A group of top Iranian jurists and theologians approved the nuclear deal with world powers on Wednesday, marking the completion of the last step before implementation of the deal may begin. The Iranian Parliament accepted the nuclear agreement on Tuesday and moved the process on to the Guardian Council , which determined the legislation was [...]

The Cairo Criminal Court found the brother of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri innocent of terrorism charges on Thursday. Mohamed al-Zawahri was the leader of the Jihadi Salafist group and was an ally of ex-president Mohammed Morsi, who is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Mohamed al-Zawahiri was tried with 67 other defendants in the case referred [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases on Wednesday. In Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) v. Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA) , the court heard oral arguments on the issue of federal versus state authority over the sale of demand response in electricity markets under FERC Order 745 . The case is [...]

Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday issued an injunction freezing opposition party efforts to start impeachment deliberations against President Dilma Rousseff . Despite the injunction, lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha said that he would continue to review impeachment requests. However, the Supreme Court’s ruling allows Rousseff some time to gather support in Congress pending a decision [...]

Attorneys for former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell on Tuesday asked the US Supreme Court to overturn his conviction and his two-year prison sentence on corruption charges . The charges stem from McDonnell and his wife’s involvement with Virginia businessman Jonnie Williams, who was trying to build a commercial product to market and reached out to [...]

The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that an officer must obtain a warrant in order to test the blood of a person suspected of driving while intoxicated (DWI). Minnesota’s implied consent law, Statute § 169A.20, subdivision 2 (2012) makes it a crime for a person “to refuse submit to a chemical test of the [...]

Amnesty International (AI) announced Tuesday it is setting up an office in Nigeria to investigate human rights abuses. In a showing of “solidarity with the victims of human rights violations,” AI has established a permanent base in Abuja that will serve as the “main base for the global movement’s research, campaign and communications work” for [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday on two cases. In Montgomery v. Louisiana the court heard arguments on whether the court’s 2012 decision in Miller v. Alabama , which struck down state laws that mandated a life sentence for capital offenses by minors, applies retroactively. The case involves a man, Henry Montgomery, convicted [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Arvind Narrain of ARC International discusses the issues with assigning a gender to intersex born children… International recognition of sexual and gender diversity has grown from the protection of sexual orientation (Toonen v Australia) to gender identity (Resolution of the Human Rights Council in 2011) to an emerging recognition of intersex status. [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Tuesday revived a civil rights lawsuit filed by a coalition of Muslim groups that accuses the New York City Police Department (NYPD) of conducting unjustified surveillance on Muslims in New Jersey. The appeals court reversed a lower court decision to throw out the case and [...]