The Impact of Stagnant Legal Aid Rates on Access to Justice in Australia
Access to justice is a foundational principle of the rule of law and is often phrased as requiring “the right of equal access to justice for all” through governments providing “fair, transparent, effective, non-discriminatory and accountable services.” In Australia, this principle was described in Dietrich v. The Queen as “the equal justice for all principle.” [...]
The Organization of American States’ (OAS) was presented with a crucial opportunity to reaffirm its commitment to democracy last month, as its Permanent Council turned its attention towards Haiti. The nation’s current crisis is one that is directly connected to the actions taken by members of its ruling Tèt Kale party (PHTK), which for the [...]
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9) South Sudan, Africa’s youngest nation, has been struggling with civil strife, armed conflict and a deplorable state of human rights and the rule of law before and after its independence in 2011. South Sudan came to international attention in the early [...]
India government asks Supreme Court to review expansion of Sikkim tax exemptions
The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) Monday filed a review petition in the Supreme Court of India against certain directions given by the court in a recent case concerning Sikkimese Nepalis. On January 13, the court ruled that under Sikkim Income Tax Manual 1948, “ll persons engaged in business were subjected to tax irrespective [...]
A Post-Holocaust Betrayal: Israel's Defiling Obeisance to Donald J. Trump
“That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary…: Rabbi Hillel, Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a Israel’s continuous support for Donald J. Trump represents a grim irony of Jewish history. Even before the latest revelations concerning this former president’s anti-Semitic outbursts (that is, his [...]
Searching For Answers Amid Enforced Disappearances of Pakistan's Balochi People
In late August, Pakistani publisher and human rights activist Faheem Baloch was detained by unidentified plain-clothes law enforcement officers in his Karachi bookshop and ushered away. A native of the Balochistan region of Pakistan, the publisher is known to be a dedicated cultural advocate, heading up a publishing house specializing in Balochi literature, and serving [...]
Ukraine as a ‘Final Epidemic’ Amid Increasingly Plausible Risks of a Nuclear War
“Defenseless under the night, our world in stupor lies….” — W H Auden Background of the Current Nuclear War Threat Since August 6, 1945, the “official” start of the Nuclear Age, humankind has been acquainting itself with new meanings of catastrophic conflict. Still, until now, until current Russian aggressions against Ukraine, tangible portents of any [...]
On December 17, 2010, a vegetable vendor in Tunisia set himself ablaze in open defiance of police harassment, igniting the spark for a wave of democratic revolutions that spread like wildfire across the Arab world. In the decade since the revolutions swept the region, Tunisia has stood out as a success story, being the only [...]
Federal jury orders 3M to pay $77.5M to veteran over alleged hearing damage from its earplugs
A federal jury Friday unanimously ordered 3M Co. to pay USD 77.5 million to a US Army veteran for alleged hearing damage that resulted from using the company’s military-issue earplugs. The US District Court for the Northern District of Florida Pensacola Division heard the case, with Judge Casey Rodgers presiding. James Beal, the US Army veteran [...]
UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Olivier De Schutter, in a report published Wednesday, condemned the Lebanese government and the central bank for the country’s worst economic and financial crisis, which has pushed most of its population into poverty. The report categorises the crisis as entirely manufactured by failed government policies which [...]
