At the beginning of the pestilence and when it ends, there’s always a propensity for rhetoric. … It is only in the thick of a calamity that one gets hardened to the truth, to silence. —Albert Camus, The Plague World system chaos is not emerging ex nihilo, out of nothing. There have been conspicuous warnings. [...]
It was a late September afternoon when I spotted a pair of beautiful earrings on Instagram. Curious, I followed the account’s links to an online shop. Alongside the other items, they offered curated gift packages. When I messaged them, I learned the owner was a young woman. The shop owner, Diana (a pseudonym), responded with [...]
It is Thanksgiving Day. The aroma of turkey; of dressing; candied sweet potatoes; green bean casserole; cranberry sauce; freshly baked yeast rolls; giblet gravy, and of pies emanating from the kitchen fills our nostrils. Home is the place to be today. But have you ever given thought to the law of the gobbler? This Day in [...]
Once again, the US is politically meddling with the conflict in Ukraine. The back-and-forth of Washington’s destabilizing efforts to bring “peace” to the country is a blatant attempt to secure the Nobel Peace Prize for President Donald Trump, whose proposed 28‑point “peace plan” for Ukraine is not a blueprint for stability but a capitulation to [...]
It has been almost two years now since my father and his wife fled from Haiti. Men and boys, armed with assault rifles, descended upon their home in the middle of the night and riddled it with bullets. Using machetes, they tormented my family, hacking away at my cousin’s neck and fatally injuring my father’s [...]
The United States’ decision to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council and, consequently, from this year’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) marks a worrying retreat from global human rights accountability. Although the announcement did not cite any specific reasons for the withdrawal, it reflects a deeper unwillingness to accept scrutiny under the same universal standards [...]
For the 70+ years of her reign, Queen Elizabeth II reportedly stuck to the adage of “never complain, never explain” when it came to addressing the public and the press. It remained a motto of true meaning, particularly when it came to initiating legal action against outside entities. In fact for many decades, the amount [...]
As the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group steams into the Caribbean and US forces intensify operations against alleged drug traffickers, the Trump administration appears to be signaling a more aggressive posture toward Venezuela. While the official justification centers on counter-narcotics enforcement, the scale and symbolism of deploying the world’s largest aircraft carrier suggest [...]
The Grand Chamber judgment delivered unanimously by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) July 9 in Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia represents a transformative moment in international human rights law. The ruling does far more than document Russia’s systematic violations from 11 May 2014 to 16 September 2022. It fundamentally recalibrates the ECHR’s [...]
Pakistan’s proposed Twenty-Seventh Constitutional Amendment (PCA), which is being hurried through Parliament, introduces sweeping changes to the country’s judicial and military structures. The amendment seeks to restructure the Supreme Court, establish a new Federal Constitutional Court, and redefine the hierarchy of the armed forces. Whether the PCA undermines judicial independence is a serious concern in [...]
