Article 27 of the Iranian Constitution states that protesters are permitted to gather and march so long as weapons aren’t involved, their message is not anti-Islamic, and they first obtain permission from the Interior Ministry. But while protest may be legal in theory, practice points to a very different reality. The Interior Ministry has not [...]

What rights should we have in a society increasingly being scrutinized, monitored, and controlled via the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)? That’s a good question. To address this thorny and unresolved legal issue, the US White House released on October 4, 2022, a white paper informally referred to as an AI Bill of Rights, which more [...]

“All our dignity consists in thought.” – Blaise Pascal, Pensées For the most part, penetrating thought on politics remains the veiled province of academic specialists. Though such thought can never become appropriate for any wider consumption by “mass,” it nonetheless warrants a more prominent place in world affairs and international law. Nowhere is this assertion [...]

Six days prior to Hurricane Ian’s eventual landfall, meteorologists sounded the alarm about a potential impact somewhere on Florida’s west coast. The storm was originally forecast to strike Tampa Bay, but ultimately touched down just south near Fort Myers. Despite the unpredictability of its path, rapid legal action by state government agencies under Governor Ron [...]

The Global Accountability Network (GAN) is a consortium of universities and other organizations staffed by academics, practitioners, law students and graduate students. The network works alongside organizations such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court to build international criminal cases. GAN was founded in 2011 by Professor David M. Crane, the Founding Chief Prosecutor [...]

The new government of Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Sara Duterte is employing tricks and propaganda to entrench impunity and ward off the International Criminal Court’s long-delayed probe of crimes against humanity committed during former president Rodrigo Duterte’s reign of terror. The latest of these ploys is the government’s attempt, through the Office of the Solicitor [...]

In 2002, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Turkey, defeating Kemalist hegemony, there was a glimmer of hope in the West for the overwhelmingly Muslim country. However, the experience of Turkey over the past 20 years is one descending into an authoritarian regime with clampdowns [...]

I am tired of watching my students suffer. Every year I have law students tell me they are afraid to seek counseling because they think it will hurt their chances of being admitted to the bar. Their fears derive from two questions on the bar application that ask about mental health and substance abuse. All [...]

International travel in child custody matters is often complicated. On June 15, 2022, the US Supreme Court ruled in Saada v. Golan that a court need not consider ameliorative or safety measures when assessing if a child should be returned to a country where there is a grave risk. The Supreme Court analyzed the application [...]

For nearly a century, many progressives have seen the Constitution, and especially the Supreme Court, as allies in the effort to make our political and economic life more democratic. For a long time, this trust seemed warranted. The initially reactionary New Deal Court came to embrace the power of the national government to limit corporate [...]