Faculty Commentary

In the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning a half-century of abortion jurisprudence, Justice Samuel Alito repeatedly argued that this difficult issue should be decided by the people through their elected representatives. Such calls for democracy to work, however, should be looked at with great skepticism by the American people, given how often and how [...]

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Last week, Louisiana made headlines by proposing a bill that would make abortion a homicide and explicitly allow pregnant people to be charged with murder. While the bill ultimately failed to advance in the Louisiana House of Representatives, it’s important to know that many states already have laws on the books that could result in [...]

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California’s 1996 ballot initiative protecting medical marijuana users from state criminal prosecution kicked off the modern marijuana reform era in the United States. In part due to federal prohibition, state medical marijuana laws prompted an array of interesting and intricate legal questions. Some issues concerned the reach of federal law after state reforms. Could doctors [...]

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AntanO, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

These days, the Sri Lankan rupee has fallen by almost 45 percent compared to the US dollar. Its foreign exchange reserves are nearly dry, having dropped below $1 billion. Meanwhile, the island nation has to repay debts of about $4 billion in the rest of this year, including a $1 billion international sovereign bond that [...]

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(c) Wikimedia Commons/Nuremberg Trials/Office of Military Government for Germany (U.S.)

In world politics and international law, meaningful explanation must always begin with the solitary human being, with the microcosm. This generalized individual, regardless of nationality, seeks to maximize one form of power above all others.  In essence, this searched-for ultimate power is power over death. To continue, there is considerable legal detail for scholars to [...]

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The Russian invasion of Ukraine has entered its third month. The suffering of Ukrainian civilians has been awful and the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) is satisfied that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe war crimes have been committed. Media attention has, quite rightly, focused on the plight of those individuals caught up in [...]

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In academia, summer is the time for researching, writing, and travel. It is also an ideal time of year for professors to audit classroom materials and teaching techniques. This summer is an ideal time to consider how bias, race, gender, social justice, and cultural competency issues are integrated into your readings, syllabus, classroom inclusion practices, [...]

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© WikiMedia (OSeveno)

International organizations and bodies like the United Nations, European Union, etc. have been tested time and again since their inception. Ukraine and Russia’s ongoing war and failed deliberations hint at a potential Third World War despite the strong presence of such organizations. Conflicts like these pose a larger question on the effectiveness of international law [...]

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Wikimedia Commons / GoToVan

In late March, Ukrainian authorities reported that Russian forces had forcibly transferred over two thousand children from the Russian-occupied Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine into Russia. Other reports note that Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner asserts that more than 121,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported to Russia, where the government is reportedly preparing the necessary [...]

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