The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Tuesday denounced apparent plans by Russian-backed authorities to try Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) in the port city of Mariupol. The OHCHR believes that the trials may begin within days and that, according to information currently available, the trials themselves could amount to a [...]

The legal team for former President Donald Trump Monday asked a federal judge to appoint a third-party attorney to oversee the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) review of the documents seized during the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence two weeks ago and to ensure the return of any private personal documents. The move follows a New York [...]

Over 160 organizations Monday sent a letter to Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas calling for the end of religious discrimination against Sikh migrants at US border crossing points. The letter was signed by the Sikh Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona (ACLU-AZ) and the American Civil Liberties Union [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) Monday published a catalog of citizen actions that have triggered criminal charges and administrative penalties in Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly cracked down on free speech rights; in the first few weeks following the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian authorities arrested over [...]

Ukrainian law students and young lawyers are reporting for JURIST on national and international developments in and affecting Ukraine. This dispatch is from Anna Balabina, a law student at Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.   Ukraine has a long history being a democratic, independent state with European views and values. But to really achieve the level [...]

Bill Shipsey SC, a former chair of Amnesty International Ireland, Monday urged Ireland to adopt a code of conduct for retired judges following a controversy surrounding the Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC) Courts. Shipsey penned an op-ed in for the Irish Times suggesting that “rules of professional conduct should require retired judges to avoid any [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) Monday published a call asking Hong Kong to end its “unfair” trial practices against 47 lawmakers and activists charged under the national security law imposed in 2020 and immediately release those still detained. According to HRW, the crimes established by the law are “overly broad and arbitrarily applied.” After the media [...]

Aynsley Genga is a JURIST Staff Correspondent in Kenya. She reports from Nairobi.  Kenyan elections are like a movie – a really good movie, in fact.  We have the theatrics and the suspense element and our elections have enough plot twists to leave the whole world at the edge of their seats as they wait [...]

Kenyan presidential candidate and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga filed a petition Monday with the Kenyan Supreme Court challenging the country’s 2022 presidential election results. Odinga’s challenge follows the Kenyan election regulator’s announcement last week that current Deputy President William Ruto won the election. Odinga’s petition highlights many concerns that his supporters raised after Ruto [...]

JURIST Belarus correspondent Ulyana Belaya is a student in the International Law and European Union Law program at the European Humanities University, Vilnius, Lithuania. She left Belarus in September 2021. The text of this dispatch has been lightly edited to preserve the author’s voice. The 2022 edition of the World Press Freedom Index put Belarus [...]