The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Tuesday invalidated a ban on carrying concealed weapons in Illinois, ultimately deciding that the law is unconstitutional. Relying on the US Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller , Judge Richard Posner opined that the Second Amendment “confers a right to bear arms [...]

The UK Minister for Women and Equalities announced Tuesday the Conservative government’s intent to legalize same-sex marriage in the coming year, with a provision that the state Church of England will be barred from performing any marriages. Minister Maria Miller made the statement in the House of Commons , detailing the government’s plan as well [...]

The prime minister of Mali , Cheick Modibo Diarra, was forced to resign on state television Tuesday after junta soldiers arrested him for attempting to leave the country in light of the ongoing humanitarian crisis threatening the nation. Diarra’s ouster has been seen as a show of force by a military that staged a coup [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday that HSBC Holdings , one of the world’s largest banking institutions based in the UK, and HSBC Bank USA , a federally chartered banking corporation based in Virginia, have agreed to forfeit $1.256 billion to settle a multi-year probe related to the group’s failure to enforce rules [...]

Women in Afghanistan still face abuse at the hands of man despite progress in the implementation of a law to protect women’s rights, according a report released Tuesday by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) . The report, titled “Still a Long Way to Go,” details the implementation of the Law of Elimination of [...]

The prison sentence for outspoken Bahraini rights activist Nabeel Rajab , who has been detained since July, was reduced by one year in an appeals court on Tuesday. Rajab, founder of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights , was originally sentenced to three years imprisonment for leading unlicensed protests against the powerful Sunni Muslim al-Khalifa [...]

The mother of US citizen and convicted terrorist Jose Padilla on Monday filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHCR) for torture and unlawful detention. The petition was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Yale Law School Lowenstein International Human Rights Law Clinic on behalf of Padilla and [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Norman Reimer, the Executive Director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, argues that there should be a universal rule for deciding which law should be used at the time of appeal if the law has changed during the appellate process…

JURIST Guest Columnist Michael Fico, St. John’s University School of Law Class of 2013, is the author of the fourteenth article in a 15-part series from the staffers of the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development. He discusses the federal common law public nuisance’s place after Supreme Court’s ruling in American Electric Power Co. [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday in Kloeckner v. Solis that a federal employee appealing a “mixed case” from the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) should appeal by suing in the appropriate district court, not appealing the decision to the Federal Circuit. The “mixed case” in this situation involved a wrongful termination claim that [...]