UN experts on Wednesday condemned the sentencing of Pakistani human rights defender Mahrang Baloch to two terms of life imprisonment by a court in Quetta, describing it as a “travesty” of justice. The experts stated that Baloch’s conviction and life sentence represented a misuse of counter-terrorism laws that aimed to suppress human rights activism and [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Tuesday that German authorities on June 20 deported Tajik opposition activist Asadullo Boboev and his adult son, Muhammad, to Dushanbe, despite warnings that Boboev faced detention and mistreatment on return. HRW Europe and Central Asia director Hugh Williamson stated: Germany is failing to uphold its international obligations to protect those [...]

Jennifer To is a JURIST correspondent for the UK and a law student at the University of Birmingham. On 2 July, the Court of Appeal sentenced two fifteen-year-old boys to four years in jail for committing rape and other sexual offences against two girls in November 2024 and January 2025. The court held that the [...]

The International Olympic Committee’s provisional reinstatement of the Russian Olympic Committee is not a procedural footnote. It is a capitulation. By clearing the way for ROC athletes to compete at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, the IOC has once again chosen accommodation over principle — and in doing so, it has repeated one of the [...]

Egypt has been arbitrarily arresting and deporting refugees with expired permits, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Tuesday. The majority of these refugees and asylum seekers are from Sudan and South Sudan. Sudan is in year four of a deadly civil war, while renewed violence plagues South Sudan. The situation in Egypt is due in part [...]

As debates over gender-affirming care intensify across many countries, lawmakers, physicians and human rights advocates risk becoming trapped in the wrong question. Public discussion often revolves around whether there is enough evidence to justify treatment, as though medicine can proceed only once certainty has been achieved. But as a physician, I know that certainty is [...]

I once said it almost as a joke, but already with a seriousness I did not yet understand: “Be careful, I will kill you and say you were mahdūr al-dam (a person placed outside legal protection of life through judicial determination).” At that moment the phrase sounded like an excess of language, a fragment of [...]

A federal judge on Tuesday quashed a grand jury subpoena for information about 2020 election workers in Georgia, dealing a setback to an investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Various lawsuits have followed President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election and his claims of voter fraud in swing states. In Georgia, federal courts [...]

A coalition of 22 Democratic state attorneys general filed a comment letter Monday opposing the Trump administration’s proposed tariffs of up to 12.5 percent on 59 countries and the EU, arguing they are unlawful and amount to a pretext to reimpose broad tariffs previously struck down by the courts. The coalition, co-led by California Attorney [...]

The impeachment trial of Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte began Monday on charges of bribery, graft and other corruption. Duterte is currently facing four articles of impeachment. The Philippine House of Representatives voted to impeach her in May with 257 votes in favor, with only 106 needed to impeach. Under the Philippines Constitution, the Senate [...]