Former Croatian military commander and senior interior minister Tomislav Mercep pleaded not guilty Friday for war crimes committed against Serbians during the 1990s conflict in the Balkans. The Municipal Court in Zagreb charged that he was aware of atrocities against civilians but prevented other officials from mitigating damages against them. Mercep has also been charged [...]

Human Rights Watch Director Daniel Bekele on Friday urged South Sudan to investigate attacks made on Murle villages in December and prosecute those responsible. In this organized attack , thousands of armed Lou Nuer villagers invaded the Murle villages, robbing and burning houses and killing thousands of people. South Sudan’s government has claimed repeatedly that [...]

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Friday reiterated its call for international action to protect civilians in Syria , calling for Syrian officials suspected of crimes against humanity to be tried before the International Criminal Court (ICC) . High Commissioner Navi Pillay is now scheduled to address the UN General [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Per Lægreid of the University of Bergen argues that Norwegian anti-terror laws should not be expanded to individuals planning terror attacks and that when faced with the choice between upholding individual liberties and attempting to prevent terror, individual liberties must prevail…

JURIST Guest Columnist Maurits Berger of Leiden University says the legal arguments in support of the burqa ban are feeble because their alleged rationale differs distinctively from the true aim: societal discomfort and the attempt to define national identity in European nations…

The Virginia Senate approved a bill Wednesday that would allow private adoption agencies to refuse placement to families if the agency, or anyone affiliated with it, disagrees with the proposed placement based on religious beliefs. Effectively, this bill would allow adoption agencies to refuse to adopt to same-sex couples. It has already been passed by [...]

Ugandan MP David Bahati announced on Friday that clauses mandating the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” would be dropped from the controversial bill that would criminalize homosexuality. The bill was reintroduced to the Parliament of Uganda on Tuesday in its original form, but Bahati stated that there were plans to remove certain provisions. Bahati said [...]

JURIST Guest Columnists Hassan Jabareen and Sawsan Zaher of Adalah argue that the political polarization of the Citizenship and Entry Into Israel Law deflects the real constitutional and legal issues at the heart of the controversy…

Amerigo Incalcaterra, the regional representative for South America from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) , expressed concern Tuesday over the violence in prisons in South America after the death of at least three prisoners in Uruguay, two in Argentina, two in Venezuela and one in Chile over the last [...]

James Connell, defense lawyer for suspected 9/11 conspirator Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday challenging an order for military officials to read all legal correspondence between the lawyers of the suspected 9/11 conspirators and their clients. Rear Adm. David Woods has testified that [...]