JURIST Guest Columnist Samar Warsi, a legal fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, says that, even after implementing the changes proposed by President Barack Obama, the NSA’s surveillance program is still constitutionally problematic…

New legislation has been proposed to tighten regulations on chemical storage facilities following a chemical spill that contaminated the water supply for 300,000 West Virginia residents. 7,500 gallons of coal-cleaning chemicals leaked from an above-ground storage tank in Charleston owned by Freedom Industries and entered the Elk River on January 9. In response, West Virginia [...]

The Cairo Criminal Court on Monday sentenced outspoken ultraconservative Islamist leader and former presidential hopeful Hazem Salah Abu-Ismail to a year in prison for comments allegedly made at another trial. In that trial, during which he stood accused of attempting to conceal the US citizenship of his mother in order to qualify for a presidential [...]

The Iraq Ministry of Justice announced on Tuesday the execution of 26 Iraqi nationals for terrorism related offenses. A statement from the Ministry website said the executions took place on Sunday. Human rights groups have long opposed the use of capital punishment in Iraq and the overarching legal system employed in the country, where reports [...]

Thailand imposed a 60-day state of emergency in Bangkok and the surrounding area on Tuesday to respond to anti-government protests. The decree gives the government broad powers in handling the unrest including censoring the media, establishing curfews, banning public gatherings and detaining suspects without the need for criminal charges. The decision was announced following a [...]

Malawi’s high court began hearing a petition on Monday by human rights group Centre for the Development of People (CEDEP) challenging the jail sentences of three convicted gays and seeking to overturn laws that criminalize homosexuality in the country. The three men, Amon Champyuni, Mathew Bello and Mussa Chiwisi were convicted by a magistrate court [...]

A team of lawyers, doctors and professors specializing in the prosecution of war crimes and forensic evidence issued a report Monday including numerous photographs alleged to be “clear evidence'”of torture and systematic killings amounting to war crimes in Syria. The report is derived from almost 27,000 photographs which were obtained by a former military police [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist John Robinson Jr., University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law Class of 2014 discusses the consolidated cases of EPA v. EME Homer City Generation and American Lung Association v. EME Homer City Generation, and the EPA’s efforts to address cross-state air pollution…

The French parliament on Monday began debating new far-reaching legislation that would, if passed, impact elements of gender equality, including abortion rights and wage equality. The bill for equality between women and men was prompted by statistics which showed that, among other things, French women earn 25% less than their male co-workers and that only [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch says that the judicial template adhered to by Iftikhar Chaudhry, the former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, should not be followed by future jurists…