It’s not every day that one gets a front-row seat to witness the justice system’s workings in a high-profile case. I was fortunate enough to be at the US District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco earlier today for the sentencing of the man who on October 28, 2023, broke into [...]
Search Results for: criminal justice
Texas governor pardons former US Army sergeant convicted of murdering armed BLM protester
Texas Governor Greg Abbott pardoned former US Army Sergeant Daniel Perry on Thursday after the Texas Parole Board unanimously recommended a pardon for the ex-soldier who was convicted of killing armed protester Garrett Foster at an Austin Black Lives Matter demonstration in 2020. The case received national attention, as Perry claimed he shot Foster in [...]
Tunisia dispatch: striking Tunisian lawyers rally against government overreach
In an unprecedented move, striking lawyers across Tunisia rallied in front of court buildings in Tunis on Thursday, effectively bringing all court proceedings to a halt. This unified action comes in response to what legal professionals are describing as a dangerous escalation by the government targeting their community. The spark for this widespread protest was [...]
ICC prosecutor announces plans to complete investigations into Libya war crimes by 2025
International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan announced his plans to complete the investigations into war crimes committed in Libya by the end of 2025 on Wednesday at the Security Council. During his speech, Khan outlined a clear “roadmap” and a plan of action for the following months to provide meaningful steps towards justice for [...]
UK High Court rules parts of Police Act breach European Convention on Human Rights
The UK High Court ruled that provisions of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (Police Act 2022) are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday and that use of the powers was “capable of significant intrusion on the lives” of Gypsies and travellers. The judge stated that certain amendments [...]
Pitasanna Shanmugathas is a law student at Vermont Law & Graduate School and a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. On Saturday May 11 Pitasanna participated in Day 10 of the student-led encampment calling for the University of Toronto to divest from funding Israeli institutions allegedly involved in sustaining the [...]
Appeals court upholds Trump gag order in New York hush money trial
The New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division upheld a gag order Tuesday against former president Donald Trump in a criminal case centering on allegations he falsified the Trump Organization’s business records to conceal hush money payments to influence the 2016 presidential election. The appeals court was unpersuaded by Trump’s arguments that the gag order violates [...]
The UK government tabled an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill on Friday that would automatically bar child rapists from making any decisions about their own children’s lives following sentencing. The government stated that the amendment is “to make sure the best interests of children are protected.” The amendment removes the perpetrator’s parental responsibilities and [...]
Thousands of people marched in Tel Aviv on Thursday to demand a ceasefire and hostage deal, as well as a revived Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The march was led by Standing Together, a joint Jewish-Palestinian peace movement in Israel. Alon Lee-Green, the group’s Jewish co-director, said the march, composed of both Jewish and Palestinian protestors, was [...]
Beyond Secondary Values: An Urgent Call for a New Architecture of International Law
“Scholars build the structure of peace in the world.” Babylonian Talmud, Order Zera’im, Tractate Berakoth IX The irony is unparalleled. From the beginning, human beings have directed much greater attention to conspicuous consumption than to viable “architectures” of planetary survival. The errors of this inverted hierarchy are magnified by the growing urgency of nuclear war [...]