US President Donald Trump’s sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigators in June expose the hypocrisy and incoherency of the Trump administration’s foreign policy. Trump’s sanctions surpass a lack of cooperation and enter into outright hostility toward an entity dedicated to justice and human rights. Ultimately, the power of the ICC is derived from [...]
Yesterday, the CEOs of Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple testified before the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee in a hearing on “Online Platforms and Market Power.” As Congress takes up the question of market power in the tech sector, the time is ripe to consider the issue in our broader economy. For decades, corporations in a [...]
In the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement, Vermont passed a police bill that prohibits the use of chokeholds and requires officers to wear body cameras. The General Assembly passed the bill unanimously and Governor Phil Scott signed it into law on July 13, 2020. At the bill’s signing, Governor Scott stated: Exactly eight [...]
Extrajudicial killings are acts of violence carried out by law enforcement agencies without any judicial authorization. This is usually done by the state to enforce what may be called ‘instant justice’ by circumventing the elaborate procedure established through the criminal justice system. Even though it must be seen as an aberration to the well-entrenched principle [...]
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday, June 22nd to suspend several categories of working visas until December 31, 2020. The “Proclamation Suspending Entry of Aliens Who Present a Risk to the US Labor Market Following the Coronavirus Outbreak” includes suspension of various working visas namely, H-1B, which is most favored by Indian [...]
This essay reflects on a Sunday spent in Montgomery, Alabama, when a city and a state honored Rep. John Lewis. Here also is a pdf version for anyone that might like to have a copy of this material for personal or educational use. In Montgomery last Sunday, many of those who attended the memorials for [...]
The three-year journey has ended. Clearing one more hurdle, you would join your chosen profession. But as you approached the hurdle, becoming a lawyer resembled joining a craft guild. Bar admission committees seemed intent on elevating custom over common sense. The infamous bar exam became a pandemic year proxy for antiquated legal industry rituals. What [...]
In June 2020, the Bombay High Court in Dharmesh Vasantrai Shah v. Renuka Prakash Tiwari, held that the primary caregiver in the case of an illegitimate child is the mother and not the father. The case involved a minor citizen of New Zealand, whose unmarried parents are of Indian descent. The mother wished to take [...]
In Trump v. Mazars, the Supreme Court appeared to reject President Trump’s claim to an executive privilege protecting him from a subpoena seeking private financial information under United States v. Nixon, in keeping with its holding in Clinton v. Jones that no special privilege protects the President from private lawsuits. When executive privilege applies, the [...]
“The masses have followed the magicians again and again…Socrates and Plato were the first to take up the struggle against them in clear awareness of what was at stake.” – Karl Jaspers, Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time (1952) On absolutely all matters of existential survival, individual or collective, candor is indispensable. In connection with [...]
