Nepal registers its historic first same-sex marriage
Nepal has just become the first South Asian country to recognize a same-sex marriage after it formally recognized the marriage of Maya Gurung and Surendra Pandey who wed in 1997.
Courts
This archive collects milestones involving courts — judicial bodies at local, national, and international levels — as actors in meaningful change. Stories here cover rulings, legal precedents, and decisions that advanced rights, accountability, or justice around the world.
Japan’s Supreme Court strikes down sterilization requirement for trans people
In its decision, the court said that the requirement forces trans people to make the “cruel choice between accepting the sterilization surgery that causes intense bodily invasion and giving up important legal benefits of being treated according to their gender identity.”
Nepal’s constitutional bench halts ‘triple taxation’ on community forests
Nepal’s Constitutional Court has issued a stay on the laws that require community forest user groups to pay taxes to the local, provincial, and federal governments.
Community forest user groups manage about 34% of Nepal’s forested area under a participatory conservation model that has been praised for increasing forest cover and empowering local communities.
Judge overturns Galveston’s discriminatory electoral map in a voting rights victory
The court’s decision requires Galveston County to redraw its 2021 map by October 20. The revised lines must include at least one district with a majority of Black and Latino people among the four districts that elect representatives to the county’s commissioners’ court.
Mauritius decriminalizes gay sex in historic ruling
In 2016, Antigua and Barbuda, the archipelago nation that owns Redonda, launched an eradication campaign that cleared the island of rats. After that, they simply waited.
Indigenous community fighting a mine in The Philippines wins a milestone legal verdict
A writ of kalikasan — a rare Philippine legal remedy reserved for environmental threats spanning multiple provinces — has halted nickel mining on the ancestral lands of the Pala’wan people in Brooke’s Point, Palawan. The August 2023 Supreme Court ruling protects Mount Mantalingahan, a 120,457-hectare sacred range and watershed for five municipalities, where roughly 80% of the mining concession sat inside the core protected zone. For the Pala’wan, who have refused consent since 2005, the decision arrived after years of being ignored by the agencies meant to protect them. Lawyers call it unprecedented, and believe it could open the courtroom door for other communities defending forests across Palawan and beyond.
Brazil’s top court boosts Indigenous rights in landmark ruling
Indigenous land rights just got a powerful boost in Brazil, where the Supreme Court struck down a doctrine that required native communities to prove they were physically living on their land the day the 1988 constitution was signed. Six of the court’s 11 justices voted to reject the rule, immediately restoring territory to the Xokleng people of Santa Catarina, whose ancestors were violently driven from their homes more than a century ago. Legal experts say the decision could reshape hundreds of pending land disputes nationwide. Outside the courthouse, Indigenous people from across Brazil wept and celebrated — a reminder that protecting ancestral lands isn’t just about justice for the past, but about who gets to safeguard the forests, ecosystems, and futures we all depend on.
Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalizes abortion across country
Mexico’s supreme court has unanimously ruled that state laws prohibiting abortion are unconstitutional and violate women’s rights, in the latest in a series of victories for reproductive rights activists across Latin America.
Brazil makes homophobic hate speech punishable by prison
Brazil’s Supreme Court has ruled with a vote of 9-1 that homophobic hate speech is on par with racial hate speech and punishable with a prison sentence of two to five years.
Youth wins climate case against U.S. state of Montana in first-of-its-kind legal ruling
A landmark ruling found that Montana violated young people’s constitutional rights to a “clean and healthful environment,” marking the first time a U.S. court has connected the government’s fossil fuel promotion with harm to youth.