Here’s the international legal news we covered this week:
A US federal judge on Thursday
sentenced [press release] a former Liberian commander known as “Jungle Jabbah” to 30 years in prison for defrauding the US immigration authorities and lying about his role during the Liberian civil war.
A federal judge on Thursday
enjoined [text, PDF] the US government from sending a US citizen who has been detained in Iraq for almost a year to another country.
The
Supreme Court of Canada [official website] on Thursday
held [judgment, PDF] that a law preventing the stocking up of alcohol from another province is constitutionally valid.
The
Fourth Federal Regional Court [official website, in Portuguese] in Brazil on Wednesday
denied [order, in Portuguese] another appeal from former president
Lula da Silva [CNN profile].
Lula was jailed earlier this month after losing an appeal [JURIST report] to the Supreme Court of Brazil.
The
House of Lords [official website] passed Wednesday
two amendments [vote count, website] that hinder the UK’s effort to leave the EU known as Brexit.
The amendments address the EU (Withdrawal) Bill 2017-19 [bill, PDF] and require ministers to explore possibilities for remaining in the EU customs union.
After a 10 day visit to Ghana, the UN Special Rapporteur for extreme poverty and human rights released a
preliminary report [official website] Wednesday urging Ghana to address growing inequality and poverty.
The Burundi government has “killed, beaten, and intimidated perceived opponents of a constitutional referendum …
Iraqi women and children are being denied access to humanitarian aid and are not allowed to return to their homes because of their alleged association with the Islamic State (IS), according to a
report [text, PDF] published Tuesday by Amnesty International.
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday
held [opinion, PDF] that Microsoft is required to disclose a customer’s electronic information stored overseas when it was suspected in furthering illegal drug trafficking.
The per curium opinion vacated and remanded the judgment [opinion, PDF] of the US court of appeals, which held the disclosure to be unauthorized due to the information’s storage in Ireland.
A Stuttgart Public Prosecutor
brought charges[press release, in German] Monday in a district court in Mannheim against a 94-year-old former Schutzstaffel (SS) guard of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp for aiding and abetting the murders committed in the camp.
The man, whose identity has not been released, was an SS Schütze, or Private, in the camp that was both a concentration labor camp and an extermination camp.
Former South Korean president
Park Geun-hye [BBC profile], who was
sentenced [JURIST report] to 24 years in prison earlier this month, has decided not to appeal, according to a filing Monday.
Park has submitted her intention not to proceed with an appeal of her conviction for bribery, abuse of power and coercion to the Seoul Central District Court [official website].
The government of Pakistan has failed to resolve several human rights issues within the past year, according to a
report [text, PDF] released Monday by the
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) [advocacy website].
According to the HRCP, issues such as elimination of women’s rights, restriction on speech caused by disappearances of critics to the military or advocates for better relations with India, and lack protection for religious minorities are prevalent.
The
UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) [official website] released a
report [text, DOC] on Monday finding that the judicial proceedings under which former Maldives president
Mohamed Nasheed [campaign profile] were convicted “contained serious flaws and violated his right to a fair trial under the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) [text]” and that he must be allowed to stand for public office.
The report addresses two claims that Nasheed filed in 2013 and 2015 after being “forced to resign from office under threat of violence against him and domestic unrest caused by his political opponents,” as well as his subsequent conviction on terrorism charges that carried with it a 13-year prison sentence as well as a 16-year disqualification from running in a presidential election.
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