Author: Injusticeto Team

(Washington, DC) – Guatemala’s Congress should ensure a transparent, merit-based selection process for Supreme Court and appellate court judges, Human Rights Watch said today.On September 23, 2024, nominating commissions submitted to Congress a list of candidates for all 13 Supreme Court and 156 Court of Appeals positions for the 2024-2029 term. Under Guatemalan law, Congress must elect the judges by October 13, with an absolute majority vote. “The selection of judges for Guatemala’s high courts offers a crucial opportunity to begin restoring the integrity and independence of the country’s judiciary,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Lawmakers should prioritize candidates with unimpeachable…

Image credit: Getty Images on Unsplash As I waited on hold for my insurance company, Progressive, I watched images of house siding flying across the TV screen. Thousands of miles away, Hurricane Helene was taking homes apart. At least insurance companies give you advance notice before they hit you with a catastrophe, unlike many of the emergency alert systems during the hurricane, which failed or were not activated, giving those in the disaster’s path little to no warning. Very few homes necessitate flood insurance that far from the ocean. Or so we thought before Hurricane Helene. Progressive had called me…

Following the High Court of Australia’s landmark ruling against indefinite detention of illegal migrants, reversing its 2004 decision, Shaharyaar Shahardar explores the vital role the judiciary must play in scrutinising immigration laws globally, ensuring adherence to human rights despite populist pressures. On 9 November 2023, the High Court of Australia delivered a landmark judgement ruling against the indefinite detention of illegal migrants, some of whom have remained in prison for years. The decision overturned an earlier verdict passed in 2004 which justified the indefinite detention as long as the government intended to remove illegal immigrants as soon as reasonably practicable.…

On January 10, Israeli forces attacked a power station and two ports in Yemen, reportedly killing at least one person and wounding nine others. Israeli authorities say the attacks came in response to continued Houthi attacks against Israel.In the attacks, Israeli forces targeted Ras Issa and Hodeidah ports as well as Hezyaz power station in Sanaa, which are all located within areas under Houthi control. Israeli defense minister Isreal Katz stated, “The Hodeidah port is paralyzed, and the Ras Isa port is on fire – there will be no immunity for anyone.”The Israeli military said it had struck military targets. The Hodeidah and Ras…

What started out as a reported sighting of a pair of Eurasian lynx in the Scottish Highlands has turned out to be an alleged case of “guerrilla rewilding” or, at the very least, illegal release of four individuals of a species long extinct in the area, media reports say. A pair of Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) were first seen in snow-covered Cairngorms National Park on Jan. 8, then caught the next day by staff from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) along with Scottish police and park rangers. On Jan. 10, camera traps placed by RZSS spotted…

(Brussels, January 16, 2025) – The Kremlin intensified its crackdown on any form of dissent inside Russia in the third year of its abusive full-scale war against Ukraine, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2025. Russian authorities continued their harmful “traditional values” crusade, further expanded the toxic legislation on “foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations,” and actively used their vast arsenal of repressive tools, including war censorship laws, to stifle critics, including those in exile.For the 546-page world report, in its 35th edition, Human Rights Watch reviewed human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In much of the world,…

By Climate Champions | August 1, 2024 An interview with: Judith Castro, the voice of Parque Nacional Cabo Pulmo Country & Region: Cabo Pulmo, Baja California Sur, Mexico Breakthrough: Coral Reefs, Aqua Food, Coastal Tourism, Marine Conservation Beneficiaries / Impact: Twenty nine years ago, the small community of Cabo Pulmo on the southeastern edge of the Baja California Peninsula recognized their reefs were no longer healthy and their fish populations had dwindled. They decided to protect the 70 sq km area, now known as Parque Nacional Cabo Pulmo. This protection led to a remarkable ecological recovery: corals grew, fish populations…

Altering natural habitats for agriculture is the single biggest driver of extinctions.Land conversion is contributing to what scientists call Earth’s sixth mass extinction.Now, new maps link the conversion of landscapes to the risk of extinction for species; they also help identify places where restoration could increase the probability that species will survive.The tool works accurately on areas of land ranging from 0.5-1,000 km² (0.2-386 mi²), and could be used by consumers and conservation groups to identify key areas to prioritize for conservation or restoration.See All Key Ideas Across the globe, no other human activity currently affects the survival…

(Paris) – Niger’s military authorities should immediately drop all charges and release a prominent civil society activist and critic of the government, who is detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his human rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture and the International Federation for Human Rights, FIDH) said today.The arrest and detention on December 3, 2024, of Moussa Tiangari, secretary general of the civil society organization Citizens’ Alternative Spaces (Alternatives Espaces Citoyens, AEC), in Niamey, Niger’s capital, appears linked to a pervasive crackdown…

Image credit: “Smoke Spirits” by Renée Laprise Editors’ note: This piece is from Nonprofit Quarterly Magazine’s fall 2024 issue, “Supporting the Youth Climate Justice Movement.” For our generation—those of us born in the 1990s, who have grown up amid an increasingly concerning discourse on climate change—the environmental future appears bleak and uncertain. The climate crisis, as the Swiss ecotheologist Michel Maxime Egger has noted, is also an internal crisis—impacting, as it does, our mental and spiritual wellbeing.1 Many young people are suffering the effects of the ever-rising environmental degradation, not only in their communities but also on a psychological level: around…