The Criminalization of Protests: Repression and Human Rights Abuses in Venezuela
In Venezuela, anti-government protests are being brutally repressed; many demonstrators have been jailed, with some believed to have been tortured. On February 12, 2014, university students opposed to the current...
The Not-so-paramount Right to Vote
Last week, the Election Commission of India announced the time frame for the general elections to constitute the 16th Lok Sabha (“House of the People”) of the Parliament of India....
Managing Secrecy: R (Miranda) v SSHD
Much has already been written about the implications of R (Miranda) v Secretary of State for the Home Department for Schedule 7 Terrorism Act 2007. However, leaving that to one...
Prosecuting in the Public Interest: CPS Guidelines from Assisted Suicide to Social Media
Although the DPP’s consent is required before a prosecution for assisted suicide can be brought, the discretion whether to prosecute or not exists in all cases. In this post, drawn...
Indian Supreme Court Upholds the Right to Negative Voting
In late September, the Indian Supreme Court, in PUCL v. Union of India, upheld the constitutional right of citizens to cast a negative vote in elections. This judgment crystallizes an...
Ten Thousand Miles from Wall Street: Muldoon v. Melbourne City Council
Melbourne is ten thousand miles from Wall Street. And yet, as a Federal Court of Australia decision demonstrated this week, the legal ramifications of the Occupy Wall Street movement are...
HIV and Caribbean Law: Case for Tolerance
In the western hemisphere, the Anglophone Caribbean maintains some of the most regressive anti-gay laws in the world. The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago as well as Belize both have...
Think This Way: How Zimbabweans Adopt, Hold and Express Their Political Ideologies
When American jurist Ben Cardozo said that the freedom of thought is “the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom,” it was no idle talk. His...
L’écran noir: Shutting down Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (‘ERT’)
As I am writing these lines, Greece is the only state in the Council of Europe with no public broadcast media. On Tuesday 11 June 2013, the Greek Conservative-led coalition...
Proportionality analysis after Eweida and Others v. UK: Examining the Connections between Articles 9 and 10 of the ECHR
Until recently, questions regarding the theory and practice of the proportionality analysis in relation to the application of Article 9 of the ECHR to individuals were largely redundant. The European...
Animal Defenders International v UK: A Case of Fruitful Dialogue, or of Strasbourg Losing its Nerve?
On 22 April, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights held in Animal Defenders International v UK, by a majority of 9:8, that the UK’s broadcasting ban...
Animal Defenders International: Will Strasbourg open the door to political advertisements on TV?
By Jacob Rowbottom – On Monday, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights will give its long awaited decision in Animal Defenders International v UK. The Court...