France’s Senate on Thursday commenced debate of a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage and allow same-sex couples to adopt children. The bill came before the upper house of parliament after approval in February by France’s lower house of parliament. The bill is controversial, despite the fact that both houses of parliament are under the [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Nicholas Johnson of the Fordham University School of Law examines the parallels between gun and abortion rights within the context of the proposed assault weapons ban legislation…

British Petroleum (BP) filed an appeal Wednesday contesting the March 5 order of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana which approved the methods being used to calculate losses by the administrator of the $8.5 billion settlement fund which was created following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill . BP is claiming [...]

A Michigan state court judge on Wednesday denied a request by Attorney General Bill Schuette to dismiss a lawsuit filed by organized labor supporters and alleging that the state’s new right-to-work laws were passed in violation of the Michigan Open Meetings Act (OMA) . In denying the motion to dismiss, Judge William Collette of the [...]

Amnesty International (AI) called upon the European Union (EU) on Thursday to end discrimination against Roma communities throughout Europe. There are roughly six million Roma throughout the EU, many of whom face abject poverty, substandard education, violent attacks and other forms of discrimination. In a press release , AI said that the EU is not [...]

Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy signed a comprehensive gun control bill into law Thursday, placing new limits on the sale of firearms. One of the most far-reaching gun control laws in the country, the Gun Violence Prevention and Children’s Safety Act adds 100 firearms to the state’s assault weapons ban, prohibits the sale or purchase of [...]

The Ivory Coast government continues impartial justice for 2010-2011 post-election crimes committed by supporters of President Alassane Ouattara , Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Thursday. The report details the five-month long post-election crisis, which resulted in at least 3,000 civilian deaths and erupted when former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to step [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada (ACLU-NV) on Thursday filed a lawsuit challenging a state law criminalizing consensual sex between same-sex teenagers. The state law characterizes same-sex intercourse as a “crime against nature,” and violation of the law carries a possible five-year prison sentence. The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for [...]

An Egyptian court on Wednesday rejected the extradition of Ahmed Qaddaf al-Dam, cousin and former close aide of ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi , to Libya. The country’s administrative court held that Qaddaf al-Dam should be tried in Egypt. It reasoned that because Qaddaf al-Dam was an asylum seeker and was subject to possible risk of [...]

A Ukrainian court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal by opposition leader Yuriy Lutsenko, who is currently serving a four-year sentence. Lutsenko, the former interior minister and ally of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko , was appealing his conviction on embezzlement and abuse of office charges. The court did not allow the appeal but slightly reduced [...]