NewsHere’s the international legal news we covered this week:
Turkish prisons are committing torture and disappearing citizens, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] said in a report [press release] Thursday.
[JURIST] The Council of Europe [official website] published a letter [text] Wednesday in which Human Rights Commissioner Nils Muiznieks [official website] asked the government of Italy to explain why the Italian navy dispatched ships to the coast of Libya.
In July the Italian government announced [ABC report] that it was sending ships to the Libyan coast to help the Libyan government prevent people from fleeing the country.
The Supreme Court of India [official website] ruled [judgment, PDF] Wednesday that sexual intercourse with a girl who is under the age of 18 is rape regardless of the marital status of the girl.
[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] alleged [report] Tuesday that Rwanda’s military routinely tortures unlawfully detained individuals through various different methods.
The US Supreme Court [official website] on Tuesday, denied certiorari [orders, PDF] to consider the last remaining conviction of Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman Al Bahlul, a Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainee and former personal assistant to Osama bin Laden, who was tried and convicted by a military commission created after September 11, 2001.
Al Bahlul is reported to have taped recruitment videos and the wills [Reuters report] of some of the hijackers who were responsible for the September 11 attacks.
José Miguel Vivanco [profile], director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas division, sent a letter [press release] to several heads of the Colombian government Sunday, urging them to implement legislative proposals of a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas.
A peace agreement [text, PDF] between the two sides was signed on November 12, 2016.
Canada reached a major settlement on Friday with indigenous victims of the so-called Sixties Scoop [class-action website], agreeing to pay [BBC report] C$800 million ($635m; £488m) to some 20,000 victims, $50 million of which will be used for reconciliation initiatives.
The High Court of Justice [official website] on Thursday rejected [judgment, PDF] a terminally ill individual’s petition for assistance to die, upholding the Suicide Act 1961 [text], which makes it illegal to assist in suicide.
Noel Conway, who suffers from terminal motor neurone disease, argued that the Suicide Act 1961 is in conflict with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act of 1998 [texts] by undermining his right to respect of private and family life through a blanket ban on assisted suicide.
