The US Supreme Court on Tuesday, December 10, heard oral arguments in Hamm vs. Smith, a capital case that could reshape how courts evaluate intellectual disability under Atkins v. Virginia and its progeny for purposes of the Eighth Amendment. Atkins prohibited the execution of “intellectually disabled” individuals under the Eighth Amendment after the Court applied [...]

Ten years ago, world leaders in Paris committed to limiting global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. Since then, the average global temperature was recorded above 1.5°C for the first time in 2024, prompting questions about the relevance of this target. However, a new report [...]

Egypt’s rental market went from the back to the front of a national conversation overnight. The New Rental Law (Law No. 164 of 2025), which was signed by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and entered into force in September, has led both landlords and tenants to use Google and social media in a competition to grasp [...]

The US Supreme Court will hear Hamm v. Smith on Wednesday, December 10, a death penalty case testing how courts should treat multiple IQ scores when deciding whether a death-row prisoner is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution under the Eighth Amendment. Joseph Clifton Smith was sentenced to death in Alabama for a 1997 [...]

Violence against children and other persons in Nigeria has become one of the most pressing human rights concerns in West Africa. From the attacks by Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the North-East to clashes in the Middle Belt involving armed gangs, the toll on lives, livelihoods, and religious freedom [...]

This week, President Donald Trump pardoned a man federal prosecutors described as the architect of a “narco-state” who moved 400 tons of cocaine to United States shores. In September, the US military began killing people on Caribbean vessels based on unproven suspicions they were doing the same thing on a far smaller scale. The strikes [...]

The 30th Conference of the Parties concluded in Brazil this month, with delegates focused on reinforcing the 2015 Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Central to this year’s negotiations: pressing member states to commit to more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs. In the lead-up to COP30, JURIST spoke with Dr. David [...]

Editor’s Note: This explainer is published ahead of the November 12, 2025 Supreme Court hearing on the constitutionality of Ghana’s deportation agreement with the United States. In mid-2025, Ghana entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Repatriation and Temporary Hosting of West African Nationals with the US, to accept deportees and host certain West [...]

A year after the leftist National People’s Power (NPP) coalition won an unprecedented supermajority in Sri Lanka’s November 2024 parliamentary elections—with support from both the majority Sinhala and minority Tamil communities—it has fallen short in terms of delivering on its sweeping promises. As the first party to govern Sri Lanka outside the two-party system, the [...]

JURIST’s Sarisha Harikrishna interviews Professor Dr. John D. Ciorciari, Dean of the Hamilton Lugar School at Indiana University Bloomington on the practical challenges of prosecuting genocide and war crimes in Asia. While international courts have established legal frameworks for addressing mass atrocities, their application in Asia faces distinct obstacles shaped by regional politics and diplomatic [...]