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 [...]

Institutionalized by big law firms since the 1980s in the United States, pro bono today has become a global phenomenon. Given its strong legal profession and market, a unique outlier is Germany, where pro bono is not completely legal. The challenge is not the lack of need or supply of pro bono, but the ambiguity [...]

Chief Hinga Norman, head of the brutal Civil Defense Force, during the monstrous civil war in the West African country of Sierra Leone—part of larger unrest that engulfed neighboring Liberia and others—admonished his men to kill every living thing down to the ants in Pujehun. That they did. This was emblematic of the brutality that [...]

When I tell my friends that I developed an IOS app, they usually respond with a surprised, “I thought you were studying law and politics! Did you change to computer science?” When I explain that I did not switch but instead decided to study both, they often find the combination interesting but wonder how and [...]

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” ~James Madison In the years following the fall of the Soviet Union, Poland emerged as a nation poised to embrace [...]

Consideration of blockchain legislation is a growing trend amongst state legislatures. Blockchain, which is essentially a more secure form of internet, has been expanding into new markets. This has increasingly caught the attention of legislators, who hope to capitalize on the potential economic gains by allowing for the implementation of the technology within the state. [...]

President Trump lodged a stunning claim in federal court last week when he filed suit against the Manhattan district attorney to halt a criminal investigation into hush-money payments that he made in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.  The claim? That the President is absolutely immune from any criminal process, including a criminal investigation. In [...]

US President Donald Trump’s expanding crises with both North Korea and Iran, and his apparent willingness to withdraw from a second US-Russia nuclear arms control treaty, are just some currently prominent examples of a longer standing problem with world politics and international law. This problem is the continuing US inclination to base American national security [...]

On August 12, 2019, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a change to the interpretation of a statute known as the public charge rule. The statute under consideration, Section 212(a)(4) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) states: Any alien who, in the opinion of the consular officer at the time of application for [...]

According to recent reporting, “the European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday heard complaints from Ukraine about Russian involvement in the military coup and subsequent Russian annexation of Crimea. From Feburary 27, 2014, Russia has exercised control over the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Ukraine alleges that there was a practice of killing Ukrainian military and [...]