“Hic Sunt Dracones” – the Hunt-Lenox Globe, 1504 “Friction is the difference between war on paper, and war as it actually is.” – Carl von Clausewitz, On War Once again, on October 9, 2020, with immodest displays of tangible hardware, North Korea mocked Donald Trump’s lingering expectations of “denuclearization.” Here, in Pyongyang, President Kim Jong [...]
“All narrative of the past implies a selection. Memory is selective; complete memory is impossible.” – Elizabeth Jelin In September 2020, the Spanish Government introduced the “Democratic Memory Law” through its Democratic Memory Act (“The Act”), which is an extension of the Historical Memory Act of 2007 to honor the victims of General Francisco Franco’s [...]
The U.S. Supreme Court has emerged as a significant election issue for the first time in more than fifty years. The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett has riveted the nation’s attention on the Court in a way that rarely if ever has occurred during a presidential campaign. [...]
On December 9, 2020 argument is scheduled for Collins v. Mnuchin at the Supreme Court. The case originated in the Fifth Circuit and the Court of Appeals issued an en banc opinion on September 6, 2019. The primary questions before the Court are whether the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s structure violates the separation of powers and [...]
On 22nd June 2020, the Indian High Court of the State of Karnataka while granting anticipatory bail to a person accused of rape, observed that it is “unbecoming of an Indian woman” to “fall asleep” after rape and that it is not the way “our women(Indian women) react” when they are “ravished”. The latter part [...]
This year, California suffered its most destructive fire season ever. Over four million acres burned, but the fight to contain the flames is far from over. To meet the extraordinary demand for firefighters, California tapped into its largest pool of able-bodied people—its prisons. Over 1,200 prisoners have been sent to the frontlines this year. The [...]
Is Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, properly and constitutionally second in line for the presidency? The question has urgent new relevance in light of President Donald Trump becoming sick with Coronavirus and the spread of COVID infections at the top levels of the administration. If a double vacancy occurred due to [...]
The spread of fake news and misinformation during the pandemic has been unprecedented. Governments have been prompted to take measures to curb this spread in order to quell panic amongst the public. One such measure was taken by Mumbai Police by promulgating a prohibitory order under Section 144 of India’s Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). [...]
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 [...]
As the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan, in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Caucasus, slug it out over a decades-long dispute about a piece of ground, one is reminded that conflict, once again, has become dirty and lawless at many levels. Civilians have become targets, protective symbols of the Geneva Conventions, such as the [...]
