The International Criminal Court (ICC) said Friday that it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.

Kashmiri journalist Irfan Mehraj has been arrested by India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) under “terrorism” charges as New Delhi continues its crackdown on journalists in the Muslim-majority Himalayan region.

NIA, India’s top “anti-terror” agency, in a tweet on Tuesday said the arrest took place a day earlier due to Mehraj’s collaboration with the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, an organization directed by jailed human rights activist Khurram Parvez.

Thailand’s elections are important not only for the many Thais seeking the end of quasi-military rule in their country but also for the more than 1.5 million Myanmar refugees and migrants who live in the Southeast Asian nation and hope a new government can put an end to Bangkok’s support for the military regime in Naypyidaw.

An Argentina court on Thursday convicted two men for the rape and murder of 16-year-old Lucia Perez in 2016, a case that has become emblematic of a movement to fight back against violence against women and girls in the region.

A federal jury in the United States has ordered a former Haitian mayor to pay more than $15.5 million in response to a lawsuit alleging that he led a campaign of political persecution.

Tuesday’s decision from a US District Court in Boston found Jean Morose Viliena liable for an array of allegations, including that he was involved in a killing, attempted murder, and torture against political rivals. While the jury’s decision was made in a civil case and has no criminal implications, the plaintiffs hailed the order as a “victory.”

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Wednesday began hearing the historic case of a Salvadoran woman who was denied an abortion in 2013 despite doctors' calls to terminate her high-risk pregnancy.

The case of the woman, a domestic worker known only as Beatriz, became a symbol of El Salvador's blanket ban on abortion, which punishes with prison time those who undergo the procedure and those who perform or assist in it. Experts say the court's ruling at the end of the year could have far-reaching implications on reproductive health across the continent.

Uganda’s parliament has passed sweeping anti-gay legislation that proposes tough new penalties for same-sex relationships and criminalizes anyone identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ).

While more than 30 African countries, including Uganda, already ban same-sex relationships, the new law passed on Tuesday appears to be the first to outlaw merely identifying as LGBTQ, Human Rights Watch said.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has established an interim administration for the Horn of Africa country’s northern region of Tigray, a key step in the implementation of a peace plan to end the war there.

It was necessary “to establish an inclusive interim administration, ensure a sustainable peace, and stop conflict,” a statement released on Abiy’s Facebook page said. The decision was one of the agreed outcomes in a peace pact signed in South Africa in November 2022 between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the federal government to end the war in Tigray.

In 2016, the Yemeni National Commission to Investigate Alleged Violations to Human Rights began documenting violations committed since the 2011 uprising and during the subsequent brutal civil war, which continues today. To date, the commission has documented more than 23,000 human rights abuses and referred over 2,000 cases to Yemen’s Public Prosecutor for prosecution. However, no verdict has been issued in any of these cases. To help the commissioners and members of Yemen’s judiciary advance accountability, ICTJ organized a workshop for them on transitional justice mechanisms. However, to deliver a justice that meets all the reparative needs of victims, these efforts must be an integral part of a broader, multifaceted transitional justice process.