Here’s the international legal news we covered this week:
[JURIST]
David Kaye [official profile], the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
urged [press release] Spain on Friday not to press rebellion charges against Catalonian leaders.
A German court on Thursday
rejected [press release, in German] an extradition request for former Catalan president
Carles Puigdemont [BBC profile] on the charge of rebellion for his role during Catalonia’s independence movement.
UN human rights experts on Friday
urged [press release] the international community to conduct an independent and impartial investigation into the killings by Israeli security forces of at least 16 Palestinian protesters near the Gaza fence.
Palestinian protestors assembled in Gaza on Land Day [Huffington Post backgrounder] to call for their right to return to their homes.
A Brazilian federal judge on Thursday issued a
warrant [arrest warrant, PDF] for former president Luiz Inacio da Silva’s arrest.
Egypt’s
Court of Cassation [official website, in Arabic] on Thursday ordered a retrial for 16 out of 43 defendants who were charged with receiving illegal foreign funds without a license “for restricted activities against state policy.”
The defendants had received [Egypt Today report] USD $60 million from organizations affiliated with democracy promotion such as the International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute, Freedom House, International Center for Journalists and Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
After late-night deliberations, the
Supreme Court of Brazil [official website, in Portuguese] on Thursday allowed an arrest warrant for former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to go
forward [text, RTF, in Portuguese].
Judge Carmen Lamela of Spain’s
National Court [official website, in Spanish] on Wednesday
charged [charges, PDF, in Spanish] the former Catalan chief of police, Josep Lluís Trapero, with
sedition [penal code, in Spanish] for his role in the
2017 independence referendum [JURIST report].
The judge concluded [press release, in Spanish] that Trapero facilitated the execution of the referendum by instructing the force to disregard orders from the Spain’s national government to block the vote.
The
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] on Wednesday
rejected [decision] a complaint from a German national concerning his 2015 prosecution and conviction in a Munich court for the posting of a picture in his blog post of former Schutzstaffel (SS) chief
Heinrich Himmler [Britannica profile] in SS uniform wearing a Nazi swastika armband, as a form of protest.
The complainant, Hans Burkhard Nix, is a 64-year-old Munich resident who writes about various issues concerning economics, politics and society in his blog.
Exiled Venezuelan supreme court justices [Twitter page, in Spanish] met in Bogota, Colombia, Tuesday to conduct a preliminary hearing on corruption allegations against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro brought by the country’s former top prosecutor, Attorney General Luisa Ortega.
New Zealand’s parliament on Tuesday
approved legislation[text] to allow people who were previously convicted of homosexual offenses to have their criminal records wiped.
UN human rights experts on Wednesday
urged France [press release] to provide adequate emergency shelter, access to drinking water and sanitation facilities, to thousands of migrants living in camps on the northern French coast.
“Migrants, regardless of their status,” the experts stated, “are entitled to human rights without discrimination, including access to adequate housing, education, healthcare, water and sanitation as well as access to justice and remedies.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday he is cancelling Monday’s
relocation agreement [JURIST] with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
The
Malaysian Parliament [official website] passed an
Anti-Fake News bill [text, PDF] on Monday, outlawing fake news in an effort to prevent corruption.
The law seeks to criminalize acts and publications that would deceive the public.
[JURIST] Nauru announced Monday it is cutting ties with the
High Court of Australia [official website] and establishing its own Court of Appeals.
The Israeli government reached a common
understanding [press release] Monday with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to remove half of the African asylum seekers to Western countries.
The UNHCR will facilitate the departure of 16,250 migrants from Israel to various Western countries, while Israel will relocate populations in a balanced manner with weight given to occupational guidance, vocational training and job matching.
In January the UNHCR expressed concern [press release] over Israel’s controversial law to forcibly relocate and indefinitely detain asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan.
The International Criminal Court (ICC)
announced [press release] Saturday that Mr Al Hassan was surrendered to the court’s detention center in the Netherlands by Malian authorities.
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