An independent UN expert announced on Friday that proposed changes to a Swiss law that imposes heavy fines for people who protest without prior governmental authorization would “unduly restrict the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression.” Maina Kiai , the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of [...]

A Wisconsin circuit court judge will rule on Monday whether to issue a permanent injunction to block Wisconsin’s voter identification law, Wisconsin Act 23 . Dane County Circuit Court Judge Richard Niess’s ruling will come on the heels of another judge’s issuance of a temporary injunction of Wisconsin’s voter identification law last Tuesday in the [...]

Five detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility agreed to be transferred to Qatar, a spokesperson for Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced Saturday. The detainees, who are associated with the Taliban and have been held at the prison for over ten years, are among the most dangerous and “high risk” prisoners, according to US officials. [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Joseph Marren, President and Chief Executive Officer of KStone Partners LLC, says that the recent health care reform act may be unconstitutional due to inaccurate financial reporting to the states and the public at large…

United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron spoke on new plans to reform the nation’s adoption process, basing it on speed rather than ethnicity. Currently, white children are three times more likely to be adopted than minority children because of the United Kingdom’s standard of making an ethnic match. The country’s current adoption law, the Adoption [...]

International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo expressed his support on Thursday for a campaign by Invisible Children to capture alleged Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony . However, Amnesty International (AI) cautioned Friday that “nyone joining the Kony 2012 campaign should insist that efforts to arrest Joseph Kony must respect human rights. It is [...]

A federal judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York ruled Thursday that New York City may be liable for up to $128 million in backpay to minorities who took the New York Fire Department (NYFD) firefighter exam but were never hired. The award may ultimately be split among any [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Ellis, a historian at the African Studies Centre, says that the recent influx of refugees from Libya has exacerbated the problem of organized crime in West Africa and has caused emerging complications that are generating increased attention from the international community…

JURIST Guest Columnist Jeremy Lipschultz of the University of Nebraska at Omaha says that permitting court proceedings to be televised will enhance transparency in the judicial system and create a more informed and engaged citizenry…

The Supreme Court of Mississippi ruled 6-3 on Thursday that the pardons of nearly 200 people by Governor Haley Barbour (R-MS) were valid, despite a challenge by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood . Barbour pardoned 198 people before the end of his second term in office. Hood challenged these pardons, alleging that the governor’s actions [...]