Search Results for: 2014-10-14

Abstract: In principle, especially during a rare historical moment of extra-terrestrial exploration and immunological control, our species ought to render itself capable of managing nuclear threats. Prima facie, after all, the difficulties of transporting complex instrumentation to Mars and simultaneously fashioning effective vaccines against deadly pathogens should exceed even the most complex challenges of international peace. Nonetheless, [...]

JURIST EXCLUSIVE – A coalition of international legal advocates sent a joint letter Saturday to Professor Mary Lawlor, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, condemning the growing trend of government officials intimidating and endangering the legal representatives of politically controversial clients. They also called for greater protections to be granted to advocates, the [...]

US President Donald Trump granted Tuesday full pardons to 15 individuals and commuted part or entire sentences of another five individuals. Among those pardoned are George Papadopoulos and Alex van der Zwaan, both convicted of making false statements to the FBI as part of the Mueller investigation. The White House emphasized that these were “process-related crimes” and [...]

On 22nd June 2020, the Indian High Court of the State of Karnataka while granting anticipatory bail to a person accused of rape, observed that it is “unbecoming of an Indian woman” to “fall asleep” after rape and that it is not the way “our women(Indian women) react” when they are “ravished”. The latter part [...]

On 25th September 2020, the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment notified the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Rules, 2020 which removed the mandatory medical examination requirement that the previous draft of these rules (issued in July 2020) had created. The earlier draft was heavily criticized by the transgender community for taking away their [...]

An August 5, 2020 webinar organized by the University of Miami received a great deal of attention for remarks made by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) president Judith Gunderson suggesting that NCBE critics might encounter difficulties with their character and fitness evaluations. I was equally struck, though, by a remark made later in [...]

The three-year journey has ended. Clearing one more hurdle, you would join your chosen profession. But as you approached the hurdle, becoming a lawyer resembled joining a craft guild. Bar admission committees seemed intent on elevating custom over common sense. The infamous bar exam became a pandemic year proxy for antiquated legal industry rituals. What [...]

“The masses have followed the magicians again and again…Socrates and Plato were the first to take up the struggle against them in clear awareness of what was at stake.” – Karl Jaspers, Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time (1952) On absolutely all matters of existential survival, individual or collective, candor is indispensable. In connection with [...]

In 2007, Hungary ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), a wide-ranging and forward-thinking treaty designed to advance the human rights of those with disabilities. This reflected on the international level what Hungary seemed to be doing on the national level. The year before, Hungary adopted a new National Disability Programme [...]

As COVID-19 spreads in different parts of the world, many countries have resorted to “national quarantine” or lockdown. Travel bans and closure of activities has resulted in a complete halt of society. Different countries are using their own set of domestic laws for planning action against the spread of Coronavirus. After declaring it a “pandemic”, [...]