Ukraine dispatch: Russian plans to create new international rights court are a cause for concern
Ukrainian law students and young lawyers are reporting for JURIST on national and international developments in and affecting Ukraine. This dispatch is from Anna Balabina, a law student at Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. It is widely known that a country is often hugely influenced by what happens in a neighboring state. In the case [...]
Russia’s Ministry of Justice Friday canceled the registration of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and 13 other international organisations citing “the discovery of violations of the current legislation of the Russian Federation.” The Ministry announced its decision to de-register the Moscow offices of organisations including the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Friedrich Naumann [...]
Where Are We Heading?: Journeys from “First Man” to the “Last”
“The dust from which the first man was created was gathered in all four corners of the earth.” – Talmud Reforming International Law In the midst of Russia’s escalating crimes against Ukraine, the United States and other nations have one widely overlooked obligation: To re-examine and re-conceptualize core elements of authoritative [...]
“…Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space. These are our comrades, those dearest to us – not only colleagues, friends and people who once served together, but also relatives, people bound by blood, family ties.” — Address by the President [...]
Beat the Drum for War: Vladimir Putin Through a Middle Eastern and Arab Looking Glass
The Russian-Ukrainian crisis started to deteriorate in early 2021 when Ukraine arrested pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk on allegations of conspiring a coup d’etat, and Russia initiated military exercises near the Ukrainian border. Russia is the second-largest oil producer, trailing only the United States, and the third-leading oil exporter, behind Saudi Arabia and the United Arab [...]
In the aftermath of mass protests that swept major cities across Kazakhstan last month, resulting in hundreds of casualties and ultimately the deployment of Russian and allied troops to restore order, a law professor from Nazarbayev University explains what happened, and what we can expect for the Central Asian nation going forward. How did the [...]
Natural Law and the United States Constitution: Still Vital Connections
Abstract: Ideas of Natural Law were crucial in drafting the US Constitution. These seminal ideas were made known to document “framers” largely by way of William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. The Commentaries represent the truest philosophic origins of America’s legal system. In these dissembling times of recurrent political manipulation, Blackstone’s work warrants [...]
Nepal dispatches: Chief Justice faces calls to resign after influence allegations
An unprecedented crisis has recently beset Nepal’s top court with some in the country’s legal fraternity calling for the Chief Justice to step down in the face of a series of controversies. Nepalese law student Smriti Pantha of Kathmandu University School of Law reports files this exclusive report for JURIST from Kathmandu. The Chief Justice [...]
Abstract: For Israel, core issues surrounding Iran’s still-accelerating nuclear weapons program have been strategic and political, rather than legal. Nonetheless, if Israel should ever decide that it no longer has any reasonable alternative to launching a preemptive attack against certain Iranian military/industrial targets, this defensive first-strike would need to be justified under international law. In [...]
Samuel Moyn’s Unprincipled Attack on Human Rights Giant Michael Ratner Is Shameful
Samuel Moyn’s vicious and unprincipled attack on Michael Ratner, one of the finest human rights attorneys of our time, was published in the New York Review of Books (NYRB) on September 1. Moyn singles out Ratner as a whipping boy to support his own bizarre theory that punishing war crimes prolongs war by making it [...]
