On August 24, 2026, the United States Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to put on hold a federal preliminary injunction blocking portions of President Trump’s executive directive concerning mail-in voting. In an unsigned per curiam opinion—Latin for “by the court”—the Court concluded that the states had not established the type of injury [...]

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called for the Chilean National Congress to reject a proposed package of constitutional amendments addressing “national security” questions being pushed by President José Antonio Kast. HRW charged that the amendments, supposedly aimed at fighting organized crime, would undermine due process and human rights protections. Multiple committees in both houses of [...]

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on Monday stated that countries have a legal obligation to consider comprehensive reparations for the transatlantic slave trade and the continuing harm caused by the legacy of racialized chattel slavery. In a general recommendation, the Committee said that the historical harms associated with the trafficking [...]

Amnesty International on Tuesday condemned the Belarusian authorities following reports of persecution, intimidation and systematic targeting of students and affiliates of the European Humanities University (EHU), actions which the organization said constitute violations of the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. In commenting on the long-term implications of the imposition of such measures [...]

Venezuela’s National Assembly on Tuesday unanimously approved a reform to the Organic Law of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice expanding the Judicial Nominations Committee from 21 to 23 members and granting civil society organizations a majority of seats, in what negotiators described as a concrete step toward rebuilding judicial independence following decades of political control over [...]

The nation of Vanuatu on Monday filed an application with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against France, requesting that the court affirm its sovereignty over disputed islands in the South Pacific region and establish new boundaries between Vanuatu and the French territory of New Caledonia. Vanuatu is a cluster of roughly 80 islands with 300,000 [...]

Abu Bakar Khan is a lawyer and a JURIST correspondent based in Lahore, Pakistan. On August 31, 2026, the Court of Arbitration—a treaty-established tribunal, distinct from the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, which administers its proceedings—issued two unanimous rulings with immediate consequences for India and Pakistan. The first held that India’s April [...]

Scrolling on my phone, I happened upon a video so violent that it seemed to cross the threshold at which ordinary language begins to fail. In it, a man was seen walking down a street in Ahvaz carrying the severed head of a young woman. She was Mona Heydari, 17, killed in 2022 by the [...]

United Nations experts on Tuesday issued a statement demanding an end to the unlawful attacks and killings carried out by the United States military on suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. The experts indicated that these attacks—which began a year ago and resumed in August after a months-long hiatus—are not justifiable under international [...]

In a monumental win for Pakistan, a panel of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) on Monday held that India must honor a nearly 70-year-old water treaty between the two nations. The court said that the treaty remains legally binding and that no party may unilaterally suspend or terminate it. The PCA ruled that India [...]