Human rights faced severe tests worldwide in 2024, with democratic institutions under strain and humanitarian law repeatedly violated in major conflicts, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its annual report released Thursday. The 546-page “World Report 2025” reviewed human rights practices in more than 100 countries, emphasizing the devastating human tolls of conflicts in Gaza, [...]

Israel and Hamas have reached a deal to end hostilities that have raged between them for 15 months, as announced by various senior US officials. During a confirmation hearing for Marco Rubio, who has been nominated by incoming president Donald Trump to serve as Secretary of State, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Jim Risch briefly [...]

The US saw a slight increase in new death sentences in 2024 while executions remained near historic lows, according to a year-end report released Thursday by the Death Penalty Information Center. Twenty-six new death sentences were handed down in 2024, up from the previous year, though the overall death row population continued its decades-long decline [...]

TikTok filed an emergency petition to the US Supreme Court on Monday seeking to block a federal law that could force the shutdown of its platform next month. The petition challenges the constitutionality of legislation signed in April requiring TikTok to sever ties with its Chinese parent company ByteDance or cease US operations by January [...]

Three students were killed and several others were wounded Monday at a Wisconsin school, police said, in the latest mass shooting to strike America’s educational institutions. The shooting occurred at Abundant Life Christian School in the state capital of Madison. The shooter, a student at the school, was among the deceased, police reported. As of [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Friday upheld the constitutionality of a law requiring social media giant TikTok to separate from its Chinese parent company ByteDance or face a ban in the United States. In its opinion, the court rejected challenges from TikTok and its users who argued the law violated [...]

Noor Ul Huda is a JURIST staff correspondent in Pakistan and a recent graduate of Punjab University Law College. She files this dispatch from Lahore.  The last week of November was a troubling time for Pakistan, marked by significant protests and internet disruptions in major cities such as Islamabad, Rawalpindi, and Lahore, as well as [...]

Abu Bakar Khan and Noor Ul Huda are JURIST staff correspondents in Pakistan and recent graduates of Punjab University Law College. They filed this dispatch from Lahore. On November 13, Imran Khan, the incarcerated ex-prime minister of Pakistan and the party leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), issued a “final call” for nationwide protests scheduled for [...]

The Malaysia High Court ordered the Home Ministry to return 172 Swatch-branded watches valued at over RM64,000 within 14 days to Swatch Group (Malaysia) Sendirian Berhad (limited company) on Monday. The Swatch watches — part of the company’s Pride collection associated with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement — had been confiscated [...]

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and possibly-deceased Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. The court charged Netanyahu and Gallant with using starvation as a method of warfare and accused them of criminal [...]