US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer on Wednesday entered a temporary stay to a subpoena from the British government seeking research materials from Boston College . The British government is attempting to gain access to research done for the Belfast Project at Boston College, an abandoned oral history of The Troubles , a period of [...]

Uruguay’s Senate passed a bill on Wednesday by a vote of 17-14 that legalizes abortions within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Although the bill declares that the public health care system must allow any woman to decide whether or not to have an abortion, senators removed language from the bill that proclaimed, “every adult [...]

The Northern Ireland High Court on Wednesday held that a law permitting adoption only by heterosexual married couples or single individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation, is unlawful. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) challenged Articles 14 and 15 of the Adoption (Northern Ireland) Order 1987 , arguing that the “eligibility criteria for adoption [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday denied a request from Alabama state officials to reconsider its August ruling partially striking down the state’s immigration law . In September state officials petitioned the appeals court to reconsider its ruling after a three-judge panel rejected provisions making it a crime for undocumented [...]

Ugandan officials have denied allegations contained in an unreleased UN Security Council report that Uganda has assisted rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Ugandan foreign affairs minister Okello Oryem vehemently denied the allegations that his government has sent troops and supplies to support the the 23 March Movement (M23) rebels. M23 [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday argued that justice suffers from the weak relationship between the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the inconsistency of referrals. HRW urged the Security Council to address the issue in the open debate “Peace and Justice with a Special Focus on the Role of the [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that it will keep Montana’s campaign contribution limits in place for the duration of the election season, extending a stay on a lower court decision . The appeals court ruled that changing the finance rules less than one month before election day and after [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday that both violent crime and property crime rates increased from 2010 to 2011 . This is the first time the DOJ has reported an increase in crime rates since 1993. Overall violent crime, which the DOJ defines as rape or sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple [...]

Scores of Muammar Gaddafi loyalists, and perhaps Gaddafi himself, were “summarily executed” when rebels sacked the ruler’s final stronghold last year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Wednesday. According to HRW, when a team of researchers with the group arrived in Sirte following the battle they found “the decomposing remains of at least 53 people at [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Tuesday upheld a municipality’s ban on funeral protests. The court ruled that a ban on funeral protests in Manchester, Missouri, was a legitimate restriction on the First Amendment, calling it a “legitimate time, place, and manner regulation” and saying it gave protesters ample opportunities to [...]