“It’s hurting so bad,” Byron Black said five minutes after the State of Tennessee initiated his execution last month. The 69-year-old’s anguished words echoed through the death chamber as a device designed to save lives may have prolonged his dying, creating the very cruelty the Constitution forbids. Mr. Black had suffered from congestive heart failure, [...]
The US government should not kill Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin. State-sponsored murder won’t stem the rising tide of political violence looming over all of us. And Utah is one of only five states in the US that allows execution by firing squad. Though rare, the prospect of the state shooting Mr. Robinson to death for [...]
This article examines the legal and political significance of the enlarged partial agreement provision within the statute of the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. It argues that this mechanism not only enhances the tribunal’s operational feasibility but also elevates its institutional stature by enabling flexible international support, circumventing traditional diplomatic impasses, [...]
In the aftermath of the devastating attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush established the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to incarcerate and punish those responsible for the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans. At least 780 detainees were held in Guantanamo, several of whom were subject to extreme punishment measures including—but certainly not [...]
The earth shook beneath Afghanistan once again, and as rescue workers pulled bodies from the rubble, one devastating truth became clear: half our population remains invisible even in our darkest hour. As aftershocks continue to rattle the earthquake-stricken regions, the images and videos emerging from the disaster zone tell a familiar, heartbreaking story. Men dig [...]
On June 18, 2023, the Canadian government publicly accused the Indian government of killing Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen and a prominent leader in the Khalistan movement that advocates for an independent homeland in the Punjab region of India. This case illustrates an extraterritorial killing—a form of unlawful killing related to extrajudicial killings. Even [...]
Vengeance. It undeniably infects human affairs. Parents observe it as their toddlers navigate playground dynamics: one child hits another; the other strikes back. Domestic feuds and old grudges can metastasize into jealousy, schadenfreude, and—if unchecked—retaliation. Belligerent drivers yield microaggressions that can morph into road rage. In the extreme, assault and murder seem to beg for [...]
The concept of messianic multipolarity, as articulated in the context of Russian foreign policy, offers a powerful lens through which to understand the foreign and domestic strategies of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Messianic multipolarity fuses a realist multipolar vision of global power—one where multiple centers of influence compete—with a quasi-religious or ideological mission. In [...]
“I don’t wanna give it, why you wanna give it? Why you wanna give it all away?” — Big Yellow Taxi (Counting Crows version of Joni Mitchell‘s song) Unlike Richard Wright, the great author who moved to Paris in 1949, and wrote upon his arrival in Paris the famous piece “I Choose Exile,” I did [...]
In addition to its as-yet undetermined consequences for a potential US-Iran nuclear deal, “Operation Midnight Hammer”—the US military operation that involved aerial strikes on three key Iranian nuclear facilities in June—has brought a long-standing legal debate with considerable implications for US foreign policy to the fore: the scope of executive war powers under the US [...]
