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Catherine Fisk - 8th July 2019
California, many other states, and the United States government, have laws imposing minimum standards of employment (such as wages and hours), limited financial benefits for workers who become unemployed or are injured in the course of employment, and benefits for employees after retirement age or who become unable to work because of disability. Most of […]
Anissa Daoudi - 7th July 2019
The 19th of June is celebrated as the UN International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. In this context, Security Council Resolution 1820, in 2008, recognized sexual violence as a tactic of war and a threat to global peace and security. It recognized that rape and other forms of sexual violence can […]
Philip Alston, Rebecca Riddell, and Bassam Khawaja - 5th July 2019
Last week, we presented the findings of our investigation into poverty in the United Kingdom to the UN Human Rights Council. Some have asked why the UN Special Rapporteur on poverty would visit the UK, the fifth largest economy in the world. But 14 million people live in poverty, and in recent years the UK […]
Sanjay S. Jain and Saranya Mishra - 3rd July 2019
The famous critical thinker, Santos, has forcefully argued that critical theorists and social scientists have never acknowledged the existence of an abyssal line. The conception of an abyssal line draws a distinction between “forms of metropolitan sociability and forms of colonial sociability” (Santos, 6). The former can be addressed by non-abyssal instruments of regulations and […]
Loureen Sayej - 1st July 2019
With the worsening situation in Sudan and the government’s systematic violations against the people of Sudan, questions arise about the fate of Omar al-Bashir (currently languishing in Sudan’s prisons), the immunity for Heads of States, if any, and the role of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and third States in securing justice. Last month, the […]
Adilya Zhilgildina - 1st July 2019
The past months’ anti-government protests in Kazakhstan following the controversial renaming of the capital and announcement of early snap elections by the interim president are an alarming indication of its weak legal system. Although Kazakhstan has ratified international human rights treaties, its peaceful assembly legislation falls far short of international standards. In April, two democracy […]
Mwai Daka - 30th June 2019
The judgement of the Botswana High Court in LM V The Attorney General, which legalised same-sex sex relations, is important for gay couples across Africa. The judgement demonstrates that laws, such as Section 164(a), (c), 165 and 167 of the Penal Code, which proscribe and criminalize the conduct of consenting adults in expressing and professing […]
Diana Niksova - 27th June 2019
For the first time since 1952, this year, Good Friday on the 19thApril was not a public holiday for employees who are members of the Evangelical Churches of the Augsburg or Helvetic Confessions, the Old Catholic Church or the United Methodist Church in Austria. In response to the CJEU’s judgement (C-193/17), the Austrian legislator has […]
Daniel Grütters - 26th June 2019
On Thursday 20 June, the Court of Appeal issued its open judgment in the appeal concerning the lawfulness of the grant by the UK Government of export licences for arms sales to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (“KSA”), for possible use in the conflict in Yemen. In their judgment, Sir Terence Etherton MR, Irwin LJ […]
Angela Hefti - 19th June 2019
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ (IACtHR) feminist answer to torture and sexual enslavement in its September 2018 López Soto v Venezuela judgment is unprecedented. López Soto is the first femicide case before the Court, in which the victim could testify to the circumstances of her captivity and abuse. In 2001, Linda López Soto was abducted […]
Thiago Amparo - 17th June 2019
On 13th June 2019, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF), by a majority of 8 to 3, recognized discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity as a type of ‘social racism’, thus making it a criminal offense under Brazilian hate crime law (Law 7716 of 1989). So far, Brazilian hate crime law covered […]
Kennedy Mwikya - 13th June 2019
Over the past six years, Kenyan human rights activists, lawyers and organisations have secured key legal victories that have underscored the Constitution’s prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. These victories include the affirmation of freedom of association for LGBTIQ persons, directing the government to commission research on the country’s intersex community with […]