In January 2009, an unknown person or persons using the name Satoshi Nakamoto announced the creation of Bitcoin, the first peer-to-peer electronic cash system—or, cryptocurrency. Now, 10 years later, Nakamoto is still a mystery, but Bitcoin is the most prominent cryptocurrency, and, as of December 2018, almost 32 million Bitcoin wallets have been set up [...]
The Pakistan Supreme Court’s creation of a fund for the construction of two dams in the country is an unprecedented overreach of judicial power that threatens to undermine the development of good governance in the executive branch of government. Additionally, the unrestrained exercise of judicial power is likely to not only result in the judicialization [...]
In the last 3 years, the Hungarian Government, especially with its support from the recently obtained 2/3 majority in the Parliament, has introduced several legislative changes which seriously undermine the essential elements of the rule of law. Criminalization of “facilitating or supporting illegal immigration”, banning homelessness and the Government’s continuing interference in the higher education are [...]
In the wake of the world outrage at the viciousness of reporters’/journalists’ assassination (killing), lawmakers and human rights activists have said “enough.” Under the United States federal law, the Treasury Department is “empowered to prohibit entry into the U.S. and freeze assets of people considered responsible for corruption and human rights violations … effectively blocking [...]
Earlier this month, Congress sent a sweeping legislative package aimed at curbing the opioid epidemic to President Trump’s desk for signature, and the President has said he intends to sign it. Despite the increasing rancor that has poisoned so much our political discourse, the Substance Use Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) [...]
Very conspicuously, Israel’s Palestinian foes regard “martyrdom” as among the highest expressions of religious sacredness. Nonetheless, there are distinctly prominent disjunctions between the pertinent obligations of faith and those of international law. In essence, only the latter set of obligations can have a properly authoritative place in assessing Palestinian resorts to international force. This is [...]
Since the 1960s, most plaintiffs challenging state restrictions on voting rights have relied primarily on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The 1966 case of Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections in particular played a key role in the rise of equal protection claims by aggrieved voters. In Harper the U.S. Supreme Court [...]
From degrading disabled people, women, LGBT individuals, and other minorities to the forsaking of the United Nation Human Rights Council, and from separating migrant families to the coddling of authoritarians and racists, this presidency consistently ridicules human rights. It follows that the State Department’s first international conference to Advance Religious Freedom might trigger a collective [...]
Among several noteworthy and interrelated Helsinki summit policy derelictions – most obviously, Vladimir Putin’s still unpunished aggressions in Crimea – US President Donald Trump chose to ignore America’s binding legal obligations regarding Russian war crimes in Syria. This sorely evident disregard reflects not “merely” willful antipathy to pertinent international law, but also a concurrent indifference [...]
In a bombing, the dust settles slowly over the strike zone. What emerges are grey images, living beings neutralized to monochrome. Bleeding from the ears, deaf, and dumb from the concussions the survivors walk about in a haze. These zombies are the first things you see staggering down the street away from the rubble behind [...]
