Law and Strategy after Afghanistan: The United States, Israel and Iran
Abstract: Following US withdrawal from Afghanistan, America’s security focus will turn more expressly to Iran. The core problem with America’s Afghanistan withdrawal was not one of timing or tactics, but of original misconception. In essence, the “Afghanistan Problem” stemmed from an initially underestimated and misunderstood military operation. Looking ahead, Afghanistan’s incoherent conclusion means, inter alia, [...]
Arkansas Passes Sweeping and Draconian Law Targeting Transgender Youth
Last week, the state of Arkansas became the first state in the nation to effectively ban gender-affirming care for transgender and gender diverse youth. The law, H.B. 1570, prohibits youth under the age of 18 from receiving transitional or puberty-blocking hormones and surgery, and allows private insurers to refuse gender-affirming care. The law has no [...]
Apple to pay $308.5M for digital rights management patent infringement
A jury in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas decided Friday that Apple Inc. must pay $308.5 million to Personalized Media Communications (PMC) for infringing upon a digital rights management patent. PMC is a patent-licensing company which currently has more than 100 issued patents and pending applications. The company only licenses [...]
In 2006 as the Human Rights Council was being set up, I wrote an opinion piece on this website in which I shared, among other aspects, my impressions as to how the Council would shape up. Experience thus far produced mixed assessment. The transition from the Commission to the Council took a couple of years, [...]
Controlling Nuclear Risks: A Basic Obligation of U.S, Law and Policy
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, [...]
I. Introduction Much of U.S. governance is held together by goodwill, unwritten norms, and the ideals that “that would never happen” and “no one would ever do that.” Every hope of continued reliance on these norms was “shattered” on January 6, 2021, when armed insurrectionists invaded the U.S. Capitol. Under the direction of the President, [...]
What If Trump's Electoral Defeat Coincides with a Nuclear Crisis?
“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 [...]
On July 15, 2020, the New Jersey Supreme Court released an Order declaring that the Bar Exam would be administered online. This would be the first time the NJ Bar exam was ever administered online. The move to online seems like a good idea amid a global pandemic killing Americans at an exorbitant rate; however, [...]
The CFPB Needs an Effective Whistleblower Program to Oversee Payday Lending
Regulators need to know what happens out in the world to understand and to oversee the industries under their supervision. Information flow may be a particular challenge for overseeing payday lending. At present, most states do not have database systems to track payday lending operations. Even when states do have database systems, federal regulators may [...]
A Mexican judge issued an arrest warrant for Tomas Zerón, the former head of investigations for the Attorney General’s Office, and five other former officials on Wednesday for alleged violations in the investigation of the case of 43 college students who disappeared in 2014. In 2014, 43 college students were seized by police in southern [...]
