The High Court of Botswana on Friday struck down longstanding local customary laws that prevented women from inheriting their family home. Judge Key Dingake ruled that such laws are not in line with the Botswana constitution , which guarantees gender equality. According to the legal rights group Southern Africa Litigation Centre , which supported the [...]

The Special Court for the Sierra Leone (SCSL) on Friday sentenced four men to prison terms ranging from 18 months to 2 years on contempt charges stemming from allegations of witness tampering. Three of the men were convicted last month after a fourth suspect, Samuel Kargbo, plead guilty and testified for the prosecution. Santigie Borbor [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on Thursday upheld a preliminary injunction against an Ohio state election law adopted in 2006 that discards provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct. Pursuant to the law, the provisional ballots were rejected even if the error was caused by a poll worker. More than 14,000 [...]

Mexico’s Senate gave final approval to a federal anti-money laundering law Thursday in the nation’s latest effort to subdue the country’s powerful drug cartels. Passed by the lower congressional house earlier this year, the legislation was proposed two years ago by outgoing President Felipe Calderon , a conservative who, after taking office in 2006, launched [...]

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant on Wednesday joined a federal lawsuit challenging a policy directive to defer the deportation of young illegal immigrants. The claim , filed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach on behalf of 10 agents of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) against US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano , [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Thursday reversed an injunction issued by the US District Court for the Northern District of California against Samsung in an ongoing patent dispute with Apple . Specifically, the Federal Circuit found that “the district court abused its discretion in enjoining the sales of Galaxy Nexus,” [...]

The Thai Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant Thursday for former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra . The warrant was issued following his failure to appear before the court in an ongoing trial on five criminal charges including abuse of power and violation of banking regulations at the state-owned Krung Thai Bank. Thaksin and the bank [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit against Rwandan President Paul Kagame alleging he ordered the killings of the former presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. The lawsuit was filed by the widows of Juvenal Habyarimana, the former president of Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the former president of Burundi, [...]

Four Nigerian residents and an advocacy group told a Dutch court on Thursday that Shell should be held liable for damage from oil pollution in the Niger Delta. The suit, which was filed by the four villagers and Friends of the Earth Netherlands in 2008, is the first time a Dutch company has been sued [...]

The Tokyo District Court ruled Wednesday that the Japanese government must disclose part of a 1965 treaty between Japan and South Korea regarding sexual slavery employed by Japan during wartime. The District Court ruled in favor of 11 Japanese and Korean activists representing the descendants of enslaved sex workers known as comfort women . Although [...]