The French National Assembly on Thursday unanimously voted to repeal texts codifying slavery. MP Max Mathiasin sponsored the bill to repeal the Code Noir, which was first tabled on September 16, 2025. The Code Noir is “a set of texts promulgated between 1685 and 1724 that regulated and codified slavery in the French colonies.” The [...]

The Supreme Court of Canada refused on Thursday to hear an appeal by the six Wolastoqey communities of New Brunswick seeking to assert Aboriginal title over private lands. The issue before the court was whether First Nations can assert Aboriginal title when private parties hold a fee simple interest in land. The top court’s refusal [...]

UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese was added back to the list of sanctioned persons by the US Department of the Treasury on Wednesday, according to a notice by the Office of Foreign Asset Control. The move comes following a recent district court decision to temporarily block sanctions against the UN [...]

Amnesty International reported on Thursday that tech companies have used unlawful web scraping to collect large volumes of online data for the development of generative artificial intelligence (AI) models, in violation of the right to privacy and other human rights standards. The organization called for the prohibition of such data collection systems and urged governments [...]

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa filed ​a claim in the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday, challenging a panel report alleging he violated the constitution during his “Farmgate” scandal. In 2020, thieves broke into President Ramaphosa’s farm and stole over half a million dollars from inside one of his couches. In 2022, one of his private [...]

In a ruling released Thursday, US District Judge Carl Nichols denied requests to block President Trump’s executive order placing restrictions on the guidelines for voting by mail. The decision, delivered by the Trump-appointed Judge Nichols, states that the plaintiffs, seeking preliminary injunctive relief, may renew their claims in the future only if they can demonstrate [...]

Human Rights Watch welcomed Lebanon’s accession to the Mine Ban Treaty on Wednesday. The group described it as a positive development in addressing the severe humanitarian and social crises caused by the existence of anti-personnel landmines, especially during armed conflict. Lebanon’s accession to the Mine Ban Treaty, which was formally ratified in 1999, forbids the [...]

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 73 on Wednesday, expanding the state’s election security protections by restricting unauthorized law enforcement access to polling places, banning military personnel from voting locations, and making it a felony to seize ballots ahead of the June 2 statewide primary election. The bill, authored by state Senator Sabrina Cervantes [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit refused to grant an injunction on Tuesday to the GOP’s newly enacted gerrymandered congressional map. The ruling comes after pro-voting groups argued there was “staggering” evidence that the map violates the state ban on partisan gerrymandering. In his opinion denying the request for a preliminary injunction, Circuit [...]

Former president Joe Biden on Tuesday filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to block the US Department of Justice (DOJ) from releasing audio recordings and transcripts of private interviews he gave to a memoir ghostwriter that were obtained during a special counsel investigation into his handling of classified [...]