An Egyptian court on Thursday convicted 40 supporters of former president Mohammed Morsi for committing violence last year in the wake of Morsi’s ousting by the Egyptian military. The group of Islamists were found guilty by a criminal court of burning churches, shops and police stations in the southern city of Assiut. Two of the [...]

Federal prosecutors sued New York City on Thursday over violent conditions at Rikers Island prison . The lawsuit comes after an August report by the US Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York, which found a “deep-seated culture of violence” against teenage inmates at the facility. While New York City Mayor Bill de [...]

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled Thursday that morbid obesity can be considered a disability under the Equal Treatment in Employment Directive if the employee is prevented from fully participating in professional life because of his or her weight. The case arose from the Retten i Kolding , a Danish court, where there was [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Glenn C. Smith of California Western School of Law discusses the Ninth Circuit’s denial of intervention in Peruta v. County of San Diego… “You snooze, you lose.” At first blush, this maxim seems to capture the essence of the US District Court for the Ninth Circuit’s November 12, 2014 split-panel decision in [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Nick Stratouly, St. John’s University School of Law Class of 2015, is the author of the eighth article in a twelve-part series from the staffers of the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development. Stratouly discusses gaps in federal anti-discrimination legislation…July 2, 1964. A snapshot of the US at this point in [...]

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday approved the lifting of Pakistan’s moratorium on the death penalty. Sharif’s decision was rendered in response to a deadly attack by the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) on a school in Peshwar that killed 141 people, most of whom were children. The reinstatement of the death penalty will only be [...]

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced policy changes to the US-Cuba relationship. Obama has directed Secretary of State John Kerry to reestablish diplomatic relations and to review Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. He also announced “steps to increase travel, commerce, and the flow of information to and from Cuba.” Obama said: [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Tuesday overturned a lower court ruling that would have granted inmate Michelle Kosilek taxpayer-funded sex-change surgery. The 3-2 decision overruled a 2012 decision by Judge Mark Wolf of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts . Michelle Kosilek, born Robert, is serving a [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania ruled Tuesday that parts of US President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration are unconstitutional. Judge Arthur Schwab found that the president’s action exceeds the scope of executive authority: “The court holds that the Executive Action is unconstitutional because it violates the [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein condemned the “savage extremism” of Taliban insurgents who killed at least 130 people, most of them children, at a school in Pakistan on Tuesday. This attack, described by Zeid as “an utterly despicable and incomprehensibly vicious attack on defenceless children,” led to his call to [...]