The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday appealed two decisions by the Dane County Circuit Court blocking Wisconsin’s new voter identification law . The DOJ filed on behalf of the defendants in NAACP v. Walker and League of Women Voters v. Walker . Judge Richard Neiss refused to lift the injunction on Tuesday after [...]

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) voted on Friday in favor of a resolution condemning the violence in Syria and extending the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry. The 47-member panel voted 41-3 for the resolution with two abstentions. The resolution deplores the escalation of violence that has resulted in an ongoing human rights crisis [...]

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Thursday urged the government of Sri Lanka to adequately investigate alleged war crimes that occurred during the country’s 26-year civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) . Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission released a report in December concluding that Sri Lanka’s military did [...]

JURIST Guest Columnists Jennifer Green and Sahadev Gowda of the University of Minnesota Law School, say that corporations must be held accountable for international law violations through use of the Alien Tort Statute…

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) on Tuesday ruled that the Supreme Court of Chile violated a Chilean woman’s right to equality and non-discrimination when it took away her children on the basis of her sexual orientation. Karen Atala, a Chilean judge, was stripped of custody of her three daughters by the country’s high [...]

The president of Mali was removed from office on Wednesday after Malian soldiers took control of the government and suspended the constitution. After removing President Amadou Toumani Toure , the soldiers announced the suspension of the constitution and a national curfew. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said that he was “following with deep concern.” In [...]

The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) Board of Pharmacy on Wednesday appealed a February ruling on access to emergency contraception. The appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit argued that the US District Court for the Western District Court of Washington decision should be overturned for focusing on religious opposition [...]

A Brazilian federal prosecutor on Thursday filed criminal charges against Chevron, Transocean Limited and 17 executives in relation to an oil spill that occurred late last year. The indictment charges the companies and a number of their executive officers with environmental crimes, as well as charges of damage to public property. A 2,400 barrel oil [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania (ACLU-PA) on Wednesday sued the Solanco School District in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania on behalf of an 11-year-old girl who is required to submit to a drug test. The new school policy requires that students who participate in extracurricular activities submit to random, suspicionless drug tests. As a result [...]

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged Malaysian lawmakers on Thursday to observe international human rights standards when devising the country’s new security act. Malaysia’s Internal Security Act of 1960 (ISA) , which allowed the imprisonment of individuals deemed to be national security threats for up to two years without trial, was repealed last year. In a [...]