UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein criticized the US policy of separating immigrant children from their parents in a statement made on Monday. The commissioner cited the American Association of Pediatrics , which called the policy “government-sanctioned child abuse.” “The thought that any State would seek to deter parents by inflicting [...]
Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies approved a bill on Thursday to decriminalize abortion for the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. As of right now, abortion is only decriminalized in Argentina in cases of rape or risk to the health of the mother. The deputies proposed the decriminalization bill in March. The debate lasted for over 23 [...]
In a unanimous opinion delivered Thursday, the US Supreme Court ruled that US courts do not have to defer to a foreign government’s interpretation of its own law. The decision overturned the lower court opinion, which said that the US government was bound by the foreign interpretation, as long as the interpretation was reasonable. In [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called for an investigation Tuesday into potential human rights abuses committed in both the Indian-administrated and Pakistan-administrated sections of the Kashmir region. According to the first UN report on Kashmir, in the Indian-administrated section, soldiers use excessive force against civilians, which led to approximately 145 [...]
Seattle’s city council voted on Tuesday to repeal a proposed tax on businesses, in which large businesses would have been taxed $275 for every full-time employee, with the revenue going towards Seattle’s homeless population. The city council had passed the tax unanimously a few weeks ago. However, the council voted 7-2 to repeal the tax [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Wednesday that Israel’s use of deadly force in Gaza Strip “may amount of war crimes.” HRW reports that between March 30 and June 8, the Israeli government used lethal force against Palestinian protesters, although the protesters provided “no imminent threat to life.” According to the report, 118 people were killed [...]
The Irish cabinet voted on Tuesday in favor of the Removal of Blasphemy Bill , which will “provide for a referendum on removing the crime of blasphemy from the Constitution.” Charlie Flanagan , the Minister for Justice and Equality, proposed the bill. Article 40.6.1(i) of the Irish Constitution says, “The publication or utterance of blasphemous, [...]
The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday decided to release Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo , the former vice-president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While Bemba’s conviction of crimes against the administration of justice still stands, the court found it improper to detain him when he already served most of the maximum sentence. The court [...]
US President Donald Trump signed an agreement with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in Singapore on Tuesday. The agreement is supposed to establish relations between the two countries, “build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula,” and repatriate prisoners of war. The statement reads that the “DPRK commits to work [...]
The Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , Tomás Ojea Quintana, urged North Korea Thursday to begin to release its political prisoners in anticipation of the proposed June 12 denuclearization talks with the US. “It might be a gradual process, it’s not that I’m saying you [...]
