Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Foreign Office quango says some of NGO’s claims against machinery firm ‘merit further examination’
The British heavy machinery firm JCB’s sale of equipment used in the destruction of Palestinian villages in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is being examined by a UK government body to determine whether its due diligence process complies with human rights guidelines set by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The case is likely to test the degree to which multinationals are responsible if their export goods are sold by local distributors in ways that infringe human rights.
Rights campaigners voice concerns as Cuba and Pakistan also expected to be elected
China, Russia, Cuba, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are expected to be elected to the board of the UN human rights council on Tuesday, leaving human rights campaigners in the countries aghast and pleading with EU states to commit to withholding their support.
The Geneva-based monitoring NGO UN Watch described the situation as the equivalent of allowing five convicted arsonists to join the fire brigade.
Exclusive London firm blames recent violent assault on home secretary’s remarks that ‘activist lawyers’ were frustrating the removal of migrants
Britain’s top lawyers have written to Priti Patel to express their concern after a knifeman threatened to kill an immigration solicitor last month in an attack colleagues say was directly motivated by comments made by the home secretary.
On 7 September a man with a large knife entered a London law firm and launched a “violent, racist attack” that injured a staff member before the assailant was overwhelmed.
Warwick University academic ‘broke German court ruling that protected dead woman’s reputation’
The daughter of a Holocaust survivor has begun a legal battle to protect her deceased mother’s reputation from allegations that she had a lesbian relationship with an SS guard.
Earlier this year, a German court ruled that Dr Anna Hájková, associate professor of modern continental European history at Warwick University, had violated the woman’s postmortem personality rights by publicly claiming that she had a sexual relationship with the Nazi guard while imprisoned in concentration camps.
More than 100 women launch action as activists say practice is serious violation of human rights and privacy
A group of more than 100 Italian women have asked prosecutors to investigate who is behind the burial for nearly a decade of foetuses in graves marked with the names of their mothers in a cemetery in Rome.
The practice only came to light last week after one of the women, whose curiosity was sparked after reading about the so-called “fields of angels” in local newspapers, discovered a plot with a wooden cross bearing her name and the date on which the foetus was buried at Prima Porta cemetery. She subsequently posted about her experience on Facebook.
UK prepared to retain act in order to secure security ties with EU, sources say
Boris Johnson is prepared to make a major compromise to secure security ties with the EU by pledging in a deal on the future relationship not to rip up the Human Rights Act.
The UK is said by EU sources to be “moving” in negotiations on the issue in Brussels after previously insisting that the government would not tie its hands in any agreement on the future relationship.
Billionaire philanthropist hails ‘victory’ but says court’s decision too late to save university’s presence in Budapest
The European Union’s highest court has ruled that changes by Hungary to its law on higher education, which effectively forced a university founded by George Soros to leave the country, were not in line with EU law.
The European court of justice (ECJ) ruled against prime minister Viktor Orbán’s government, saying in the ruling that “the conditions introduced by Hungary to enable foreign higher education institutions to carry out their activities in its territory are incompatible with EU law”.
Details of link to Kevin Ranaghan raise fresh questions about supreme court nominee’s involvement with People of Praise
Amy Coney Barrett lived in the home of one of the founders of the People of Praise while she was a law student, raising new questions about the supreme court nominee’s involvement with the secretive Christian faith group that has been criticized for dominating the lives of its members and subjugating women.
Solicitors and barristers say they feel unsafe and warn Home Office attacks on lawyers are undermining the legal system
Leading immigration lawyers have told the Guardian that increasingly hostile rhetoric from the home secretary is putting them at risk of being attacked as well as undermining the legal system.
On Sunday home secretary Priti Patel used a speech at the Conservative party conference to criticise lawyers who defend migrants, linking them directly with traffickers who help asylum-seekers to cross borders.
Exclusive: lawyers for Patel’s former permanent secretary Sir Philip Rutnam push forward constructive dismissal claim
Priti Patel is facing the possibility of being questioned before a 10-day employment tribunal hearing next September after lawyers for her former permanent secretary Sir Philip Rutnam pushed forward with a claim for constructive dismissal.
The home secretary, her department, and Downing Street are also being asked to disclose all correspondence related to Rutnam’s departure following claims that he was forced out of his job for intervening in her alleged bullying of fellow civil servants.
Legal Lifelines app intended to provide alternative evidence to police bodycam footage
A black criminal lawyer has designed a free app to allow anyone at risk of being stopped and searched by police to film incidents to ensure they have an “independent witness” to any interactions.
Michael Herford a criminal lawyer with Legal Lifelines, said the app could help provide a different perspective on an incident from police bodycam footage, or evidence when a police bodycam was not turned on or its footage was lost.
The recently freed documentary maker says jails are inhumane, overcrowded and present a massive coronavirus risk
Zimbabwean journalist Hopewell Chin’ono, jailed for 45 days and charged with inciting violence, has spoken of the appalling abuse and prison conditions he witnessed.
Chin’ono, a prominent documentary maker who was released on bail last month, said he saw inmates at Chikurubi high security prison assaulted by guards for minor offences.
Exclusive: group claims executive order targeting the international criminal court has led them to halt work on war crimes cases
Prominent US human rights lawyers are suing the Trump administration over an executive order they say has gagged them and halted their work pursuing justice on behalf of war crimes victims around the world.
As a result of the order in June threatening “serious consequences” for anyone giving support to the work of the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague, the lawyers say they have had to cancel speeches and presentations, end research, abandon writing ICC-related articles and dispensing advice and assistance to victims of atrocities.
Human rights campaigners warn reinstating capital punishment ‘would be a huge step backwards’, as attack on young woman reignites debate
The brutal killing of a young woman has reignited a debate in Tunisia over capital punishment, with the country’s president suggesting an end to a decades-old moratorium on the death penalty.
President Kais Saied told a meeting of the country’s national security council on Monday that “murder deserves the death penalty” and urged the security forces to redouble their efforts in countering what he characterised as a nationwide increase in crime.
The brewing rebellion among Tory backbenchers over the lack of scrutiny afforded to parliament on Covid-19 restrictions – as well as concerns about their impact – has left Boris Johnson facing criticism from within and outside his party. Here are some of the more pointed comments levelled against the prime minister and his policies from across the political divide.
A quick glance at the guest list for Amy Comey Barrett’s nomination ceremony today makes troubling reading. Among the guests were representatives from Judicial Watch, which has described climate science as a “fraud”; the Heritage Foundation (which has also pushed back against climate science); and the Family Research Council (which has opposed abortion, divorce and LGBT rights).
Attendees at Trump's SCOTUS nomination of Amy Coney Barrett: •Judicial Crisis Network's Carrie Severino Heritage Foundation's Kay Cole James •Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton •Family Research Council's Tony Perkins •Cleta Mitchell—a lawyer tied to many GOP 'dark money' nonprofits https://t.co/q5BzTkPBs9
Now that Amy Coney Barrett has been nominated for the supreme court, the senate hearings are likely to last from 12-15 October. And, as is more than likely, she will be confirmed by the Republican-held Senate by 29 October, well before the 3 November elections.
Donald Trump’s rival for the presidency, Joe Biden, has issued a statement saying the process should be delayed until after the election.
Election Day is just weeks away, and millions of Americans are already voting because the stakes in this election could not be higher. They feel the urgency of this choice – an urgency made all the more acute by what’s at stake at the U.S. Supreme Court.
They are voting because their health care hangs in the balance. They are voting because they worry about losing their right to vote or being expelled from the only country they have ever known. They are voting right now because they fear losing their collective bargaining rights. They are voting to demand that equal justice be guaranteed for all. They are voting because they don’t want Roe v. Wade, which has been the law of the land for nearly half a century, to be overturned.
Alexandra Wilson says legal system should introduce ambitious measures to tackle discrimination in profession
The barrister who was mistaken for a defendant three times in one day at court has called for compulsory anti-racism training at every level of the UK legal system.
Alexandra Wilson, who specialises in criminal and family cases, put in a complaint on Wednesday and spoke of her frustration about the incident on Twitter. Her tweets, which quickly went viral, resulted in an apology by the head of the courts service in England and Wales.
British officials hand over evidence after mother of one of accused men loses challenge
The prosecutions of two alleged Islamic State members accused of carrying out a series of beheadings can go ahead in the US after British officials handed over key evidence.
The material was given to Washington after high court judges sitting in London dismissed a challenge brought by the mother of one of the accused men.
Democrats’ hopes of keeping seat empty fade as two key Republican senators signal support for moving quickly
Donald Trump has raced to cement a conservative majority on the US supreme court before the presidential election on 3 November, and Democrats’ hopes of keeping the seat empty have faded as two Republican senators signalled their support for moving quickly.
The president said on Monday he would name his third supreme court nominee on Friday or Saturday, following memorials for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal justice who died aged 87 on Friday.