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Mwai Daka - 23rd May 2019
The recent UK Supreme Court case, Vedanta Resources Plc and another v Lungowe and others, affirms the principle that UK companies operating abroad owe a duty of care to those affected by the actions of the subsidiary in the foreign jurisdiction. The Supreme Court held that the ‘foreign jurisdiction’, in this case, Zambia, is the […]
Meghan Campbell - 22nd May 2019
Last week, the UK Supreme Court in DA, DS and others v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions upheld a series of legal reforms that capped the level of benefits for lone parents, who are likely to be mothers, with young children under the age of 5. Lone parents with young children are forced […]
Adilya Zhilgildina - 21st May 2019
Violation of LGBT rights and hate crimes have become commonplace in Ukraine. Beyond facing discrimination in employment, healthcare and education, LGBT people in Ukraine are targeted for violent attacks, sexual abuse and even murder. Despite the efforts of LGBT-friendly President Poroshenkoto improve the situation, social change is unlikely to be achieved without addressing the underlying […]
Renan Araujo - 20th May 2019
The Brazilian Supreme Court has begun a confidential inquiry, ex officio, to investigate alleged crimes against the honour of the Justices and ‘fake news’ about the Court. This inquiry is a part of a trend in which the Supreme Court has censored news reports relating corrupt conduct by its Justices and facilitated the confiscation of […]
Raghav Mendiratta - 19th May 2019
On April 22, 2019, in a significant decision for India’s transgender community, the Madras High Court in Tamil Nadu upheld the right of a trans-woman and a man to register their marriage under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. What was so far only etched as an abstract right of gender self-determination through the NALSA judgment, […]
Tom Lowenthal - 17th May 2019
On Wednesday, the UK Supreme Court delivered its judgment in Privacy International. The issue was whether the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), a body set up to review state surveillance decisions, was itself subject to judicial review in the ordinary courts. The Supreme Court decided that it was, in spite of the fact that an “ouster […]
Koldo Casla - 14th May 2019
Section 1 of the Equality Act 2010 asks public authorities to actively consider the way in which their policies and their most strategic decisions can increase or decrease inequalities. I am talking about the socio-economic duty. However, successive governments since 2010 have failed to commence it, to bring it to life in technical terms, which means […]
Catarina Helena Cortada Barbieri - 14th May 2019
2018 was a challenging year for women’s rights in Brazil, and perhaps a taste of trials in the years to come. In October 2018, Brazilians elected a far-right president and a highly conservative Congress. President Jair Bolsonaro has been an MP for 30 years and has always been controversial, although he was a marginal figure […]
Fleur van Leeuwen - 13th May 2019
In October 2018 the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee (HRC) adopted general comment (GC) 36 on the right to life, replacing GC 6 and GC 14. Latter documents date back to the 1980s and attest to the androcentric nature of the international human rights system. Neither document pays attention to issues that characteristically affect the […]
Siddharth Sijoria - 8th May 2019
On 1st April, a 5-4 majority of the United States Supreme Court reiterated that while the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, this does not guarantee a right to a painless death. In Bucklew v Precythe, the Court heard a challenge to the method of execution by lethal injection ‘as […]
Joseph Johnson - 1st May 2019
Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows police officers at ports or border areas to question individuals for the purpose of determining whether they are a terrorist, as defined in s.40(1)(b). That power may be exercised ‘whether or not [the officer] has grounds for suspecting’ that a person is a terrorist (Schedule 7, paragraph 2(4)). […]
Richard J. Goldstone and Amanda Hukanović - 30th April 2019
The Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (MICT) recently delivered the long-awaited judgement in the appeal of Prosecutor v. Radovan Karadžić. A trial chamber of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) had delivered its judgment on 24 March, 2016. It held that Karadžić, President of the territory known […]