Dictators use fear as a tool to stay in power. Politicians use various techniques to govern as well. In liberal democracies governance is based on incentives, good governance, rule of law, and service. Strongmen use other techniques to govern, such as fear, outside threats, coercion, and incentives. Another technique to govern seen largely in totalitarian [...]

The news on the climate crisis has been bad lately and getting worse. In the face of President Trump’s continued denial and his administration’s diligent efforts to roll back every shred of progress made by the Obama administration and to prop up an ailing coal industry, the warnings from the scientific community have only become [...]

Thomas Jefferson is reported to have said: “When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.” I have investigated and prosecuted dictators and their henchmen for most of my professional life. I have studied their lives, personalities, their rise to power and how they governed once achieving [...]

The ends should not justify the means when it comes to the protection of basic human rights in Yemen and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Severe challenges to the peace and stability of these regions along with overarching transnational terrorism threats have incentivized the erosion of human rights by the respective governments. These challenges are [...]

In January 2018, following the killing of Iranians in European countries, the EU imposed new sanctions on Iran. This came after the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Iran after withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in August 2018. The International Court of Justice then issued a decision ordering the United States to lift [...]

When the Delhi High Court sentenced a former parliamentarian to life in prison for his role in the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom in December, it ended an excruciating 34-year ordeal for victims of the hate crime that shook India’s national conscience and threatened to tear apart its social fabric. Spurts of sectarian violence are not uncommon in [...]

More than two centuries ago Mary Wollstonecraft laid the foundations for feminist thought with a simple premise: lack of equal opportunity diminished individual self-worth and hobbled social progress. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Wollstonecraft made a “wild wish” for equality between the sexes. When women are treated as less than equal [...]

The President only has two enumerated constitutional duties, to be the Chief Executive of the Executive Branch and be Commander in Chief of the Armed forces during time of war. That is it. His oath in Article II of the Constitution requires him to protect and defend that Constitution. Additionally, he is constitutionally bound to [...]

The cornerstone of military justice is ensuring that commanders at all levels, called convening authorities, do not influence the lawful carrying out of investigations and prosecutions of service members who violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Developed through customs of the service over two centuries and codified by Congress in the early 1950’s, [...]

“What does not benefit the entire hive is no benefit to the bee.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Back at the World War I Armistice Day ceremonies in France in 2018, Emmanuel Macron ventured a well-reasoned condemnation of Donald Trump’s belligerent nationalism. By describing the American president’s rancorous sentiments as a “betrayal of patriotism,” the French president [...]