US dispatch: human rights activists protest UN visit of Philippines leader Marcos outside NYSE
Hannah Brem is JURIST’s News Managing Editor, and a 3L at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. She files this dispatch from New York City. Human rights activists gathered Monday in front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to protest the visit of Philippines president Ferdinand “Bongbong” Romualdez Marcos Jr.’s to New York [...]
India Must Reform its Anti-Defection Law to Prevent Further Corrosion of Democracy
“Defectors often cause more difficulty than disinterested disbelievers” – Neal Ash Maxwell, American scholar, educator, and religious leader. Recent events in the Indian state of Maharashtra reaffirm the existence of glaring loopholes in a law aimed at bolstering political stability in India. The recent fall of the democratically elected government led by the state’s former [...]
Peace in our Time! Appeasement and Tyranny - Feeding the Crocodile
We all recall the famous photo in 1938 of the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stepping off his plane holding up an agreement with Adolf Hitler that averted a possible conflict with Germany. He gave away the Sudetenland and the political independence of Czechoslovakia to do so. Chamberlain proudly declared “peace in our time.” [...]
JURIST EXCLUSIVE – Law students will join many thousands of other protesters in Myanmar and across the ASEAN countries of the so-called Milk Tea Alliance in mass pro-democracy demonstrations against the Myanmar military coup on Sunday. Among the law students going into the streets in Myanmar are several who have been reporting for JURIST since [...]
In the present confirmation hearings, I would like someone to ask Judge Barrett a question left unanswered by Justice Scalia, her mentor: 1. What influence does the fact that many of the founders and framers were slave owners have on your originalist views? And then I would like to ask a follow-up: 2. What is [...]
"Good Genes," Proud Boys and White Supremacy: An International Law Perspective
“The goal is to dominate the street.” – US President Donald J. Trump, June 1, 2020 There are disturbing connections. Before openly embracing the “Proud Boys” during his first debate with Democrat opponent Joe Biden, Donald J. Trump praised the value of “good genes” in Minnesota. Though such a seemingly “positive” evocation might not normally [...]
From the beginnings of his crudely acrimonious presidency, Donald Trump has actively undermined US foreign policy relationships. On urgently key matters of world politics and international law, Mr. Trump’s typically invalid conclusions have generally been drawn from narrowly belligerent premises. Truly, the main problem with such faulty presidential arguments, however, has not been Trump’s gratuitously [...]
NIFLA Decision Affirms First Amendment’s Purpose: Protect Minority Viewpoints
An inherent feature of democracy is majority rule. And with that, as you may recall from civics, comes the risk of tyranny of the majority—the danger that a controlling popular viewpoint will oppress opposing views in society. Foreseeing this, the Framers set up a number of constitutional mechanisms to protect minority interests. Among these early institutional protections [...]
The Galactic Empire: Lessons in Geopolitics from a "Galaxy Far, Far Away"
JURIST Guest Columnist Roy Lee discusses the applications of principles from the Star Wars film series to contemporary issues in international relations... In the ever-popular Star Wars series, the Jedi and the Rebel Alliance are pitted against the Sith and...
