Italy’s Constitutional Court rejected a request Tuesday to conduct a national referendum on modifying the criminal law to allow patients suffering from incurable illnesses or unbearable pain to exercise their right to die. Article 579 of the Criminal Code of Italy penalizes the act of killing someone even with their consent with a sentence of [...]

The United Nations and Amnesty International Tuesday urged Singapore not to resume executions after two years with no hangings. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a statement calling on Singapore to halt the executions of two men jailed on drug charges. Roslan Bin Bakar and Pausi Bin Jefridin were [...]

UN human rights experts urged Poland Tuesday to probe all allegations of harassment of human rights defenders, including journalists and translators, near the Belarusian border. The UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders states that interpreters, journalists, doctors, and others who work for the protection of human rights, are human rights defenders. In the last few [...]

Sarah Palin’s libel lawsuit against the New York Times was dismissed Tuesday. Judge Jed Rakoff of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that Palin had failed to show actual malice in an inaccurate editorial dating back to 2017. While Palin is expected to appeal, the ruling temporarily puts an [...]

Law students and lawyers in Afghanistan are filing reports with JURIST on the situation there after the Taliban takeover. Here, a Staff Correspondent for JURIST in Kabul discusses the deepening economic crisis. For privacy and security reasons, we are withholding our Correspondent’s name. The text has only been lightly edited to respect the author’s voice. [...]

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) rejected Poland and Hungary’s challenge Wednesday of the EU budget’s conditionality mechanism for disbursement of funding to the EU Member States, clearing the way for the European Commission (EC) to withhold payments to the two nations. The EU budget’s conditionality mechanism regulation permits the European Council to suspend payments from [...]

Amnesty International Monday released a report attributing the “human rights catastrophe in 2021” to unequal vaccination distribution by pharmaceutical companies. The report revealed that major companies that produced the vaccinations used aggressive strategies to profit from the pandemic. Amnesty International issued a target for vaccination rollout to lower-income countries. However, it was found that Pfizer, Moderna, and [...]

The lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, the State Duma, voted Tuesday to approve a draft appeal to ask President Vladimir Putin to recognize the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) as independent states. The DPR and LPR are both quasi-states in eastern Ukraine. Chairman of the State Duma [...]

The families of Sandy Hook victims settled Tuesday with gun manufacturer Remington for $73 million, according to the plaintiffs’ attorney, Josh Koskoff. The surviving family members of five children and four adults killed in the 2012 shooting brought the lawsuit against Remington for its production and marketing of the Bushmaster AR-15. Koskoff said, “it is [...]

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) Tuesday published preliminary remarks about the Pegasus spyware and called for a European Union-wide ban. The controversial Pegasus spyware has been used by governments for the purpose of surveillance of journalists, activists and politicians in several EU member states and various other jurisdictions. The EDPS preliminary remarks recognise that [...]