Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) banned opposition politician Boris Nadezhdin on Thursday from the upcoming presidential election ballot. The commission made its decision after invalidating more than 9,000 signatures of support, leaving Nadezhdin short of the 95,000 valid signatures required to be listed on the ballot under Russian law. Last week, state authorities accused Nadezhdin—one [...]

A Tennessee city settled with the ACLU on Wednesday, agreeing to pay $500,000 for the harm caused by its anti-drag ordinance and policy. The city of Murfreesboro agreed to repeal the ordinance, which was designed to ban drag performances on public property, and end the policy that denied all special event permit requests from the LGBTQ+ [...]

Thousands of protesters gathered in front of Slovakia’s Parliament, as well as almost 30 other Slovak cities, on Wednesday and Thursday to voice opposition to the passage of criminal reforms. Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico first announced the criminal reforms in December 2023. They passed through Parliament on Thursday via a fast-track procedure. The reforms will [...]

Indian Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah declared on Thursday the discontinuation of the India-Myanmar Free Movement Regime (FMR), which allowed for people from India and Myanmar to move freely between the two countries. Shah claimed the decision will bolster internal Indian security and preserve the demographic structure of India’s northeastern states that share a [...]

In a unanimous decision, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a declaratory ruling Thursday that prohibits the use of AI-generated voices in robocalls. Aiming to combat fraud and prevent election interference, the decision expands upon the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991 to explicitly prohibit AI voice-cloning technologies. The FCC now has the authority [...]

Māori protesters marched to Waitangi to oppose the Treaty Principles Bill, allowing changes to the “principles” of the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) – New Zealand’s founding document that established British and Māori governance of New Zealand – ahead of Waitangi Day, the national day of New Zealand which celebrates the signing of [...]

The Indian State of Uttarakhand passed the first-of-its-kind Uniform Civil Code Wednesday, which imposes common rules for all communities on marriage, divorce, inheritances, land, property and live-in relationships. The Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP)-led state government of Uttarakhand passed the Uniform Civil Code of Uttarakhand, 2024 which outlaws bigamy and polygamy, regulates live-in relationships, including rules [...]

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the West African regional political and economic union, said on Thursday that the military-led countries of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso did not abide by the rules for leaving the bloc. At the same time, regional ministers met to discuss the departures, which jeopardize decades of integration. The [...]

Under international law, forced marriage has emerged as its own form of gendered violence, distinct from sex-related crimes — a phenomenon explored in depth in a report released last month by the Global Accountability Network (GAN), a collective of international criminal prosecutors and practitioners who supervise and work with law students on specific atrocity projects. [...]

The US Supreme Court concluded hearing oral arguments early Thursday afternoon in former President Donald Trump’s appeal of a Colorado Supreme Court decision to remove the former president from the state’s primary election ballot in the upcoming 2024 presidential election cycle. The landmark case of Trump v. Anderson will determine whether states are entitled to [...]