Where Are We Heading?: Journeys from “First Man” to the “Last”
“The dust from which the first man was created was gathered in all four corners of the earth.” – Talmud Reforming International Law In the midst of Russia’s escalating crimes against Ukraine, the United States and other nations have one widely overlooked obligation: To re-examine and re-conceptualize core elements of authoritative [...]
Law and Strategy after Afghanistan: The United States, Israel and Iran
Abstract: Following US withdrawal from Afghanistan, America’s security focus will turn more expressly to Iran. The core problem with America’s Afghanistan withdrawal was not one of timing or tactics, but of original misconception. In essence, the “Afghanistan Problem” stemmed from an initially underestimated and misunderstood military operation. Looking ahead, Afghanistan’s incoherent conclusion means, inter alia, [...]
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world….” -William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming Plus, ca’ change. “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” In world politics, anarchy is an old and continuing story. Chaos is not. But what are the precise differences? And why do [...]
Where International Justice is Failing the Uyghurs, Economic Tactics Can Advance Real Change
Between one and three million Uyghurs and other members of Muslim minority groups, including Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, have reportedly been detained in some 1,200 hastily built re-education camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of Western China since 2017. Reports of arbitrary detention, forced labor, sterilization, sexual abuse and extrajudicial killings are rife. The [...]
Rising Above Realpolitik: America, Jewish Thought and International Law
“The loftier the soul, the more it feels the unity that there is in us all.” – Rabbi Avraham Kook By any reasonable standard, the belligerent nationalism of Realpolitik or power politics makes no sense. After all, without exception, this zero-sum mantra of “everyone-for-himself” clearly undermines every country’s national security. Most perplexing, perhaps, is that [...]
After the American Election: Overcoming Plague, Chaos and "Mass"
“The mass-man has no attention to spare for reasoning; he learns only in his own flesh.” – Jose Ortega y’Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses (1930) In the United States, prima facie, presidential elections represent a core fixture of democracy. Nonetheless, though necessary – and never more so than in the just-completed defeat of Donald [...]
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg rejected a request for referral under article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention) by Italy last week making the Chamber’s October 7th decision in the case Marcello Viola v. Italy a final judgment. The ECHR has decided that an “irreducible [...]
Council of Europe urges reform in Netherlands counter-terrorism bills
Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižniek , expressed concern Tuesday over three counter-terrorism measures proposed in the Netherlands, which the Ccommissioner believes have the potential to violate human rights. In a letter by the...
JURIST Guest Columnist David G. Delaney, assistant Professor at Maurer School of Law discusses historic and current cyber legislation... No one should doubt that Congress's record on cyberspace issues is dismal. The Bush and Obama administrations both bemoaned Congress's expertise...
NSA Surveillance Program Still Unconstitutional Despite Proposed Changes
Samar Warsi, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding
