Jurist

North Africa

Another mass grave discovered in Libya

The Libyan Attorney General’s Office announced the discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of 21 bodies near Benghazi. Investigators have ordered that DNA samples be collected from the remains to identify the deceased and that full autopsies be carried out to determine causes of death. Refugees in Libya, a Libyan-run organization registered in Italy that provides support for refugees, urged the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan, to “assess this case within the Court’s mandate.” The group further implicated EU policies: “The killings…occurred within a system where people are blocked, intercepted, returned, and abandoned in Libya after being denied safe pathways to protection. This demands accountability beyond Libya.” (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

Central America

Guatemala declares national emergency

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo declared a 30-day nationwide “state of siege” following a spree of gang violence that left nine police officers dead in the nation’s capital. The declaration was made unilaterally and currently awaits congressional approval. However, it will remain in place until a decision is reached. The recent killings are believed to be gang retaliation for state authorities retaking gang-controlled areas of three maximum-security prisons. The facilities had been taken over in a series of riots that saw over 40 guards taken hostage. The riots were reportedly a response to incarcerated gang members losing certain privileges in prison. (Image: Freestock via Flickr)

Southeast Asia

Burma begins defense in ICJ genocide case

Burma began its defense before the International Court of Justice in the ground-breaking genocide case brought by the Gambia, rejecting all allegations of genocide against the Muslim Rohingya minority. The case opened in November 2019, when the Gambia brought proceedings against Burma under to the Genocide Convention. In 2020, Burma was ordered to halt and prevent all genocidal acts against the Rohingya. The Gambia’s case against Burma is the first instance in which a state not affected by the facts at issue has brought proceedings under the Genocide Convention. The case serves as important precedent for South Africa’s application against Israel, which charges that Israel’s actions against Palestinians amount to genocide. (Photo: VOA via Jurist)

North America

Trump threatens to invoke Insurrection Act

President Donald Trump warned that he may invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy troops in Minnesota to quell protests over the massive deployment of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the Twin Cities. The Insurrection Ac, originally enacted in 1792, allows the president to “call into Federal service such of the militia of the other States” in order to suppress insurrection or rebellion. The Insurrection Act has not been significantly updated in over 150 years, and the last time a US president invoked the Act was in 1992, when President George HW Bush received a request from then-California Governor Pete Wilson to help address riots in Los Angeles. Trump has broached invoking the Act before, and has since met with reversals in the courts over his efforts to mobilize National Guard troops under the executive’s constitutional “authority to suppress rebellion.” (Photo: Chad Davis via Wikimedia Commons)

Planet Watch

Greenland party leaders reject US annexation

Greenland party leaders issued a joint statement asserting that the autonomous territory rejects US calls for acquisition. Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four other party leaders stated: “We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders.” But President Trump commented that same day that the US is “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.” Reacting to the dispute, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that the US is exempting itself from the international rules it had long promoted until just recently. Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said that the “fate of Greenland will be decided by Greenlanders and the Kingdom of Denmark.” NATO official Gunther Fehlinger went further, warning that if the US annexed Greenland, all its bases in Europe would be “confiscated.” (Photo: Peter Prokosch)

The Andes

Trump instates ’emergency’ measure on Venezuelan oil

President Trump issued an executive order declaring a “national emergency” to block judicial processes from being instituted against Venezuelan oil funds held in the US, on the basis that it would “materially harm the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” This order follows statements from Trump that US oil companies will invest billions in Venezuela, with his Energy Secretary Chris Wright saying that the US will control and market Venezuela’s oil “indefinitely.” However, the CEO of ExxonMobil, Darren Woods, expressed concern about conditions in Venezuela, saying that the country is currently “un-investable.” Trump respondedangrily that he was “inclined” to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela. Companies including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips say that Venezuela owes them billions of dollars over lost investments. Trump’s executive order could hinder these companies from recovering their claims. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

Iran

Iran: mass repression under internet blackout

As angry protests spread across Iran, the government has shut down internet and telecommunications access across the country. Under the cloak of internet darkness, there is reason to believe a general massacre of demonstrators is underway, with reports emerging of hospitals overwhelmed with casualties. Some estimates have placed the death toll at nearly 600. The Iranian government has only intensified its rhetoric. Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei promised no leniency for protesters, whom he characterized as “enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” (Image: Hajar Morad via Twitter)

Europe

UN condemns Russian missile attacks on Ukraine

UN Secretary General António Guterres issued a statement strongly condemning Russian missile and drone attacks in Ukraine following Moscow’s firing of its medium-range nuclear-capable “Oreshnik” ballistic missile. The Oreshnik strike near the western city of Lviv was part of a wave of overnight Russian missile and drone attacks against Ukrainian targets that left millions without power. This was the second time Russia used the experimental hypersonic Oreshnik missile over the course of the Ukraine war, following a strike on Dnipro in November 2024. But this time the strike came far from the frontline, and near the border with NATO member Poland. (Map: PCL)

Planet Watch

Trump orders withdrawal from UN climate process

President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum directing the United States to withdraw from 66 international organizations, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The action follows a review ordered earlier this year of all intergovernmental organizations to which the US belongs or provides funding. UN climate chief Simon Stiell called the withdrawal “a colossal own goal” that will leave the US “less secure and less prosperous.” The memorandum follows Trump’s withdrawals from the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council. (Photo: CounterVortex)

Africa

Uganda: police repression in lead-up to elections

Amnesty International reported that Ugandan security forces have unlawfully targeted opposition rallies with excessive force and arbitrary arrests, with some detainees subject to torture and other mistreatment. Protests have mounted nationwide in the lead-up to this month’s election, in which President Yoweri Museveni of the long-entrenched National Resistance Movement seeks an to extend his 40-year rule. He faces a challenge in leading opposition candidate Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, popularly known as Bobi Wine, of the National Unity Party. Wine has repeatedly spoken out against the repression faced by his supporters, and explicitly likened his campaign to a battle, saying: “Our campaign is not the ordinary campaign. We are almost at war. You can see the soldiers and vehicles deployed. These people even knock and kill our supporters.” (Photo: Bobi Wine campaigning in helmet and flack jacket alongside police armored vehicle. Credit: National Unity Party)

Palestine

UN rights chief urges Israel to drop death penalty bill

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk urged the Israeli government to abandon proposed legislation that would mandate death sentences exclusively for Palestinians in specific cases—for crimes committed both in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Türk stated that the legislation is “inconsistent with Israel’s obligations'” under the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights. He also raised concerns over the “introduction of mandatory death sentences, which leave no discretion to the courts, and violate the right to life.” The rights chief asserted that Israel has frequently violated the fair trial protections enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention for Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza, adding that this “amounts to a war crime.” (Photo: RJA1988 via Jurist)

The Andes

Trump announces plan to ‘run’ Venezuela

Trump announced that the US would “run” Venezuela, following a strike on the country that led to the capture and transfer to the US of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, First Lady Cilia Flores. In a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump emphasized the recent decline of Venezuela’s oil industry, stating that US oil companies would spend billions to repair the country’s infrastructure and bring in foreign exchange. Claiming to be acting in the interest of bringing “peace, liberty and justice for the great people of Venezuela,” he added that the US would be prepared to “stage a second and larger attack” if necessary. Maduro’s vice president Delcy Rodriguez, now sworn in as interim president, has offered no indication of acquiescence in Trump’s plans. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)