UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression Frank La Rue on Monday condemned a law in Thailand that criminalizes insulting the country’s royal family. Section 112 of the Thai Penal Code says that “whoever defames, insults or threatens the King, the Queen, the Heir to the throne or the Regent shall be punished with imprisonment [...]

The Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces on Saturday amended election rules to ban the use of religious slogans in campaigning. The Supreme Council stated that “lectoral campaigns based on the use of religious slogans or on racial or gender segregation are banned,” adding that violators could be fined and face up to three [...]

The Supreme Court of India on Monday stayed the execution of a Pakistani national convicted for his participation in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks . The stay was issued after Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab filed an appeal challenging the death sentence . Kasab was convicted in May 2010 of waging war against India, multiple murders [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor Jeffrey Addicott of St. Mary’s University School of Law says that despite the confusion as to whether US criminal law or the law of war should apply, the killing of Anwar al-Awlaqi was legal under the law of war, which must govern in this instance…

Prisoners in some Afghan-run detention facilities have been beaten and tortured, according to a report released Monday by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) . The prisoners interviewed for the study had been detained by the National Directorate of Security (NDS) or Afghan National Police (ANP) forces for national security crimes. Nearly half of [...]

A German judge at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) resigned on Monday over statements made by the Cambodian foreign minister. Cambodian government officials have put pressure on the international court to turn the cases over to Cambodia, with the Cambodian foreign minister purportedly stating, “On the issue of the arrest of [...]

Katharine Giudice, St. John’s University School of Law Class of 2012, is the author of the seventh 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 failure of the law to provide mechanisms through which [...]

The United Nations (UN) called on all parties to the Libyan revolution to maintain respect for human rights as the conflict winds down in Sirte . As the interim government forces push through the hometown of former Libyan leader Mummar Gaddafi , Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative Ian Martin urged respect for the due process [...]

California Governor Jerry Brown Saturday vetoed a bill that would have allowed public colleges and universities to consider demographic factors such as race during the admissions process. The bill, introduced by Senator Ed Hernandez , would have effectively overturned ballot measure Proposition 209 , which banned the use of affirmative action for state hiring, contracting, [...]

An Obama administration legal memorandum from last year found that the killing of US citizen and senior al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki would only be legal if it were not feasible to take al-Awlaki alive. The memo last year followed months of legal debate regarding the decision to kill a US citizen without first having [...]