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The European Court of Human Rights has urged Italy to introduce a form of civil union or registered partnership to enable the legal recognition of same-sex relationships.

Legal efforts to protect Europe’s Roma minority from racial discrimination have been given a substantial boost by the European Union's top court.

A ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in June has reinforced the principle that the authorities must protect prisoners in pretrial detention from the threat of violence.

A new ruling from the European Court of Human Rights, and a new Criminal Justice Code, should help Poland address the problem of excessively long legal proceedings.

The death of 42-year-old Mitch Henriquez at the hands of Dutch police sparked four nights of violent rioting in the Hague, fueled by underlying tensions between the police and minority communities in the Netherlands.

Over the last decade the Strasbourg court has become increasingly comfortable recommending and ordering the measures that governments need to take to address breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The White House and Israel both oppose the court taking a role in the region, but the process holds tangible rewards for all parties.

European members of parliament have called on the United States to give Edward Snowden a chance to defend his disclosures as being in the public interest.

An avalanche of European Court judgments has condemned Russian prisons as inhuman and degrading, but conditions remain at odds with basic human rights standards guaranteed by the European Convention.

In its treatment of its citizens of Haitian descent, the Dominican Republic has presented a virtual recipe for any other country aspiring to an ethnic cleansing exercise done according to proper legal procedure.

Africa’s fledgling human rights court has made its first substantial order of financial damages, in a case against Burkina Faso brought by the wife of Norbert Zongo, an investigative journalist murdered in 1998.

The East Africa Court of Justice's strict two-year time limit—and refusal to recognize ongoing violations—impedes access to justice.

A case involving a man who disappeared after being detained by the army in south-east Turkey illustrates how the legal thinking of the European Court of Human Rights has evolved over the past two decades.

New guidelines from the African Commission meant to improve arrest and detention practices should be greeted warmly—if also warily, since their success will depend on proper implementation by national governments.

Two recent cases show the Strasbourg courts efforts to refine its definition of what amounts to inhuman or degrading treatment for a person held in detention.

Facing discrimination in the Czech Republic's education system, Roma families in the city of Ostrava are fighting to secure better schooling for their children, one child at a time.

As the European Union begins to debate setting minimum standards for the provision of criminal legal aid, the Open Society Justice Initiative has taken a look at what currently happens in 9 different EU countries.

Do people really understand the right to remain silent? This essential right protects individuals from being compelled to make self-incriminating statements, yet too often there is a failure to ensure it is understood.

The members of the UN are moving to update global minimum standards on how prisoners should be treated, to take account of how the world has changed in the sixty years since they were first agreed.