Soon the best male and female athletes of the world will walk at the “Parade of the Nations”, at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London. However, only men will participate in Saudi Arabia’s team, as the country still forbids women from playing sports or making any decisions about their own lives. Despite… More Saudi Arabia forbids female athletes to participate in the Olympic Games

Russia and China have previously vetoed UN resolutions designed to pressure the Syrian government. Although Russia has proposed a new UN resolution for Syria, suggesting an extension of the UN mission for three months, it still fails to impose any sanctions on the Assad regime. The new UN resolution is therefore unlikely to satisfy members… More New UN resolution imposes no sanctions on Assad regime

According to a new report by the Human Rights Watch, Syrian intelligence agencies are systematically using torture, causing around 15,000 deaths since March 2011. The 81-page report includes maps locating detention facilities, video interviews with former detainees and sketches of torture techniques. The New York-based watchdog has called on the United Nation Security Council to… More Systematic use of torture by the Syrian Regime

David Anderson QC, the current Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, has released his annual report into the operation of terrorism law in 2011. His report calls for a cautious rebalancing in favour of liberty. He identifies three respects in which change should be considered without diminishing the law’s operational effectiveness. These are the rules governing… More There is a need for ‘cautious rebalancing’ in terrorism laws

On 27th June 2012, in Herrmann v. Germany, the European Court of Human Rights found that a German law obligating landowners to tolerate hunting on their land constituted a violation the ECHR. Günter Herrmann, a German national, owned two plots of less than 75 hectares (185 acres) of land in Rhineland-Palatinate. The Federal Hunting Law… More ECtHR finds German hunting law an infringement of Human Rights

On 23rd June 2012, in Arizona, et al. v. United States, the United States Supreme Court struck down many of the key provisions of the controversial Arizona statute SB1070. Arizona law made it a criminal misdemeanour for a non-US citizen to omit to complete an alien registration document and carry it with him or her… More Some provisions of the Controversial Arizona Statute are struck down

On 22nd June 2012, in The Queen, on the application of (1) RMC and (2) FJ – and – Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis, the UK High Court ruled that the retention of photographs, fingerprints and DNA taken of citizens on arrest was in violation of the Human Rights Act and an unlawful… More The retention of photographs, fingerprints, and DNA of apprehended individuals is a violation of Article 8

A US Justice Department Memo from 30th May 2005 has now been published and it is likely to represent one the most remarkable documents about the Bush administration’s experiment with torture. The Memo concludes that the CIA did not violate the Convention Against Torture (CAT). However, as Alexander Abdo argues in his article in the… More Disclosure of Bush administration document about CIA interrogation techniques

According to a new Human Rights Watch report, Chinese authorities are currently forcing ethnic Kachin refugees who have fled civil war back into Burma. The Kachin conflict has, since it started in 2011, pushed around 10,000 people to seek refuge in China. These refugees have little access to proper sanitation, shelter, healthcare or schools. According… More China is pushing Burma refugees back to war zone

Procedural challenges to death penalty The public debate on the death penalty is primarily of substantive character. But from a lawyer’s perspective the debate on procedural concerns might be of similar importance. Most procedural arguments are in some respect related to either discrimination[i] or the possibility of miscarriage of justice[ii]. In this article I will… More Death Penalty: Still a Discrimination Issue