Search Results for: 2017-08-31

The Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday declined to hear the appeal of a school that was found to be discriminating against its Muslim students by denying them access to prayer space. Webber Academy, a private school in Calgary, prohibited two Muslim students from publicly praying on campus, claiming that providing prayer space violated the school’s secular [...]

The plight of women’s rights in various countries reflects a complex interplay of legal, cultural and societal norms that significantly disenfranchise women and girls, threatening their human rights and dignity. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Pakistan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, and Nigeria present challenging environments where women’s rights [...]

The current conflict engulfing Israel and Palestine raises significant issues of international law and policy. This is part one in an anticipated two-part series that will discuss some of the relevant legal questions before the International Criminal Court (ICC; Part I) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ; Part II).  With both courts located in [...]

“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 [...]

“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 [...]

Twelve environmental groups Tuesday joined to sue the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and EPA Administrator Michael Regan over pollution guidelines set forth earlier this year. The groups alleged that the EPA’s Effluent Guidelines Program Plan 15 (Plan 15), issued in January 2023, failed to tighten limits on the release of toxins in wastewater from industrial [...]

Within the past 12 months, Jacinda Ardern has resigned as New Zealand’s prime minister, former Australian PM Julia Gillard’s famous “misogyny speech” celebrated its tenth anniversary, and the high-profile retrial against Australian Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann for the alleged rape of colleague Brittany Higgins was dropped for posing a “significant and unacceptable risk” to [...]

Following months of protests over rapidly rising inflation rates and economic turmoil in Sri Lanka, the government has imposed a series of repressive measures against its people. Officials were banned from expressing their own concerns about Sri Lanka’s beleaguered economy via social media platforms. Certain neighborhoods were subject to heightened security requirements which included an [...]

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 [...]

“Where there is no Common Power, there is no Law….” Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapter XIII The “State of Nature” as “State of War” From its modern beginnings in the seventeenth century – more precisely, since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 – international law has presumed firm distinctions between “national interest” and “world interest.” Rather [...]