A judge on the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Jan. 27 invalidated an oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, finding that the Biden administration failed to properly account for the auction's environmental impact. In 2017, the Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program issued a five-year plan which proposed 10 region-wide lease sales. One of those was Lease Sale 257, for 80.8 million acres of Gulf waters, the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in United States history.

A coalition of 15 human rights and civil society organizations on Jan. 25 published a joint statement protesting the United Arab Emirates' new cybercrime law, saying it "severely threatens and unduly restricts the right to freedom of expression (both online and offline) and the rights to freedom of association and of peaceful assembly" in the country.

The US Supreme Court this month heard oral arguments for two immigration cases that address the right of detained non-citizens to have a bond hearing after six months of detention. Both cases were brought by asylum-seekers who had been detained for extended periods without bond hearings following the issuance of a removal order.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), one of Egypt's last independent human rights organizations, officially closed Jan. 10. ANHRI made the announcement in a statement posted to its website, citing government pressure as the reason for its closure.The group charged that in today's Egypt there is an "absence of the bare minimum of the rule of law and respect for human rights."

A group of United Nations experts have condemned the US Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, calling it a site of "unparalleled notoriety." The statement came on the eve of Jan. 11, which marks the twentieth anniversary of the arrival of the first terrorism suspects at Guantánamo.

Kazakhstan's President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev on Jan. 5 called participants in the protests that have swept the Central Asian nation this week "terrorists," accusing them of attempting to undermine his government at the behest of foreign powers. He also issued a call for Russia and the other members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to come to his country's defense.

In the latest escalation of its crackdown on opposition, Russia on Dec. 30 designated a disparate group of activists, satirists, and others as "foreign agents." A statement released by the Ministry of Justice listed the high-profile figures as designated "foreign agents," a controversial term with Cold War-era implications of espionage that carries burdensome reporting responsibilities and exposes designees to hefty fines. Among those named were Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Veronika Nikulshina of the activist group Pussy Riot.

Exercising a form of injunction reserved for exceptionally serious cases, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has instructed Russia to halt efforts to shutter Memorial International and its subsidiary organization, the Court announced Dec. 29. The move follows two high-profile decisions by Russian courts this week to dissolve respected non-governmental organizations that were created to shed light on the victims of historical and contemporary political repression in the country.