The Hanseatic Higher Regional Court of Hamburg on Friday issued sentences for 10 Somalis who were involved in the hijacking the German freighter MS Taipan off the coast of Somalia two years ago. The defendants, ranging in age from 19–50, were found guilty on charges of kidnapping and conducting an attack on maritime traffic. They [...]
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The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Friday called on Sudanese authorities to investigate an attack on one of its convoys on Wednesday, resulting in the death of one African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) peacemaker and injuring three others. UNAMID reported the ambush occurred when unidentified assailants opened [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Gabriel Rodriguez-Rico, American University Washington College of Law Class of 2012, discusses the ramifications of conversion therapy on LGBT youth and examines the recent passage of legislation banning the practice in California… On September 29, California became the first state in the US to ban professional psychological conversion therapy on minors. The [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Sara Rose, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania argues that the state of Pennsylvania has made it difficult for voters to obtain the requisite voter identification for the upcoming election and that the law was properly enjoined…
The recently freed member of the controversial Russian feminist rock collective Pussy Riot announced Friday that she has filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights . Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, is claiming violations of her right to freedom of speech and that she was illegally detained and prosecuted as one of three band [...]
The Council of Europe found Friday that two labor reforms adopted by Greece as part of wider efforts to curb the nation’s financial crises were illegal. The Council’s non-binding ruling concerned two measures passed by the Greek government in 2010 at the urging of the country’s international creditors. One provision extended to one year the [...]
The UN Working Group on discrimination against women on Thursday urged governments around the world to repeal laws that criminalize adultery and give rise to severe penalties which include flogging, death by stoning and hanging. While the working group conceded that “adultery may constitute a valid ground for bringing a civil proceeding” in some cultures [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Thursday urged world powers to work toward ending the violence in Syria. Pillay, who previously served as a UN war crimes judge, cited the possibility that both the Syrian Army and the Free Syrian Army have committed war crimes or crimes against humanity. In her statement, [...]
An appeals court in Kenya ruled Thursday that Kenyan courts have jurisdiction to try international piracy suspects. The court’s decision overturns a 2010 ruling which found that Kenya does not have jurisdiction outside of its national waters. The appellate court, composed of a five-judge panel, concluded that the decision below failed to consider the negative [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Thursday struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) . Section 3 defines “marriage” under federal law as a “legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” and “spouse” as a “person of the opposite sex who is [...]
