A federal judge in Kentucky on Thursday issued a final order requiring state officials to recognize same-sex marriages. Following his February 12 ruling , US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky Judge John Heyburn also granted a request to allow additional couples seeking full marriage rights to intervene in the case. In response, [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Laurie Ristino of the Vermont Law School argues that an array of environmental, economic and political factors have broken down the traditional coalition behind the farm bills’ passage in the past, but in its wake shifting policy objectives and broader interest in the bill have emerged that promise to substantially alter the [...]

On this episode of the JURIST Podcast, Pitt Law students Taras Shablii and Slava Opeida discuss the recent protests, legislation and political deals to come out of their native Ukraine. They gave some background on the cause of the first wave of protests: the suspension of negotiations on a long-expected trade deal with the European [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday ordered Google to remove from its YouTube video-sharing website an anti-Islamic film that incited massive anti-American protest in the Muslim world in 2012. The court found in favor of appellant Cindy Lee Garcia, reversing a US District Court’s denial of Garcia’s request for an [...]

Israeli soldiers have used excessive force in the West Bank since 2011, Amnesty International (AI) said in a report Thursday. AI’s investigation was specifically focused on the evidence of the unlawful shootings of 22 Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers. The shootings arose from the Palestinians’ continuing protests against the Israeli government for their occupation of [...]

Egypt’s Cairo Criminal Court convicted 26 people on Wednesday charged with forming a terrorist group with the intent to attack the Suez Canal . The group was charged with planning attacks on ships in the Suez Canal as well as security buildings, foreign tourists, Christians and police. Most of the defendants received death sentences and [...]

Beijing’s No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court on Thursday accepted a lawsuit filed by 37 plaintiffs seeking compensation from two Japanese companies, Mitsubishi Materials and Nippon Coke and Engineering , for forced labor during World War II . The suit alleges that the plaintiffs and their relatives were taken to Japan where they were forced to [...]

A German court on Thursday cleared former president Christian Wulff of corruption charges that sprang from allegations that he had accepted bribes in exchange for political favors. Judge Frank Rosenow informed the court of Wulff’s acquittal, saying that there was insufficient proof that the former president had accepted illegal payments. Wulff, who has insisted on [...]

Germany’s Karlsruhe court ruled on Wednesday that the 3% voting threshold for political parties to enter the the European Parliament is unconstitutional. The German government lowered the voting threshold from 5% to 3% last year, but the top court ruled by a 5-3 vote that it should be abolished altogether. The ruling will allow smaller [...]

The French Court of Cassation on Thursday blocked plans to extradite three men to stand trial in Rwanda for alleged crimes committed during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide . The court overturned a November decision by the Court of Appeal of Paris to allow the extradition of Claude Muhayimana and Innocent Musabyimana. The court also rejected [...]