A nurse who refused to force feed hunger strikers at the Guantanamo detention center will not be court-martialed. Navy Captain Maureen Pennington, the nurse’s commander, chose not to court-martial but recommended that the officer be required to show cause for retention in the Navy. A board will determine whether the nurse should be allowed to [...]

German prosecutors on Monday charged a 93-year-old former Waffen SS volunteer with aiding in the murder of at least 300,000 people during his time as a volunteer at Auschwitz. The man is accused of helping collect money stolen from the disposed luggage of inmates and transferring it to the SS’s economy and administration agency in [...]

Ukraine’s parliament on Tuesday ratified an association agreement between Ukraine and the EU, furthering its goal of reforming the country according to European standards and values. The agreement, “On Ratification of the Association Agreement between Ukraine, on the one part, and the European Union, the European Atomic Energy Community and their Member States, on the [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Monday approved a stay blocking same-sex marriage in Indiana until the US Supreme Court weighs in on the issue. The stay will put on hold the September 4 decision upholding lower courts’ rulings striking down the same-sex marriage bans in Wisconsin and Indiana. The number [...]

A Belgian man serving a life sentence was granted the right to be euthanized on Monday. Frank Van Den Bleeken, who has spent the last 30 years in prison on convictions of rape and murder, has continuously requested that he be allowed to end his life. Bleeken argued that he could never be set free [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Christina Piecora, St. John’s University School of Law, Class of 2015, is the author of the first article in a twelve-part series from the staffers of the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development. Piecora discusses possible solutions to the issue of sexual assault against female inmates…Imagine a young woman handcuffed as [...]

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on Monday celebrated the 150th ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as Guyana became the latest country ratify the document. Maria Soledad Cisternas Reyes, on behalf of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, stated that such [...]

Bangladesh officials on Monday approved the Child Marriage Prevention Act of 2014, a law that sets a two year jail term for any person who marries a girl under the age of 18. The law, which was approved during a Cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina , sets the minimum age of [...]

An Afghanistan court of appeals on Monday sentenced five men to death for their involvement in the armed robbery and gang-rape of a family outside Kabul. Two other defendants, out of the original group of seven defendants who allegedly stopped the victims’ car while dressed as police officers, were sentenced to 20 years in prison [...]

Chinese writer Huang Zerong, known also by his pen name Tie Liu, was detained by Chinese authorities Sunday morning for allegedly publishing articles critical of Communist Party propaganda chief Liu Yunshan . According to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, the 81-year-old writer was “criminally detained on charges of ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble.'” [...]