Professional Commentary

Earlier this month, a digital currency based on the Netflix series “Squid Game” soared in value before collapsing dramatically as its promoters quickly pulled out their funds in what is known as a “rug pull.” The website promoting the cryptocurrency was only three weeks old and was littered with grammatical errors, tell-tale signs that it [...]

In the aftermath of the George Floyd protests, the legal doctrines shielding law enforcement from accountability have become increasingly scrutinized, with qualified immunity by far the most well-known (and most controversial). But on November 5, the Supreme Court announced it will hear at least one of three cases that address another form of immunity for [...]

My client, Jamie Belcastro, a registered pharmacist, started Belmora LLC, a small, Virginia-based company that sells nonprescription pain relief products, about 20 years ago. For much of this time Bayer AG, the Big Pharma multinational colossus headquartered in Germany—whose gross revenues approach $50 billion—has been trying to use US trademark law to put Belmora out [...]

Antitrust analysis is harder to get right than progressive trustbusters would have you believe. In fact, determining whether a business is violating principles of market competition is so complicated that judges and regulators often make mistakes. But the folks running the Federal Trade Commission think they know better. Here’s the thing: They don’t. Over the [...]

Essentially, commercial arbitration in Iran is divided into two categories: domestic and international, each of which is subject to special regulations. The legal regime governing the domestic arbitration is Chapter Seven of the Iranian Code of Civil Procedure that applies to arbitrations mainly between Iranian nationals. In recent years, the parties to commercial disputes in Iran [...]

For the past 18 months, ever since February 29, 2020, when President Donald J. Trump Jr. finalized a deal with the Taliban to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, international organizations and civil society groups have been warning of the potential for increased violence and potential mass atrocities in the country. [...]

Most people presumably would consider Afghanistan to be somewhat of a pariah—or even rogue—state when it comes to respect for human rights. But the truth is that Afghanistan is more entwined in international legal regimes than one would expect, meaning it’s also more subject to enforcement measures than one would expect. The so-called “International Bill [...]

President Qaies Saied of Tunisia claimed he was acting constitutionally when he arrogated broad powers for himself on July 25, after months of stalemate among Tunisia’s governing institutions and amid a deepening Covid-19 crisis. The constitutional provision he invoked states that after 30 days, the Constitutional Court, upon a request from the Parliament, is to [...]

This week, the world continues to watch as the Taliban takes control of Afghanistan. The Taliban’s conquest comes as Western forces leave the country after more than two decades of war in the region. This saga is heartbreaking and I encourage you to, first and foremost, read about it in the words of Afghans themselves [...]

On July 13, 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) unanimously held that the lack of legal protection to same-sex unions in Russia violated the applicants’ right to respect for private life guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights (‘the Convention’). There are no explicit legal obstacles in the way of providing [...]