition, which won control of the National Assembly last year, has been attempting to oust Maduro. The STJ held that the proposed constitutional amendment would be viable [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina upheld the state’s voter ID law on Monday. House Bill 589 requires that any “qualified voter voting in person … shall present identification” to a “local election official at the voting place before voting.” The law also provides, however, that those [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Nicholas Johnson of the Fordham University School of Law discusses the recent suit filed by the families of the Newtown victims… Some of the families who survived the horror of the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting are suing the manufacturer and distributors of the Armalite Rifle Model 15, or “AR-15” that was used by [...]

A panel of experts released on Sunday its second and last report on its inquiry into the 43 undergraduate students from a teachers college in Ayotzinapa who went missing in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico in 2014, stating that the Mexican government has hampered the investigation. Consisting of Latin American lawyers and human rights activists, the panel [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in two cases. In Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. , the court must determine what constitutes the standard for awarding attorney’s fees under § 505 of the Copyright Act . Under the act, the district court is permitted to use its discretion in awarding attorney’s [...]

UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore urged Iraq on Monday to take concrete steps to plan for “the day after” the defeat of the Islamic State (IS). The statements come after a week-long visit to Iraq that included the cities of Baghdad, Najaf, Erbil and the Shariya camp for internally displaced people [...]

The US Supreme Court granted certiorari in Shaw v. United States to determine the level of intent that must be proven for a bank fraud conviction. The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 in Loughrin v. United States that prosecution under subsection (2) of the federal government’s anti-bank fraud statute does not require proof that a [...]

Civil rights lawyer Ni Yulan told Western media Monday that the Chinese government has put her under house arrest, presumably for her work as an advocate for citizens being evicted to make way for development. Foreign diplomats from the EU, Germany, Canada, France and Switzerland sought to meet with Ni at her home over the [...]

International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Monday announced a “preliminary investigation” into allegations that the Burundi government, headed by President Pierre Nkurunziza, committed various human rights violations over the past year. In a statement to the media, Bensouda said that “more than 430 persons were reportedly killed, at least 3,400 people have been [...]