The Nara district court on Wednesday sentenced Tetsuya Yamagami to life in prison for his assassination of Japan’s former prime minister, Shinzo Abe. He pleaded guilty to murder, having shot the retired prime minister in 2022 with a homemade gun, according to local media. Yamagami’s defence team focused on the homemade gun, arguing that the [...]

The United Nations on Tuesday expressed deep concern about the deteriorating security situation in northeast Syria. This follows renewed violent clashes between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) despite a ceasefire agreement, creating a security vacuum that reportedly led to the escape of some detained Islamic State of Iraq and the [...]

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on Tuesday condemned the Russian Federation’s latest large-scale attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which have caused mass power and heating outages in many major cities, including Kyiv and Odesa.  Türk described the attacks as “cruel” and warned that “they must stop.” He added: “Civilians are bearing the brunt of [...]

Togo’s Ministry of Justice on Tuesday confirmed the extradition of former Burkinabè transitional president Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba to Burkina Faso, following accusations of corruption, embezzlement, and involvement in attempted coups against the current regime of Captain Ibrahim Traoré. On January 12, the judicial authorities in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital, submitted a formal extradition request accompanied [...]

Joshua Villanueva is JURIST’s Washington, DC Correspondent and an LL.M. candidate in National Security and U.S. Foreign Relations Law at The George Washington University Law School.  The Supreme Court heard oral argument in Wolford v. Lopez on Tuesday, centering on whether Hawaii may effectively “flip the default” on public carry by licensed gun owners on [...]

A UN expert on Tuesday urged the Guatemalan government to “take decisive steps to eliminate the instrumentalisation of its justice system once and for all,” ahead of the upcoming judicial appointment process for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Constitutional Court and Prosecutor General. Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, stressed the [...]

The California Republican Party filed an emergency petition to the US Supreme Court on Tuesday asking for a temporary injunction against Proposition 50, a ballot initiative passed by California voters in November to redistrict the state’s Congressional map outside of its typical process. The appeal to Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees emergency petitions in the [...]

UN experts on Monday called on member states to include gender apartheid in the drafting of the treaty on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity. The experts particularly referred to the situation in Afghanistan, urging states to ensure meaningful women’s participation in the drafting process. The Working Group on discrimination against women and [...]

Amnesty International on Monday demanded that the Cuban government immediately release seven prisoners held for political reasons, and permanently cease political detentions. The rights group listed the names of each prisoner, demanded their release, and denounced the country’s political-prisoner release process, criticizing its “opacity” and “absence of clear criteria and use of arbitrary conditions.” Advocating [...]

The Australian Parliament passed a package of new gun control and expanded hate crime legislation on Tuesday, seen as measures to combat antisemitism, extremism and gun violence following last month’s Bondi Beach shooting. The Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism laws realize leadership promises to enact tougher laws on firearms and hate-motivated violence. The combined acts establish [...]