Academic Commentary

Though rarely understood, there can be no greater form of power on this earth than power over death. Ominously, this always-preeminent form of power in world politics remains unrecognized by American foreign policy-makers. The perilous result is that this country’s counter-insurgent strategies will become less and less adequate. It’s not an enviable situation for the [...]

On the last day of its 2018-2019 Term, the Supreme Court decided in Department of Commerce v. New York that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross could not add a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census solely on the basis of the “contrived” and “pretextual” reason he cited (the need to better enforce the Voting Rights [...]

Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), a political party that has ruled the country off and on in the past three decades, has released an audio-video montage claiming that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) judge, who convicted and sentenced former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for owning unexplained properties in London, delivered his decision under coercion. The video [...]

Pakistan and the People’s Republic of China concluded a boundary agreement in 1963 ceding a substantial territorial part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) to China. Pakistan also believes in the self-determination of the people of J&K, while India denies this and claims that the entire territory of the J&K is an integral [...]

“Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration.”-US President Donald Trump, June 23, 2019 “The United States has great strength and patience, but if it  is forced to defend itself or its allies we will have no choice but to totally [...]

On June 27, 2019 during the second Democratic Primary Debate, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders proposed rotating United States Supreme Court Justices with judges from lower federal courts.  This solution was offered in response to the “court packing” occurring under President Trump’s administration, leading to the growing conservatism of the Court.  Additionally, the nomination and appointment [...]

Nearly 120 years after Hong Kong made sodomy punishable by a possible life sentence, a recent court ruling marks a further step toward completely decriminalizing same-sex relations. In 2007, Hong Kong scrapped its British-era sodomy law. But, for over a decade, several remaining provisions in its Crime Ordinance continued to single out male same-sex relations, [...]

June 26 is a day designated by the United Nations as International Day in support of victims of torture. The General Assembly resolution creating the date imagined this as a day stakeholders – member states and their citizens – would unite in support of those that have endured torture and cruelty and recommit to ending [...]

No current or former President of the United States has faced criminal charges after leaving office. Two Presidents, Richard Nixon and William Clinton, have come close and one Vice-President, Spiro Agnew, plead nolo contendere to charges on the day he left office. With ten ongoing federal and eight ongoing state criminal investigations into Donald Trump, [...]

I. American Border Concentration Camps and the Family Separation Policy as a Crime Against Humanity As noted by Ben Ferencz, the last surviving Nuremberg Prosecutor, the intentional and unnecessary suffering under the family separation policy can easily be viewed as a crime against humanity under Article 7(1)(k) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal [...]