Explainer: US Mass Incarceration and Its Disparate Racial Impacts
The US prides itself on being a nation built on freedom, justice, and individual rights. And yet the evolution of its system of mass incarceration — a system that cannot be defined without reference to shocking racial disparities — seems to directly contradict these founding principles. The US prison population dwarfs those of nearly every other [...]
Explainer: The Philippines-China Maritime Dispute and International Law
Through 2023, tensions in the South China Sea between China and the Philippines have escalated, marked by such significant escalations as the removal of a floating barrier by the Philippines near the Scarborough Shoal and the deployment of its Coast Guard amid increased activity by the Chinese Maritime Militia (CMM) near Julian Felipe Reef (or [...]
UK, US and Canada sanction individuals and entities for human rights abuse
The UK, the US and Canada announced coordinated sanctions on Friday against individuals and entities linked to human rights abuse, approaching the 75th anniversary of the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UK has imposed 46 sanctions of asset freezes and travel bans. The first category of these focuses mainly on forced labour [...]
Pakistan's Forced Deportation of Afghan Refugees: A Violation of Human Rights and International Law
Last month, Pakistan’s caretaker government issued an ultimatum to all undocumented immigrants, including some 1.73 Afghan nationals: leave the country voluntarily, or face expulsion. The deadline was Nov. 1. Since the announcement, over 86,000 undocumented Afghan nationals, including women and children have returned to their country, presumably to avoid arrest. Pakistan, a country that hosts [...]
HRW: M23 rebel group responsible for murders and rapes in eastern DRC
Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo of war crimes including murder and rape in a report released Tuesday. HRW based the accusations on reports of abuse it documented from November 2022 to March 2023, citing 8 unlawful killings and 14 cases of rape by M23 [...]
Inter-American Court of Human Rights hears El Salvador abortion access case
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) Wednesday held its first hearing in Beatriz v. El Salvador, a case addressing abortion access in El Salvador. Beatriz, whose real name is witheld for privacy, was denied an abortion in El Salvador despite risks to her health. In early 2013, Beatriz was informed by doctors that her [...]
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 [...]
Explainer: Obstacles and Opportunities for NGOs Providing Humanitarian Relief in a Changing World
JURIST Deputy Features Editor Jaimee Francis talked with Shai Dromi, author of Above the Fray: The Red Cross and the Construction of the Humanitarian Relief Sector (University of Chicago Press, 2022) and co-author of Moral Minefields: How Sociologists Debate Good Science (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming), about his research on the impact of non-governmental organizations [...]
Myanmar's Digital Dictatorship: An Extreme Example of the Use and Abuse of Social Media
The situation in Myanmar continues to deteriorate, with news received on July 25 that four activists have been executed. The executions are the first carried out in Myanmar for several decades. The government mouthpiece, the Global New Light of Myanmar, claimed that the activists’ crimes were “giving directions, making arrangements, committing conspiracies for brutal and [...]
Recently, Spain’s Parliament passed a new bill that seeks to make consent the determining factor in sexual assault cases, thus freeing victims from the burden of proving that they were intimidated, subjected to violence or that they physically resisted to show that they suffered a sexual assault. As per the Guarantee of Sexual Freedom law, [...]
