The US Supreme Court on Friday granted a preliminary injunction to a group of Maryland parents challenging their school board’s mandatory instruction of LGBTQ+ themed storybooks in elementary schools. The court stated that the introduction of the books, combined with the parents’ inability to opt their children out of the instruction, “places an unconstitutional burden [...]

On Wednesday, at the NATO summit in The Hague, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez formally rejected the alliance’s newly agreed aspirational guideline for member states to increase defense spending to 5% of national GDP by 2035. In a carefully negotiated compromise, NATO permitted Spain to endorse the summit’s joint communiqué with a subtle but significant [...]

The US Supreme Court granted the government’s stay application in the birthright citizenship case on Friday, limiting the federal courts’ injunctive relief powers to plaintiffs with standing. In its opinion, the court held: Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts. The Court grants the Government’s applications for a [...]

Darina Boykova is a 2L at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. Last week she attended the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, on assignment for JURIST. This is the second part of a two-part report. The first part of her report is here. The arrival of the leaders on the first day of the [...]

Pope Leo XIV denounced what he called the recent violations of international and humanitarian law occurring in Gaza and Ukraine, in a statement made in front of the Reunion of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches on Thursday. In the statement, Pope Leo XIV referenced the situations occurring in Ukraine, Gaza, and the Middle East, [...]

I recently returned to the US from Uzbekistan. This was my second visit to that Central Asian country, and I must say that as an Afghan, it was a bittersweet experience. Uzbekistan is a beautiful, peaceful place with a rich history and a modern, vibrant identity. As a Muslim-majority nation,  it feels both culturally familiar [...]

The US Supreme Court held on Thursday that states are permitted to prevent Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood. The case involved two Planned Parenthood clinics in South Carolina that served both Medicaid and non-Medicaid patients. In 2018, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster issued an executive order banning public money for abortions, excluding Planned [...]

On Thursday, Amnesty International called upon the new regime in Syria to provide support to people who were detained and subjected to torture in its military prisons. Survivors of Syria’s detention system face severe mental and physical consequences due to the torture they experienced and lack adequate support. Bissan Faikh, a campaigner at Amnesty International, [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday that the United Nations Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) should focus on promoting international tax cooperation to ensure the realization of human rights worldwide. The rights group contended that protecting human rights and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires a fair taxation system and urged [...]

A new report published by Amnesty International on Thursday revealed that crime groups in Cambodian labor camps regularly subject individuals to human trafficking, slavery and forced labor, emphasizing a need for immediate intervention in reaction to the government’s lacking response. The 240-page report, titled “I was someone else’s property,” recounted testimony from trafficking survivors. Amnesty [...]