Showing 1 - 10 of 11
The pros and cons of Trump's random foreign policy
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 20/03/2018
» Suppose President Donald Trump's foreign policy is random. I mean really random: Like random luck, designed only in so far as to fluctuate wildly between different, opposing strategic views.
War crimes justice slow in coming
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 04/12/2017
» The suicide of Croatian war criminal Slobodan Praljak in open court last week was bizarre -- mostly because it felt like something out of another century. Sure, Hermann Goering famously cheated the executioner at Nuremberg by swallowing cyanide. But Praljak wasn't going to be executed, no matter how many innocent civilians he was found guilty of killing. In the highly civilised, highly bureaucratic world of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the worst thing that can happen is a long jail sentence -- like the 20 years awarded to Praljak.
Clean power plan done and dusted
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 12/10/2017
» Several state attorneys general have announced they will sue to block the Environmental Protection Agency's rollback of former president Barack Obama's signature Clean Power Plan. Can they win? And should they? The answer to both questions is no, but not because of anything inherently wrong with the plan to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants. Although administrative decisions must be rational, they are permitted to reflect the president's political priorities and beliefs. Donald Trump won the election, and now he gets to impose his pro-coal environmental vision. That may be terrible for the earth, but it's good for democracy.
The fit deserve the right to serve
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 28/07/2017
» A ban on transgender people serving in the US military would probably be unconstitutional under any circumstances. But President Donald Trump has pretty much guaranteed that courts would strike down such a ban by announcing it on Wednesday on Twitter, without any real justification.
Trump's ignoble attack on judiciary
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 07/02/2017
» It's no surprise that President Donald Trump initiated a Twitter attack Saturday on federal judge James Robart for freezing the executive order on immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries. The ultimate fate of the order will depend on proceedings in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which denied the government's emergency request to reinstate the ban, and possibly even the US Supreme Court. But because judges issue rulings, not press releases, it's also up to civil society and the news media to defend the judge and the rule of law from the president's bluster.
Trump's self-destructive bravado
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 02/02/2017
» The Monday night massacre -- as President Donald Trump's firing of acting Attorney-General Sally Yates was inevitably called -- lacked the grand madness of Richard Nixon's famous firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox on Oct 20, 1973, which prompted the resignations of the attorney-general and the deputy attorney-general.
Detention of Muslims is a horror we cannot forget
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 20/01/2017
» Innocent men detained for months or years after the Sept 11 attacks on suspicion of being Muslim will get their day in the US Supreme Court on Wednesday. The odds don't look good. The court will probably dismiss their constitutional suit against the government officials who implemented the policies that arrested immigrants who had overstayed their visas and held them in abusive conditions until after they had been affirmatively proved innocent, and sometimes beyond.
The presidency can bend to fit Trump's personality
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 29/11/2016
» Donald Trump is inheriting a more powerful presidency than any of his predecessors. And if history is any guide, he will seek to expand the power of the office. But how will he do it? One clue lies in noticing how the personalities of the last two presidents were reflected in their techniques of expansion. Barack Obama's administration took a very different route to its expansion of executive authority than did George W Bush's -- and Mr Trump's will probably be different still.
Constitutional crisis a risk in the UK
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 30/06/2016
» The phrase "constitutional crisis" looms large over the aftermath of Britain's vote to leave the EU. The possibility of such a crisis has been invoked in connection with what would happen if the Scottish parliament refuses to approve Britain's withdrawal; what might happen if Britain's main parliament should ignore the results of the Brexit referendum; and the possible consequences of taking seriously the popular petition calling for a second vote on the basis of a new "rule" requiring a 60% approval and 75% turnout on EU-related matters.
Sex offenders shouldn't have a right to use Facebook
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 14/05/2016
» North Carolina bans registered sex offenders from Facebook. Unsurprisingly, a sex offender wants the Supreme Court to strike down the law. Perhaps more surprisingly, he has support from 16 notable professors of constitutional law -- from left, right and centre.