Search Results for: 2014-01-31

Uganda’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday upheld most provisions of controversial legislation that imposes a sentence of death by hanging against individuals convicted of “aggravated homosexuality.” In upholding the Anti-Homosexuality Act, the court maintained that though the country’s penal code is “undoubtedly … considered to be a relic from the country’s colonial past,” the bill’s overwhelming [...]

Author’s Note: The publication of this piece coincidentally aligns with the initiation of a direct military response by the US and UK against the Houthis in Yemen overnight on 12 January 2023. Rather than update the piece, we have decided to publish it as-is. Everything below still stands – the Yemeni people deserve a considered, [...]

Detained Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai’s international legal team filed an urgent appeal on Thursday with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The team alleged that the Chinese authorities tortured a key prosecution witness to coerce him into providing incriminating evidence [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Thursday in a 5-2 vote that a Polish court violated a woman’s right to private and family life by forcing her to travel abroad to receive an abortion due to a fetal anomaly. In her petition to the ECHR, the applicant asserted that in 2020, she underwent [...]

Twelve environmental groups Tuesday joined to sue the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and EPA Administrator Michael Regan over pollution guidelines set forth earlier this year. The groups alleged that the EPA’s Effluent Guidelines Program Plan 15 (Plan 15), issued in January 2023, failed to tighten limits on the release of toxins in wastewater from industrial [...]

Russia denied US allegations that it violated the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) Wednesday in a statement released by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Amid new US calls for Russia to allow nuclear inspectors in the country, the Russian foreign ministry alleges that “US activities” violated the treaty’s prescribed inspection procedures. In [...]

A critical attribute of tyranny is its multi-faced character. We are familiar with tyranny with its domestic face, and it is largely understood that this domestic face often turns outward through war and imperialism. That tyranny turns about-face back to the domestic sphere as the laws, policies and practices of external tyranny return to roost [...]

Freedom House released its complete report on transnational repression Thursday where it accused Rwanda of being one of the worst offenders. Transnational repression is a phenomena where a country will suppress dissent and target dissidents outside of its borders. The report documented the anti-repression policies of nine countries: Canada, Germany, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, [...]

As conservation organizations and governments around the globe grapple with the devastating effects of climate change and overexploitation, the legal battle fought over the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis), one of the world’s most endangered large whale species, may provide insights into how litigation can help—or hinder—efforts to save species from extinction. [...]

Jailed Putin critic Alexei Navalny announced in a handwritten letter posted to social media on March 31 that he is going on a hunger strike to protest his lack of adequate medical treatment and sleep deprivation that amounts to torture at the IK-2 prison in Pokrov. Navalny was sentenced in February to 2 1/2 years [...]