UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery Gulnara Shahinian on Monday said that the Lebanese government must create more legal protections for some 200,000 domestic workers in the country. Without more regulations, Shahinian said, some could be forced into domestic servitude and be subject to physical and psychological abuse. “I met with women who [...]

A judge for the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) on Monday asked that the Trial Chamber initiate proceedings in absentia for four wanted suspects in the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri . Pre-trial Judge Daniel Fransen , in accordance with STL rules, waited 30 calendar days after public announcement [...]

Social networks are undoubtedly the modern disseminators of relevant news, and in large part, of controversial debates. This past week, a photo of Chief Raoni Metuktire was spread around Facebook. Raoni was shown crying in reaction to President Dilma Rousseff’s authorization of the construction of the Belo Monte dam. Along with the photo came a [...]

A group of rights organizations and lawmakers on Monday called for Australia to investigate a top ranking official in the Sri Lankan High Commission in Canberra for war crimes violations allegedly committed by the Sri Lankan Navy during clashes with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009. The call to investigate comes after [...]

The Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris on Friday ordered French Internet service providers to block access to Copwatch Nord Paris I-D-F, a website designed to allow civilians to post videos of alleged police misconduct. The decision was applauded by the police union, Alliance Police Nationale (APN) , which argued that the website incited violence [...]

The US Supreme Court granted certiorari Monday in four cases. In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum , the court will determine whether three oil companies are immune from US lawsuits under the Alien Tort Statute of 1789 for torture and international law violations that took place overseas. In a similar case, Mohamad v. Rajoub , [...]

Elouise Cobell, who successfully led plaintiffs in the Indian trust class action lawsuit against the US Department of the Interior (DOI) , died from cancer Sunday at age 65. The resulting $3.4 billion settlement for mismanaged Indian land royalties was the largest settlement in US government history. Cobell, who was an accountant and a member [...]

Defense counsel for Malaysian opposition leader and former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim rested its case on Monday in Anwar’s sodomy trial, for which a verdict is expected by the end of the year. The prosecutor plans to call four witnesses to refute testimony of one of the defense experts, an orthopedic surgeon, who testified [...]

Melanie Lazarus, St. John’s University School of Law Class of 2012, is the author of the ninth article in a ten part series from the staffers of the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development under the direction of Professor Leonard Baynes. She writes on the need for New York to update the way it [...]

Sara Gronningsater, St. John’s University School of Law Class of 2012, is the author of the eighth article in a ten part series from the staffers of the Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development under the direction of Professor Leonard Baynes. She writes on the conflict between an employee’s right to nondiscrimination and an [...]