Faculty Commentary

©VOA, Public Domain

The international community and the United States spent billions of dollars on rebuilding the Afghan legal and judicial system and improving the rule of law and governance over the past two decades. However, after the Taliban takeover, any such progress and achievements quickly disappeared and the foundations for the Afghan legal system that had been [...]

READ MORE
Wikimedia Commons / Kwh1050

These past few days Vladimir Putin’s invasion forces have attacked the largest nuclear power plant in Europe located at Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. This unnecessary attack put not only the citizens of Ukraine in grave danger, but also all of Europe. The attack caused a fire which has been extinguished, yet the Russian attack on the plant [...]

READ MORE

Ohio’s Supreme Court has now twice ordered the Ohio Redistricting Commission to produce constitutionally compliant maps. Twice the Redistricting Commission, or at least the Republican majority that controls the Commission, has failed. More accurately, it has once failed and once refused. Following the Ohio Supreme Court’s second order, the Commission on February 18, 2022 returned [...]

READ MORE
Wikimedia Commons / Kwh1050

The basic international law One of the most fundamental rules of international law is that States are prohibited from using force to resolve their international disputes. Any State that uses force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another State violates this solemn rule of international law. Applying this rule, the use of force [...]

READ MORE

We all recall the famous photo in 1938 of the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stepping off his plane holding up an agreement with Adolf Hitler that averted a possible conflict with Germany. He gave away the Sudetenland and the political independence of Czechoslovakia to do so. Chamberlain proudly declared “peace in our time.” [...]

READ MORE
Erasmus (Wikimedia Commons/ National Gallery of Art)

Credo quia absurdum. “I believe because it is absurd.” -Tertullian Macrocosm and Microcosm One thing is certain. If Donald J. Trump should decide to run again, various condemnations and justifications would instantly spring forth from absolutely every segment of the political spectrum. The deepest and truest explanations, however, would not be discoverable in day-to-day politics. [...]

READ MORE
Wikimedia Commons/ Leviathan/ Z thomas

“Where there is no Common Power, there is no Law….” Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapter XIII The “State of Nature” as “State of War” From its modern beginnings in the seventeenth century – more precisely, since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 – international law has presumed firm distinctions between “national interest” and “world interest.” Rather [...]

READ MORE

Introduction: “Climate Change Crisis as a Child Crisis” On October 11, the UN Child Rights Committee (the Committee) ruled on a historic communications procedure brought forward by 16 children (plaintiffs) against Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey for failing to prevent and mitigate the consequences of climate change (Nos. 104-108/2019). Although the State parties have [...]

READ MORE