Armenia becomes 124th State Party to International Criminal Court
Armenia officially became the 124th State Party to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday after Ambassador Mher Margaryan deposited Armenia’s accession documents in a ceremony held at the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, where Margaryan presented the instrument of ratification to the Director of the Treaty Section. This ceremony is the conclusion of [...]
Why do coups d’état happen? Is it that bad leadership pushes people to their boiling points, compelling them to take matters into their own hands? Or is it a lack of adequate preventative laws? Do external factors play a role? And in Africa specifically, how much of an impact does history tend to have? Moreover, [...]
Interview: Columbia's Jeffrey Sachs on Russia, Ukraine, and International Justice
Economist and foreign policy expert Jeffrey Sachs, a best selling author and director of Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Development, has long argued that Russia’s hostility toward Ukraine was provoked by the U.S. vis-à-vis pushes for NATO expansion, military interventions, and other forms of meddling. In an interview with JURIST Assistant Editor Pitasanna Shanmugathas, Sachs [...]
Persuading the Taliban to Guarantee Education for Afghan Girls and Women
Since gaining power in August 2021, the Afghan Taliban, following a unique normative mixture of Pashtun culture and Islamic law, have closed universities, colleges, and secondary and primary schools to deny education to women and girls. In banning women from higher education, the Taliban education minister argued that female college students do not adhere to [...]
On 20 July 2022, a man who had recently lost a parliamentary election was appointed President of Sri Lanka. A closer look at what led to Ranil Wickramasinghe’s presidential reign highlights an array of Constitutional quirks that threaten to continue to undermine democracy in the island nation. Wickramasinghe was hoisted into the presidency after obtaining [...]
Convergence and Chaos: Intersecting Security Threats to the United States
“Everything is very simple in war, but even the simplest thing is difficult.” – Karl von Clausewitz, On War There is palpable wisdom in Clausewitz’s classic observation about war. Where this wisdom is understood in terms of current United States national security challenges, one overarching extrapolation comes immediately to the fore: It would be trouble enough [...]
A Comparative Understanding of "Lockdown" Frameworks in the Time of the Coronavirus Pandemic
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”, [...]
Labor Department proposes rule clarifying religious exemption from discriminatory hiring provisions
The US Department of Labor issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Wednesday that would implement a new rule clarifying federal contractors’ right to claim religious exemptions in cases of alleged hiring bias. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs’ new rule, titled Implementing Legal Requirements Regarding the Equal Opportunity Clause’s Religious Exemption, would clarify Section 204(c) [...]
The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday convicted Bosco Ntaganda, a notorious Congolese rebel commander known as “The Terminator,” of 18 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. These crimes were committed in Ituri, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), from 2002-2003. Ntaganda was found guilty of “murder and attempted murder, rape, sexual slavery, [...]
US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh underwent his third day of questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. The hearings began at approximately 9:30 Thursday morning. Senator Chuck Grassley of Nebraska began my stating that his staff worked until the early morning to accommodate numerous document requests, an issue that was prominent during the [...]
