A judge for the Davidson County Chancery Court in Tennessee on Wednesday ruled that Tennessee’s voter identification law does not violate the state’s Constitution . Civil rights attorney George Barrett argued before the court that the requirement that residents show proof of ID is unduly burdensome . Barrett sought an injunction against the requirement in [...]

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday issued an executive order to strengthen the federal government’s zero-tolerance policy for contracting with groups and individuals involved in human trafficking. The order requires the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (FAR) to take steps in the next 180 days to amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation to strengthen requirements for contractors’ [...]

A UN report released on Wednesday concludes that informal justice systems must be used as part of broader initiatives to ensure that human rights of people in developing countries are protected. The report shows that many groups of people, including women, children and minorities, benefit from informal justice systems because they empower them to make [...]

The High Court of England and Wales on Tuesday ordered an injunction against the extradition of Egyptian-born Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri and Saudi-born Khaled Al-Fawwaz to the US until a formal hearing can be held. The pair were scheduled to be extradited to the US to face terrorism charges stemming from a plan to [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Wednesday urged the government of Honduras to take measures to address the violence against human rights defenders. The call came amid two recent killings of lawyers working on human rights cases in the country. The lawyer who worked for defending peasant groups in land conflicts matters [...]

The Hulhumale Magistrate Court in the Maldives has issued an order preventing ex-president Mohamed Nasheed from leaving the capital of Male without official permission. Nasheed was also served with unnamed criminal proceedings. Nasheed supporters claimed that this move was politically motivated and will limit the ex-president’s ability to campaign for the next election. This order [...]

Zainab al-Khawaja, the daughter of Bahraini human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja , was sentenced Wednesday to two months in prison for tearing up a picture of the country’s king, according to her lawyer. Mohammed al-Jishi condemned the sentence as being too harsh, stating that penalties for such offenses are usually mere fines. Zainab still faces [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Tung Yin of the Lewis & Clark Law School argues that Attorney General Eric Holder should have given some explanation for his decision to refrain from prosecuting any suspects after spending years investigating the Central Intelligence Agency’s abuse of interrogation methods that led to the deaths of at least two detainees…

JURIST Guest Columnist Gerard Dondero, University of Nevada William S. Boyd School of Law Class of 2013, argues that while the recent New York district court decision in US v. Dicristina represents a change in the legal analysis of games of skill, most US states still utilize outdated judicial standards to evaluate gambling… A recent [...]

A Brazilian state court on Wednesday gave YouTube 10 days to remove from its website a film deemed offensive to Muslims. The court order follows a recent lawsuit brought by Muslim group National Islamic Union against Youtube’s parent company Google asserting that the movie violates their freedom of religion . In his injunction, Judge Gilson [...]