You are reading the words of a criminal. Yes—I am a criminal. Why? Because in order to connect to the free global internet, I violated the law of my own country. I purchased a VPN, crossed the digital borders imposed upon me, and entered a world my government had declared forbidden. In the eyes of [...]

The International Olympic Committee’s provisional reinstatement of the Russian Olympic Committee is not a procedural footnote. It is a capitulation. By clearing the way for ROC athletes to compete at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, the IOC has once again chosen accommodation over principle — and in doing so, it has repeated one of the [...]

As debates over gender-affirming care intensify across many countries, lawmakers, physicians and human rights advocates risk becoming trapped in the wrong question. Public discussion often revolves around whether there is enough evidence to justify treatment, as though medicine can proceed only once certainty has been achieved. But as a physician, I know that certainty is [...]

I once said it almost as a joke, but already with a seriousness I did not yet understand: “Be careful, I will kill you and say you were mahdūr al-dam (a person placed outside legal protection of life through judicial determination).” At that moment the phrase sounded like an excess of language, a fragment of [...]

Having previously argued that the Alaska Supreme Court was right to reject a “good faith” test for ballot access, Professor Mark Brown of Capital University School of Law returns to a new front: a Justice Department threatening prosecution over the very same candidacy. An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal this week argued that [...]

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (WPR) was enacted to ensure that decisions to introduce US forces into hostilities reflect the collective judgment of Congress and the President. Central to this framework is the 60‑day termination requirement, which obligates the President to obtain congressional authorization or withdraw US forces once they have been introduced into [...]

It was autumn 1774.  In British North America and on the island of Great Britain an intellectual, political and legal revolution that was intended to recognize America’s unique status within the realm would become the sword of American independence.  The First Continental Congress drafted a document not for the purpose of securing liberty, but for the purpose [...]

“Ddddddd… rrrrrrr… ttttttttt!” My brother stares at me in complete bewilderment just as I hold a baby corn in front of my face, waving it with the solemnity of someone confronting a geopolitical enemy rather than a vegetable. “Ah, America… don’t hit me with your corn… I’ll eat your corn, and then you’ll see who [...]

In a case that drew national attention and a half dozen emergency amicus briefs from around the country, the Alaska Supreme Court yesterday summarily affirmed an Alaska state trial court’s ruling that the state’s director of the Division of Elections, Carol Beecher, wrongly removed a senatorial candidate, Dan J. Sullivan, from the ballot. Beecher contended [...]

I was scrolling through Instagram when I came across a post circulated by Iranian musicians and cultural activists responding to the flogging sentence imposed on Parastoo Ahmadi, and what struck me was not the legal formulation of the statement nor its political framing, but a sentence that refused to settle into any category, a sentence [...]