The 2024 US presidential election will be historic on several fronts. It will be the first rematch between presidential candidates since Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower faced down Democrat Adlai Stevenson in 1956. At 81 and 77 respectively, incumbent candidate Joe Biden and his adversary Donald Trump are the oldest major party frontrunners in the history [...]
Search Results for: 2016-08-26
Donald Trump loses motions to delay start of New York falsified documents trial
A New York appellate court denied an effort by former US President Donald Trump on Monday to delay the start of his upcoming falsified documents criminal case. The New York Times reported earlier on Monday that Trump filed several challenges against Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the falsified documents trial. With the appellate court’s [...]
Donald Trump's Immunity Argument From the Standpoint of International Law
The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal (1950) (Principle [...]
Under President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s leadership, the Sri Lankan civil war reached a brutal conclusion on May 18, 2009, ending a 25-year-long conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist rebel group. Rooted in longstanding grievances, including discriminatory policies against Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, the conflict saw the [...]
Trump's Wrongful Pardons for Crimes Against International Law
“So far from it being unjust to punish him, it would be unjust if his wrongs were allowed to go unpunished.” Nuremberg Tribunal (1946) At the beginning of 2024, former President Donald J. Trump’s most conspicuously unsupportable legal claim has been his personal immunity from criminal prosecution. With this claim, Mr. Trump and his lead [...]
A California federal grand jury indicted Hunter Biden, the son of US President Joe Biden, on Thursday on nine new federal criminal tax charges. The new charges join the two previous charges filed against him in a federal court in Delaware. Biden now faces 11 charges in total—three felonies and eight misdemeanors. The indictment concerns [...]
Facing Trump II: America's Urgent Obligation to Rethink Nuclear Command Authority
“The man who laughs has simply not yet heard the horrible news.” Berthold Brecht An Existential Task Until the end of his presidency – and even after his open complicity in subverting the United States Constitution on January 6, 2021 – Donald J. Trump held effectively unchecked nuclear command authority. Now, after multiple criminal [...]
Joshua Villanueva is a JURIST Assistant Editor and a 2L at UC Law San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings), He files this dispatch from San Francisco. Beginning this weekend, world leaders will gather in San Francisco for the 2023 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Week, the largest international event this vibrant city will have witnessed since [...]
The Enduring Consequences of Trump’s Pardons for Crimes Against International Law
“Each state is expected, perpetually, to aid and enforce the law of nations, as part of the common law, by inflicting an adequate punishment upon the offenses against that universal law.” William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law of England (Book 4) After January 6, 2021, it was disclosed by the special investigating committee of the [...]
Israel, Counter-Terrorism, and International Law: The Analytic Challenges of 'System'
“The existence of `system’ in the world is obvious to every observer of nature, no matter whom.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (1959) Whether conspicuous or obscure, terrorism generally presents itself as a systemic challenge. This means, inter alia, that seemingly singular strategic and legal matters may actually be many-sided and interrelated. Regarding legal issues, though [...]