US President Donald Trump threatened Monday to permanently end US funding for the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO is an international organization responsible for monitoring public health concerns and coordinating governmental responses. The US contributes between $400 and $500 million annually to the WHO. In a public letter to the director of the WHO, [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday in Opati v. Republic of Sudan that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) permits a punitive damages award against Sudan for the role it played in 1998 al Qaeda bombings that occurred outside of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Following the 1998 bombings, victims and family members sued [...]

A federal appeals court dismissed a Missouri death row inmate’s petition for post-conviction relief Sunday, despite questions about the evidence used to convict him, clearing the way for his execution to take place on Tuesday. This order will vacate a 30-day stay of execution that a federal judge granted to Walter Barton on Friday. Walter [...]

Just last week, we were saddened by the loss of Aimee Stephens at age 59. Ms. Stephens was a Detroit funeral director who, in 2013, announced a gender transition that exposed her employer’s deep intolerance toward transgender people. For seven years, she challenged the harsh dismissal and loss of livelihood that followed the announcement. Although [...]

As society grapples to stay on top of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a heightened responsibility on governments to effectively deal with this public health crisis, in a manner that is least-restrictive towards the civil liberties of its citizens. The use of technology as a part of disaster-response cannot be denied, but the regulatory lacunae [...]

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to increase across the globe, crossing over the four million mark and killing more than 300,000 patients, a parallel pandemic of misinformation and fake news is spreading around, putting lives at risk. Many researchers have termed this so called storm of misinformation a “disinfodemic.” There is a growing concern because [...]

Puerto Rico’s newly-elected Governor, Wanda Vázquez Garced, announced in a press conference Saturday that Puerto Rico will hold a non-binding referendum on November 3, the same day as US presidential election, to decide whether Puerto Rico should become a US state or remain a territory. “It is never too late to be treated as equals,” [...]

French authorities arrested Félicien Kabuga, a leading figure in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, on Saturday in Paris. A release from the UN said Kabuga, 84, “was indicted by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 1997 on seven counts of genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, attempt to [...]

With an expected increase in mail-in voting during the COVID-19 pandemic, voter rights advocates have filed lawsuits across the country challenging existing obstacles in states’ mail-in voting procedures. Challenges to mail-in voter restrictions have been filed in Tennessee, Texas, Minnesota, Georgia and North Carolina, among others. Some challenges primarily address the general restrictions states have [...]

With food emerging out as a heavily traded commodity internationally, the majority of the nations around the world have become melting pots of civilization, leading to the increasing interconnectedness of the global food system and complexity of the supply chains. With the long-winded food supply chains there exists information asymmetry between the consumers and the [...]