Explainers

In October 2021, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled that in the event of a conflict between the Constitution of Poland and the treaties of the European Union, the Polish Constitution will reign supreme. The Tribunal concluded that Article 4(3) of the Treaty on European Union, in conjunction with Article 279 of the Treaty on the Functioning of [...]

On 21 April 2022, Vladimir Putin, in a televised meeting with his defence minister Sergei Shoigu, ordered Russian armed forces to seal off the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol from the outside world.  The intention, according to Putin, was to spare Russian armed forces from the very high casualty rate that would almost certainly stem [...]

In a recent interview on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, former French president, François Hollande established a direct link between NATO’s, and particularly the United States’, withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine. “If Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, it was not due to a provocation from the Atlantic alliance . [...]

In a dramatic midnight move on April 9, Pakistan’s National Assembly voted to oust Prime Minister Imran Khan in a no-confidence resolution. Minutes before voting, the Speaker of the House, a member of the ruling party and a known friend of Khan, resigned from office after waving a quasi-confidential letter at the legislators. This letter [...]

The no-knock warrant — a search warrant that authorizes police officers to enter certain premises without knocking and announcing their presence or purpose before entering — is a source of contention in America today. Its element of surprise and extirpative effects makes it a powerful yet contemptible militarized tactic. In this respect, reference is made [...]

On 23 February 2022, the European Union (EU) Commission adopted a proposal for a Directive on corporate sustainability due diligence (Draft Directive). When the EU Commission opts for a Directive, in effect the EU is setting a goal that all member states must achieve, but how they get there legislatively is up to each state individually. In an [...]

Assembly elections have been announced in five states of India for the month of February: Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Manipur, Punjab and Uttarakhand. While the elections are expected to be conducted without any difficulties, one must always prepare for contingencies. Given that India follows a multi-party system, a fractured verdict in elections would not exactly be [...]

In the digital world, you can be whomever you want, whenever you want. You can even be whatever you want, as there is no general rule mandating the adoption of human form online. And while you can have multiple identities, you can also have none at all — such as through anonymous blockchain transactions. Digital [...]

It’s been more than a year since COVID-19 began its unbridled spread. Early in the pandemic period, surging infection rates left much of the global population in lockdown, spurring new highs in boredom-driven dependence on electronic devices. Some hackers wasted no time in responding to the crisis by creating malware-embedded COVID-19 phishing emails, withholding patient health [...]

What do Taylor Swift, Gal Gadot, and Kristen Bell have in common? Aside from their celebrity, they have all been victims of deepfake pornography. Deepfake technology is used to manipulate media so that the original face in a video is replaced with a face of the user’s choice. While that can make for a funny [...]