Professional Commentary

Taymaz Valley // Flickr // CC

Only a few days after protests started in Iran, the right to access the internet was restricted and social platforms were filtered. The government of Iran used the unrest as an excuse and started moving towards the establishment of the National Internet. The limited access to the internet started during the first week of the [...]

READ MORE

Recent years marked the ascendancy of fact-checking organizations as one of the main tools to fight disinformation in society. The reports produced by these organizations explain the flaws in the checked claim and the process to arrive at the final verdict. While it’s undeniable that these reports are essential, some of the fact-checking organizations still [...]

READ MORE

I remember when Michelle (name changed to protect identity) got the email. She yelled out, “What?! This is so unfair!  I’m writing to CSS right now!” CSS is the Counsel Support Section of the Registry at the International Criminal Court (ICC). One of CSS’s responsibilities is approving the budget and appointments of defense teams who [...]

READ MORE
ProtoplasmaKid / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA 4.0

“What is peace to YOU?” As a facilitator in peace education workshops, this is an activity that I do with all types of participants all the time. The answers are always so fascinating and diverse, ranging from absence of armed conflicts to an ideal society in which everyone benefits from a full wellbeing. All of [...]

READ MORE

The year is 2024. Congressional maps in the political battleground states of North Carolina and Pennsylvania have been invalidated, and legal fights are ongoing to determine what maps will take their place. State high courts are hesitant to act because their normal powers of judicial review have been curtailed. Entire bodies of election rules, developed [...]

READ MORE
© JURIST / Hannah Brem

The new government of Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Sara Duterte is employing tricks and propaganda to entrench impunity and ward off the International Criminal Court’s long-delayed probe of crimes against humanity committed during former president Rodrigo Duterte’s reign of terror. The latest of these ploys is the government’s attempt, through the Office of the Solicitor [...]

READ MORE

The 1996 federal law that protects the privacy of our medical records –the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA – has from the outset contained a carefully crafted exception for personal health information that might bear directly on the commission of a crime. But with the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the [...]

READ MORE
Any Given Day / Anjali Pinto (c)

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Within the incarcerated population, a disproportionate number suffer from mental illnesses or disabilities. After the deinstitutionalization of mental health resources in the 1960s, many people who suffered from mental illnesses entered the prison system. According to the American Psychological Association “this trend accounts for [...]

READ MORE