Professional Commentary

The world’s attention has been rightly focused on Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine. But Russia is also fighting a war against Russian citizens who oppose the Ukraine war. In Russia’s war against its citizens, it is not using rockets as weapons but rather law and the legal system to suppress opposition to the war. By [...]

As the International Criminal Court (ICC) commemorated over two decades since its establishment, on July 4, 2023, Mr. Karim Khan, the ICC Prosecutor, submitted his thirty-seventh report to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in accordance with Resolution 1593 (2005). Addressing the UNSC nine days later, on July 13, 2023, Mr. Khan emphasized the urgent [...]

July 17 is the Day of International Criminal Justice. This year it also marks 25 years since the adoption of the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC). ICC member countries will gather today at the United Nations headquarters in New York City to discuss strengthening political and practical support for [...]

The great end of government and laws is human happiness; the rulers ought, therefore, to understand and know on what it consists; and the means of producing it. — Hon. Jesse Root, “On the Principles and End of Government” The summer of 1776 was quite productive in the annals of American intellectual and legal thought. [...]

The collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam on June 6th is emerging as one of Europe’s biggest humanitarian and ecological disasters. The dam’s collapse has destroyed entire villages, flooded farmland, displaced tens of thousands of people, deprived them of power and clean water, and caused massive environmental damage. The long-term impact of the dam’s destruction [...]

This is a dispatch from your former JURIST China correspondent, twenty-five years later. The early dispatches I sent to Hibbitts from Wuhan University roughly at the turn of the millennium when the Web was young are now so antiquated that finding one required an archival deep dive. Indeed, it was a very different time – [...]

The Afghanistan Independent Bar Association (AIBA) was founded in 2008 with the aim of promoting fair trials, enhancing public trust in the legal profession, fostering collaboration among justice sector stakeholders, fostering the next generation of committed legal professionals, and combating administrative corruption in a country ravaged by war. The Association spurred the rise of a [...]

On June 6, 2023, an en banc panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(1), the “felon in possession of a firearm” statute, is unconstitutional as applied to one individual, Bryan Range. While the decision purports to be “a narrow one” the rationale that underpins the [...]

Tensions between U.S. presidents and the press date back to George Washington. America’s founding father found himself gnashing his hippopotamus ivory dentures when newspapers accused him of monarchical rule. Few subsequent American leaders have been spared harsh media criticism. Abe Lincoln was lambasted by some of the most influential newspapers of his time for his [...]

The Taliban’s ascension to power in Afghanistan two years ago dealt two significant blows to the nation’s legal system. Firstly, they orchestrated a mass release of prisoners, most of whom were Taliban fighters convicted of severe crimes. This unexpected action placed court personnel who had been involved in their sentencing in immediate danger, making them [...]