Marisa Wright is a US National Correspondent for JURIST, and a 2L at Harvard Law School. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next Monday in a case that could have major implications for racial equality and college admissions. The case, Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, [...]
Search Results for: 2016-02-05
Human Rights Watch (HRW) Tuesday published a call for India to end its controversial sedition law. The sedition law is a statute from the colonial era when India was controlled by the United Kingdom. According to HRW, the law “remains a powerful tool used by the authorities to criminalise dissent and arrest peaceful critics of [...]
USA and India on Abortion Rights: Falling on Opposite Ends of the Spectrum
While abortion has been a hotbed of controversy in America for decades, many states, especially those governed by conservatives, have lately expressed interest or have introduced bills and laws to significantly restrict abortion. The recent highlight is the draft of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization’s judgment by the US Supreme Court leaked by Politico. [...]
Lauren Ban is a rising 2L at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and JURIST’s US Bureau Chief. Pennsylvania is less than 24 hours out from primary elections—and there are some major issues on the line right here on JURIST’s doorstep that have attracted national and even international attention. Pennsylvania primaries are a complicated [...]
In his epochal, controversial and highly polarizing essay, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is To Increase Its Profits,” published in the New York Times Magazine some 70 years ago, Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman argued against the social responsibility of businesses, and explicitly declared that “the business of business is business.” The shareholder value theory of the [...]
Canada dispatch: making sense of the flags and symbols at the Ottawa protest
Law students from the University of Ottawa are filing dispatches for JURIST on the “Freedom Convoy” protest in Canada’s capital that has paralyzed the city for some three weeks. Here, 1L Mélanie Cantin reports. The Confederate flag and Nazi swastika were spotted on the first weekend the Freedom Convoy arrived in Ottawa, but casual onlookers [...]
Qatar imposes extrajudicial travel bans on former government employees
Human Rights Watch (HRW) announced Monday that Qatar had imposed travel bans on four prominent Qatari citizens without a clear legal basis. The men reported to HRW that security authorities were applying the travel bans outside of legal procedure and in apparent defiance of court orders. Qatar’s state security apparatus holds extensive powers under the [...]
Natural Law and the United States Constitution: Still Vital Connections
Abstract: Ideas of Natural Law were crucial in drafting the US Constitution. These seminal ideas were made known to document “framers” largely by way of William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. The Commentaries represent the truest philosophic origins of America’s legal system. In these dissembling times of recurrent political manipulation, Blackstone’s work warrants [...]
UN rights body condemns Spain for arbitrary trials of former judge Baltasar Garzon
The UN Human Rights Committee ruled Thursday that the proceedings against former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon in the Franco and Gurtel cases were arbitrary. It also observed that the two trials violated the principles of impartiality and judicial independence. In 2010, Spain’s General Council of the Judiciary suspended investigating judge Baltasar Garzon in furtherance of [...]
I am a Democrat and a strong admirer and supporter of President Biden. I think his administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress have achieved some striking successes so far. But my deeper loyalty, as a citizen and scholar, is to the constitutional system that has made America a great national experiment for almost 250 [...]