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Sunday, September 25, 2016

JURIST Daily Digest - 24 September 2016

JURIST Daily Digest

 In the 24 September 2016 edition:

Today's Legal News
Latest Legal Commentary:
Today's Legal News


UN rights chief calls on Macedonia to halt expulsion and detention of migrants
By Matthew Santiago on Sep 23, 2016 05:54 pm
[JURIST] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein [official profile] on Friday urged the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to end its pattern of expelling and detaining migrants contrary to international standards. Numerous Central European countries have recently closed their borders [UN report] to fight the influx of migrants, and many migrant families have found themselves either trapped in Macedonian transit centers or forced into neighboring countries as a result. Zeid strongly denounced the treatment of such...   +read more


UN rights expert urges US to halt North Dakota pipeline construction
By Matthew Santiago on Sep 23, 2016 05:14 pm
[JURIST] A UN human rights expert on Friday urged the US government to halt the construction [press release] of the Dakota Access oil pipeline out of respect for the rights of affected Native Americans. Earlier this month the North Dakota pipeline's construction was suspended [JURIST report] after the US Departments of Justice, Interior and Army [official websites] released a joint statement [text] stating the need to reconsider the pipeline's effect on the neighboring Standing Rock Sioux Tribe [official website]. Special...   +read more


Chelsea Manning sentenced to solitary confinement over suicide attempt
By Alexis Wheeler on Sep 23, 2016 04:52 pm
Chelsea Manning, a former US soldier imprisoned for leaking classified documents, was sentenced on Thursday to two weeks of solitary confinement as a punishment for a suicide attempt, as well as for keeping a banned book in her quarters. According to a statement [text] released by Fight for the Furture [advocacy website], an advocacy group supporting Manning, seven days of the sentence will be suspended on conditions of Manning's behavior over the next six months. Manning attempted to take her...   +read more


UN rights experts: Australia must amend indefinite detention laws
By Alexis Wheeler on Sep 23, 2016 04:11 pm
UN experts condemned [text] Australia Friday for its laws allowing indefinite detention of intellectually disabled persons facing criminal charges. Under the current law, if a person is found unfit to plead to a charge against them, they may be held in custody for an unspecified amount of time. Such prisoners may not come before a court until they are found to understand the idea of "criminal responsibility." The legislation, the Criminal Law (Mentally Impaired Defendants) Act 1996 [text, PDF], led...   +read more


Rights groups urge international investigation into Yemen war crimes
By Ram Eachambadi on Sep 23, 2016 01:07 pm
International human rights groups, including Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy websites], issued a joint letter [text] on Thursday to the permanent representatives of member and observer states of the UN Human Rights Council urging them "to support the High Commissioner's call for an international, independent investigation into civilian deaths and injuries in Yemen." Pointing out that nearly 3,800 civilians have been killed and more than 6,700 wounded since March 2015, the letter claimed that "the council...   +read more


UN SG calls for increased efforts to protect cultural treasures in combat zones
By Ram Eachambadi on Sep 23, 2016 12:05 pm
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official website] on Thursday called on [press release] the international community to intensify its efforts to protect cultural treasures against enemy combatants in regions devastated by conflict. Ban specifically directed attention to attacks on cultural heritage sites in the Middle East, North Africa, Yemen and Mali among others, and termed such kinds of attacks "war crimes." The UN has been making its own independent efforts to restore and rebuild damaged sites. In Timbuktu, a city known...   +read more


North Carolina district lines challenged
By Justin Cosgrove on Sep 23, 2016 12:03 pm
Advocacy groups on Thursday filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] challenging the redrawn boundaries for North Carolina's congressional seats. Plaintiffs are arguing [AP report] that the district lines were influenced by politics. Some of the parties involved in the suit are the League of Women Voters [advocacy website] and Democratic voters. They claim [AP report], unlike previous plaintiffs in similar suits, that they have a method to measure excessive partisanship. The lawsuit is requesting that the current map be discarded and...   +read more


Rights groups urge Sudan to seek justice for victims of violent protest in Khartoum
By Brittany Felder on Sep 23, 2016 11:39 am
[JURIST] Human rights groups Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI) and the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) [advocacy websites] on Thursday reported [report] that justice still has not been achieved for the victims of the violent protest in Khartoum in September 2013 in which some protesters were killed. Saying that "[a]lthough it seems like Sudan has succeeded in sweeping the horrific violence of September 2013 under the carpet, victims' families still demand justice," ACJPS urged the...   +read more


Kentucky top court rules governor cannot cut state university budgets
By Justin Cosgrove on Sep 23, 2016 11:19 am
The Kentucky Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Thursday that Governor Matt Bevin [official website] did not have the authority to unilaterally cut the budget for state universities. The ruling came after a lawsuit [JURIST report] was filed by Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear [official website]. The 5-2 decision reverses a lower court ruling, which found that Bevin did have the authority to make such cuts. After Bevin took office, he requested a 4.5 percent cut across Kentucky's state...   +read more


UN rights expert warns arms deals are threat to human rights
By Brittany Felder on Sep 23, 2016 10:36 am
[JURIST] Independent UN human rights expert Alfred de Zayas [official profile] said [press release] Thursday that "[a]rms deals are a major threat to security, peace and human rights." De Zayas, the UN Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, explained that the arms deals often bring with them the risk that the weapons will be used in a manner "contravening international law and human rights treaties" as well as the possibility that they will be...   +read more


UN rights chief calls for greater humanitarian response in DRC
By Miracle Jones on Sep 23, 2016 09:41 am
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein [official website] warned [press release] Thursday that conditions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will deteriorate unless there is accountability for the atrocities against civilians. Earlier this week there was an attack in Kinshasa that resulted in the deaths of civilians and police officers. Additionally, the commissioner found that in response to these events, the police were conducting raids that violated the autonomy and human rights of civilians...   +read more


Ukraine top court dismisses Gazprom appeal
By Brittany Felder on Sep 23, 2016 09:34 am
[JURIST] Ukraine's high court on Tuesday dismissed [Sputnik International report] an appeal by Gazprom [corporate website] finding it "groundless." The court decided to uphold [Ukraine Today report] the USD $3.4 billion fine against the company handed down by Ukraine's Anti-Monopoly Committee, which alleged that the company abused its monopoly position in the gas transit market. Gazprom appealed the fine, and the Supreme Court [official website] refused to open the case. Last year, the European Commission issued [JURIST report] a Statement...   +read more



Latest Legal Commentary


Proposition 62 Appeals to the Better Angels of Our Nature
By Stephen Cooper on Sep 20, 2016 02:18 pm
JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Cooper discusses Proposition 62... +read more


Brazil’s President Impeached: Could It Happen Here?
By Joseph Marren on Sep 05, 2016 09:05 pm
JURIST Guest Columnist Joseph H. Marren discusses the impeachment of Brazil's President... +read more


Land as the Center of Social and Ethnic Conflict in Ethiopia
By Henok G. Gabisa on Aug 30, 2016 01:49 am
JURIST Guest Columnist Henok G. Gabisa of the Bekele Gerba et al International Legal Defense Project discusses the motivation behind Olympic marathoner Feyisa Lilesa's arm-crossed protest at the finish line at the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janiero, Brazil... +read more


Protecting Abortion Rights after Whole Woman’s Health
By Maya Manian on Aug 19, 2016 09:50 am
JURIST Guest Columnist Maya Manian of the University of San Francisco School of Law discusses the history of abortion laws, and how Whole Woman's Health has impacted women's constitutional right to access abortion care... +read more


American Bar Association Attacks Attorney Speech Rights
By Brad Abramson on Aug 17, 2016 09:08 pm
JURIST Guest Columnist Brad Abramson discusses the new ABA amendment... +read more
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