British Petroleum (BP) on Friday announced an estimated $7.8 billion class action settlement to resolve the majority of claims filed by individual and business plaintiffs after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill . The proposed settlement comprises two separate agreements between BP and plaintiffs, one to resolve economic loss claims and another to resolve medical [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist William Araiza of the Brooklyn Law School says that the Douglas case demonstrates that larger ideological issues can be at stake in seemingly minor and technical disputes, such as the Supremacy Clause and administrative agency appeal issues at hand in Douglas…

Egypt has appointed new judges to hear the trial of 43 non-governmental organization (NGO) workers just days after six Americans among those charged left the country after a nearly $5 million bail was paid by the US government. The suspects, including 16 Americans and 27 other foreigners and Egyptians, were charged with promoting democracy in [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Friday affirmed that the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is liable to a number of Louisiana property owners for its inadequate work on a shipping channel that caused billions of dollars in damage as a result of Hurricane Katrina . While USACE argued that [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that while deciding Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, the Supreme Court should be mindful of precedent that supports universal jurisdiction and corporate liability when it comes to human rights violations… Oral arguments in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Company occurred February [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Andrea Prasow of Human Rights Watch says that one of the reasons Majid Khan was not tried in civilian court and was offered a plea deal by Guantanamo prosecutors was to prevent him from testifying on his mistreatment while in CIA custody… When Majid Khan entered the cavernous “expeditionary legal complex” [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Thursday called on all nations to ensure that people with disabilities are given equal “enjoyment of all civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.” Pillay’s statements came at the Human Rights Council’s annual discussion on rights of people with disabilities. Pillay noted that, although the 2006 [...]

Leaders from 25 European Union (EU) countries on Friday signed the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance which is directed at improving fiscal discipline and promoting greater financial information disclosure between member states. The central tenet of the treaty is a balanced budget requirement. Of the 27 EU member states, only the UK and the [...]

The Florida House of Representatives approved a bill Thursday that would ban the use of religious or foreign law in legal decisions and contracts. The bill, which passed 92-24, would effectively ban the use of Sharia, as well as any other religious law, when dealing with issues such as divorce. This has led some to [...]

The Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill on Thursday that would require a woman seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound before the procedure. The bill was passed by the Virginia Senate , and is a scaled-back version of a similar bill that was voted on earlier this month. The current version of the [...]