John Eastman has amassed a small army of support from conservative legal voices backing his bid for the Supreme Court to help him keep his law license.

Among the many amicus briefs urging the justices to grant review of Eastman’s petition are Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah. Sounding a similar note to briefs from other supporters, they told the justices that “[p]olitical activists have turned the bar disciplinary process into a weapon against lawyers on the disfavored side of public controversies.”

Whether that support from Cruz, Lee and others will help convince the justices to consider Eastman’s appeal remains to be seen. It takes four justices to grant review.

If the court grants review — we won’t find out for at least a few weeks — that wouldn’t necessarily mean that it will side with Eastman in the end. It would mean that the justices will consider doing so and will issue a ruling one way or the other after holding a hearing. The court denies most petitions.

The California authorities found that Eastman’s disbarment is needed “to protect the public, the courts, and the legal profession” following his misconduct in representing President Donald Trump and his 2020 campaign. The state bar waived its right to respond to Eastman’s petition, which could signal to the justices that the matter is not worth their time, a sign that the amicus briefs urging review are attempting to counteract.

This litigation is developing as an unrelated bar complaint was filed in California against Trump’s new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia, asking the state to investigate whether she violated California law by holding herself out as a lawyer despite apparently not being admitted to practice law.

Among Eastman’s backers are a pack of 17 current and former Trump lawyers and a coalition that includes a group called the Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Not all the amicus briefs are as partisan-aligned. A filing from law professors warned that disbarments based on political advocacy “are likely to arise again, both from the left and from the right.” The professors noted that Eastman’s case “also involves other allegations of impropriety, such as alleged false statements to courts,” which the academics said they weren’t weighing in on.

Eastman’s petition is currently set to be considered at one of the justices’ upcoming private conferences on Nov. 6. If the court doesn’t call for the state to respond to the petition, then that would all but guarantee that it will deny it.

If the court requests a response, that wouldn’t mean that it will grant Eastman’s petition, but that could prolong the review process. It only takes one interested justice to get the court to request a response. Like the secret vote tallies when the court grants review of petitions, the court does not publicize which justice or justices request responses; the public dockets reflect the actions as taken on behalf of the court.

Justice Clarence Thomas, for whom Eastman clerked, previously recused himself from an Eastman-related case. But the justice did not explain why, so it is unclear whether he will weigh in on this petition. If Thomas recuses himself from this one, too, then that could make it more difficult for his former clerk to attract enough votes for review.

The California bar court rejected Eastman against the backdrop of what the court called his “attempts to actively undermine the results of an election to the most powerful office in the United States with the goal of delaying or invalidating the lawful installation of his client’s electoral opponent and thereby keep his client in office.”

The bar court agreed that Eastman committed several instances of professional misconduct, including trying to mislead the courts, the public and Trump’s first-term vice president, Mike Pence, whom Trump tried to pressure to overturn his 2020 loss to former President Joe Biden through the vice president’s ceremonial role in presiding over the Senate’s certification of the election results.

“Eastman made numerous false claims to help accomplish the conspiracy’s shared objective: to have former Vice-President Pence run interference on the electoral vote count with the goal to have him reject or delay the counting of electoral votes on January 6, 2021,” the court said.

In an opinion affirming a hearing judge’s culpability findings, the court also agreed with the judge that Eastman was not culpable for one of the counts alleged by bar authorities due to a lack of evidence that his statements contributed to the assault and breach of the U.S. Capitol.

Eastman turned to the justices in Washington after the California Supreme Court made his disbarment official earlier this year. Announcing the filing of his high court petition, his lawyers said the case isn’t about relitigating the 2020 election but rather “whether a state can strip a lawyer of his license — and his livelihood — because government officials disagreed with the legal arguments he made on behalf of his client.”

They said that if it can happen to Eastman, then it can happen to any lawyer who takes on unpopular causes. They said Supreme Court review is needed “to remove the threat the decision below poses not just to the First Amendment but to the ability of attorneys fiercely to advocate for their clients without fear of politicized disbarment.”

Meanwhile, Eastman is continuing to work as a lawyer. He has filed briefs in several high-profile Supreme Court cases over the years, including in support of the Trump administration’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, which a divided court rejected in June.

Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.

The post Ted Cruz and Mike Lee want the Supreme Court to hear John Eastman’s appeal appeared first on MS NOW.

According to The Washington Post, "The chairman of the Republican-led House Oversight Committee is investigating two D.C.-based activist groups over hosting what he called 'jury nullification training sessions,' claiming that their instructions given to potential jurors were an illegal attempt to subvert federal prosecutors."

The committee chair in question, Rep. James Comer (R–Ky.), has set his sights on the groups known as Free DC and Harriet's Wildest Dreams because they, in Comer's words, believe "that potential jurors should not make decisions impartially based on applying the law as instructed to the facts presented before them in the case, but based on their subjective, personal beliefs and activist agendas."

I hate to break it to Comer, but many prominent members of America's Founding generation would have agreed with those D.C. activists.

The debate over jury nullification asks whether there is a proper place in our legal system for a jury to acquit, not because of any lack of evidence of a defendant's guilt, but because the jury believes the underlying law that was supposedly broken, or the prosecutor's particular enforcement of that law, to be unconstitutional.

In 1791, the influential Founding Father James Wilson, who was a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, delivered a widely discussed lecture on law at the College of Philadelphia. "Whoever would be obliged to obey a constitutional law, is justified in refusing to obey an unconstitutional act of the legislature," Wilson said. "When a question, even of this delicate nature, occurs, every one who is called to act, has a right to judge." Needless to say, jurors are among those "called to act" in this very manner. Jurors therefore have their own "right to judge" the constitutionality of the law (and prosecution) before them.

Thomas Jefferson made a similar point in a 1789 letter to Thomas Paine. "The trial by jury," Jefferson wrote, is "the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." How else may a jury hold the government accountable to the principles of the Constitution than by judging for itself the constitutionality of the government's actions, including the actions of the police and prosecution?

According to Comer, the job of a juror is mechanically "applying the law as instructed to the facts presented before them in the case."

But that's not what Founding Fathers such as Wilson and Jefferson thought. They argued that the job of the juror was to apply the text of the Constitution to the actions of the government and to acquit the defendant if either the law or its enforcement came up short. As Alexis de Tocqueville put it in his great book, Democracy in America, the jury "places the real direction of society in the hands of the governed, or a portion of the governed, and not in that of the government."

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In Other Legal News

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in two cases that are worth keeping track of.

• On Tuesday, the justices weighed the matter of Beaird v. United States, which asks how much judicial deference is owed to the U.S. Sentencing Commission's commentary on the federal sentencing guidelines when a judge is applying those guidelines during a federal criminal defendant's sentencing. You can read this newsletter's past coverage of that case here.
• On Wednesday, the justices took on the matter of Salazar v. Paramount Global, which asks whether the website 247Sports violated the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 when it shared a user's private information, including what videos he watched, with Facebook. Past Injustice System coverage of that case is available here.

The post Jury Nullification Is Not a Crime appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Thanks to a 2005 DUI conviction in Pennsylvania, Edward Williams permanently lost the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. But he did not realize that until a decade later, and his confusion on that point is understandable.

The federal law that stripped Williams of his Second Amendment rights is commonly described as applying to "felons," and Williams' offense was a misdemeanor. But although his sentence did not include any time behind bars, his crime theoretically could have sent him to prison for up to five years. That was enough to trigger 18 USC 922(g)(1), which covers anyone convicted of "a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year."

When a lawyer alerted Williams to that wrinkle, which made his continued ownership of firearms a federal felony, he got rid of his guns. But he did not think that requirement was fair, reasonable, or constitutional, and this week a federal appeals court agreed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit recognized a historical tradition of disarming "physically dangerous individuals" whose possession of firearms would pose a threat to public safety. But it said Williams plainly does not fit into that category.

"The federal government spent nearly a decade trying to permanently disarm a peaceable man over a nonviolent misdemeanor—and it lost bigly," says Brandon Combs, president of the Firearms Policy Coalition, which supported Williams' lawsuit. "The government does not get to turn a nonviolent conviction into a lifetime ban on exercising a constitutionally protected right."

The 3rd Circuit's en banc decision in Williams v. Attorney General affirms a 2023 ruling by a federal judge who likewise concluded that disarming Williams was unconstitutional. It elaborates on the logic of Range v. Attorney General, a 2023 decision that restored the gun rights of a Pennsylvania man who had been convicted of food stamp fraud. In both cases, the 3rd Circuit held that applying Section 922(g)(1) to the plaintiffs was not "consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation"—the Second Amendment test established by the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Writing for the majority in Williams' case, 3rd Circuit Judge Paul Matey acknowledges that the Supreme Court has described "longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons" as "presumptively lawful." But "those longstanding customs restricted the violently dangerous (within which some felons would be included), not felons writ large," he says. "Felons were restricted because they posed a physical danger, rather than for their offense of conviction."

Matey argues that "focusing on physical dangerousness corrects the erroneous argument" that "only law-abiding and responsible citizens can exercise the rights protected by the Second Amendment"—a claim that the Supreme Court rejected in the 2024 case United States v. Rahimi. "We find no history that supports disarming irresponsible people, where 'responsible' is defined by the whim of the sovereign or the will of the majority," he says, alluding to the danger of allowing legislators to whittle away at the Second Amendment by criminalizing an ever-widening range of conduct.

Matey emphasizes "the novelty of forever restricting all felons from possessing firearms for lawful purposes." The original restriction, which Congress approved in 1938 as part of the Federal Firearms Act, applied only to violent crimes such as murder, manslaughter, rape, kidnapping, robbery, and assault with a deadly weapon. In 1961, Congress expanded the ban to cover nonviolent crimes punishable by more than a year in prison.

Williams' 2005 DUI conviction qualified for two reasons. He had a prior DUI conviction, stemming from a 2000 arrest in State College. And when he was arrested again in Philadelphia four years later, his blood alcohol concentration was a whopping 0.223 percent. That made his second offense a first-degree misdemeanor, which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

Since then, Williams has stayed out of trouble. "He has done nothing violent, let alone dangerous, for over twenty years, and has held steady employment at the same job for over three decades," Matey notes. Williams drinks only occasionally, and a psychological evaluation found he "has a normal personality, without psychopathology and without addiction or violent tendencies."

The Justice Department nevertheless argued that Williams' continuing disarmament is consistent with the Bruen test, which requires historical analogs that are "relevantly similar" in motivation and scope. In making that case, the government relied mainly on early laws aimed at "habitual drunkards"—the same analogy that the Supreme Court unanimously rejected last June in United States v. Hemani, which involved the federal ban on gun possession by "unlawful" drug users.

Although the Justice Department "acknowledges it may proscribe Williams's possession of firearms only if he 'presently poses a physical danger if armed,'" Matey says, it "offers no evidence to establish this as the aim of the habitual drunkard laws." Those laws, the Supreme Court noted in Hemani, "did not seek to protect the public from violence so much as to protect habitual drunkards from themselves and their families from financial devastation."

Nor did the habitual drunkard laws permanently disarm people, as Section 922(g)(1) does. "Most statutes capped the commitment of habitual drunkards to the state inebriate asylum, prison, or hard labor to a few months or years," Matey notes. "Others provided for an indefinite period of incarceration, but had no indication that upon release individuals continued to forfeit their arms. Rather, once someone was 'safe' to 'go at large,' they were restored to the status of a full rights-bearing citizen."

Contrary to the considerations that the Supreme Court deemed relevant in Hemani, Matey says, the Justice Department "fails to show that Williams threatens to 'misuse[] a gun while intoxicated,' or that he 'poses a danger to himself or others as a result' of
alcohol abuse. In fact, much like those nineteenth-century drunkards released from custody and restored their rights, the record shows that Williams poses no present physical danger from the use of a firearm, or anything else."

The 3rd Circuit is one of three federal appeals courts that have allowed people with nonviolent felony records to argue that Section 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional as applied to them. But such challenges have been blocked in six circuits, notwithstanding compelling historical evidence that the law reaches much farther than the Second Amendment allows. So far, the Supreme Court has declined to accept any of the many petitions asking it to resolve that circuit split.

The post The 3rd Circuit Upholds the Gun Rights of a Man Who Committed a Nonviolent Misdemeanor 2 Decades Ago appeared first on Reason Magazine.

When a president starts with a predetermined policy and then goes looking for a statutory pretext to justify it, he is building on shaky ground. President Donald Trump illustrated that point once again in July, when he announced a third round of broad tariffs after his first two attempts ran into legal trouble.

Shortly after taking office in 2025, Trump claimed to have discovered a previously unnoticed delegation of extensive tariff authority in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law that does not mention import taxes and had never been used to impose them. That claim was rejected by every court that considered it.

Last February, the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs at all. But Trump had a backup plan: Hours after that decision, he announced another sweeping set of tariffs, this time relying on Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.

That provision allows tariffs in response to "fundamental international payments problems" caused by "serious United States balance-of-payments deficits." In May, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled that the new tariffs were illegal because Trump had failed to "identify balance-of-payments deficits within the meaning of Section 122."

Although that decision was stayed pending appeal, Trump's Section 122 tariffs, which were subject to a 150-day statutory limit, expired on July 24. Trump then switched to Plan C, invoking Section 301 of the Trade Act, which authorizes tariffs in response to a foreign "act, policy, or practice" that is "unreasonable or discriminatory" and "burdens or restricts" U.S. commerce.

Trump's Section 301 tariffs supposedly targeted countries that had failed to "impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor." The alleged offenders included 86 economies that accounted for nearly all U.S. imports.

In separate complaints, the Liberty Justice Center (LJC) and the law firm Akin Gump, which had played leading roles in challenging Trump's prior tariffs, immediately asked the CIT to block the new import taxes. By and large, they noted, the government had failed to explain how the targeted countries had fallen short, how their alleged failures burdened U.S. commerce, or why the new tariffs could be expected to ameliorate the problem they were supposed to address.

The LJC argued that the forced-labor issue was "simply a pretext" for reinstating Trump's "invalidated global tariff regime." It added that Trump's reading of Section 301, like his interpretation of IEEPA, would violate the "major questions" doctrine, which requires clear congressional authorization for policies of "vast economic and political significance."

This was Trump's "third attempt" to "impose essentially the same set of sweeping global tariffs," Akin Gump's lawyers wrote. "The third time's not the charm."

The post Trump Keeps Coming Up With Legally Dubious Tariff Justifications appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Shehadeh Abu Alqian stole rifle from soldier he later passed to Mujahideen Brigades, which abducted Shiri Bibas and her two young sons on October 7, 2023; they were murdered in captivity

A federal court imposed a 14-day restraining order over allegations that the administration misused public funds for political advertising ahead of midterm elections.

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A federal judge in New York has blocked the Trump administration from entering into, renewing or expanding contracts for a controversial advertising campaign, freezing $20 million in funding allocated through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) amid allegations that public money was being used for partisan political messaging.

RELATED: Trump Demands Leadership Change in Ukraine Amid Zelensky Rift

U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rochon of the Southern District of New York issued a 14-day temporary restraining order on Sunday, citing the risk of “irreparable harm” before publishing her full legal reasoning. The ruling came just over three weeks before the midterm elections.

The lawsuit was filed by a coalition of civic organizations, including the nonpartisan group Common Cause, represented by the legal firm Democracy Forward. The plaintiffs argued that the campaign violated federal restrictions on using funds appropriated by Congress for partisan advertising or propaganda.

“There is no legal justification or precedent for the president to use the machinery of government and public funds to influence election results,” the plaintiffs said in a statement following the ruling.

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The advertisements, which began airing in late September, feature footage from Donald Trump’s previous presidential campaign, excerpts from speeches warning of the threat of communism and references to recent military operations, including U.S. military action against Iran and the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The Justice Department argued late Saturday that the court order was unnecessary because the advertising campaign was scheduled to end on Sunday. The judge nevertheless imposed the restrictions.

The White House has defended the spending, describing the advertisements as “public service and educational messages” and rejecting allegations that they constitute electoral propaganda. Trump has maintained that the campaign promotes the United States rather than himself, noting that he is not a candidate in the midterm elections.

The president has also offered to cover the cost with personal funds or money from his political campaign if authorities determine that the expenditure was improper. Government officials, however, have said there are no immediate plans for reimbursement.

The controversy has drawn criticism across party lines. Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune has questioned the use of taxpayer money to finance the advertisements, while the Democratic National Committee has filed separate lawsuits against the administration over the same issue.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted emergency relief for the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission in a dispute over political broadcast advertising rates ahead of the midterms.

Over dissent from Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, it’s the second time in as many months that the high court has acted on the matter after backing Republicans in an earlier round as well.

At the heart of the litigation is the question of whether federal law only gives candidates themselves certain favorable rates, or whether political parties and joint fundraising committees with noncandidate members can also benefit. The FCC and GOP groups have argued for the latter interpretation, which stands to benefit them politically because Democratic candidates generally raise more money than their committees, and vice versa for Republicans.

Last month, the justices said that a federal appeals court lacked jurisdiction when it sided with four Democratic congressional candidates: Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan, former Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and former Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina. Jackson dissented from that ruling.

The Democrats then brought another challenge to force the merits of the issue. A divided panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit sided with them again, accusing the FCC of “gamesmanship” ahead of the midterms.

“If allowed to continue dragging its feet, the FCC will have evaded meaningful judicial review of its newly created rule,” Judges Robert King and James Wynn wrote Oct. 7. The majority gave the FCC a 12 p.m. ET deadline on Oct. 9 to resolve the candidates’ application to review their challenge to the agency’s interpretation.

GOP-appointed Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III dissented from the Democratic-appointed majority’s order, calling it “a direct affront” to the high court’s prior ruling that favored Republicans.

The administration leaned on Wilkinson’s dissent when it turned back to the Supreme Court, seeking to halt the appellate order and Oct. 9 deadline. Chief Justice John Roberts, who fields emergency requests from the 4th Circuit, granted the agency temporary relief pending further word from the court.

In their opposition to the FCC, the Democrats said the agency was engaging in “blatant procedural trench warfare to stave off judicial review of an unlawful agency directive until it is too late to matter.” They told the justices that they’re “up for election in just over three weeks” and are “experiencing exactly the deluge of party spending at the candidate rate that Republican Party committees promised to unleash to ‘obliterate’ them in response to the challenged agency directive.”

The national GOP senatorial and congressional committees brought a parallel Supreme Court challenge to the 4th Circuit order, which the Democrats likewise opposed.

The full Supreme Court weighed in on Wednesday, backing the administration in an unsigned opinion that said the appeals court improperly tried to force the FCC to act on that deadline.

“The Communications Act requires the Commission to act on every application it receives, but it does not obligate the Commission to act within a particular timeframe,” the court said over noted dissent from two of the court’s three Democratic-appointed justices, Sotomayor and Jackson. The pair did not explain their reasoning for dissenting.

The majority said it would be wrong to make the agency “triage its ongoing deliberation process and prepare a final order on an extremely expedited timeline.”

Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.

The post Supreme Court backs GOP again on political advertising rates ahead of midterms appeared first on MS NOW.

Protesters shouted at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other military leaders on Wednesday as they spoke at a panel on drones during the U.S. Army's annual conference in Washington.

Imagine getting a bill from your local government for $900,000 because they see a greenhouse on your property and just assume you're growing marijuana without a permit.

Imagine government demanding $400,000 because you didn't know to fill out a single-page form.

Or you get slapped with a $100,000 fine for parking your car on your own property.

It sounds absurd, but as my newest video shows, that's really happening.

How can that be? Doesn't America's Constitution say government may not impose "excessive fines"?

It happens because some bureaucrats, savoring their power, act like tyrants.

At least now there is hope for a remedy. One of these excessive fine cases has reached the Supreme Court.

Ken Jouppi worked as a pilot in Alaska for 30 years, until one day, state troopers stopped his plane before takeoff.

"I didn't think we had anything to hide," he says. "They searched the airplane, opened up this lady's boxes of groceries and found beer."

Transporting beer. That was his crime.

"Isn't beer legal in America?" I ask Jouppi's lawyer, Mike Greenberg.

"In most places," he replies. But some towns in Alaska ban beer.

Jouppi was convicted of bootlegging.

Every pilot must know which town has what rule, and search everybody?

"They think pilots should search people's luggage," says Jouppi. "It was such a terrible thing to do to another individual, invade their privacy, and assault their dignity….I just didn't feel right about doing that."

Alaskan officials say the beer was visible, so Jouppi should have known about it. They jailed him for three days and seized his plane.

"That airplane was my primary source of income," says Jouppi. "Without it, I didn't have a business anymore."

I assumed such excessive punishment would be dismissed quickly by a court. But it wasn't.

"Jouppi has been fighting to keep his plane for 14 years," says Greenberg. "The plane is still sitting on a tarmac….It's a ludicrous situation where the state has every interest in going after valuable assets rather than actually fighting supposed harms of alcohol."

Greenberg's law firm, the Institute for Justice, took Jouppi's case, and now the U.S. Supreme Court will hear it.

I hope he wins. It's just wrong when governments destroy lives for small mistakes.

They're also doing that to Tuncay Saydam, a retired professor.

The IRS demands he pay $400,000 because he didn't know to fill out a one-page form about an old bank account in his native Turkey.

"The fines," says Saydam, "will destroy my life….We have never been rich."

His unpaid tax is less than $30,000. But the IRS demands he pay them more than $400,000. A California court upheld that penalty. Northern Californian Chief Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu wrote, "Government suffered a significant tax loss."

Finally, bureaucrats in Humboldt County, California, took aerial photos of people's property to search for unlicensed marijuana farms.

When they saw greenhouses, they fined property owners.

Blu Graham was fined $900,000, "$30,000 a day, when all I've ever done is grow vegetables in my greenhouses."

"There actually was no marijuana on the property!" says Greenberg. "They were just guessing that if you built a greenhouse, this must be connected to marijuana."

Finally, a lawsuit got the county to promise to end its ruinous fine system.

But it took four years.

Why do governments fight to keep outrageous fines that punish largely innocent people?

"Unlike other forms of punishment," says Greenberg, "fines make the government money. The prosecutor's office, state troopers, they get to keep the proceeds. It's an abusive system because they have every incentive to continue to prosecute."

I invited the heavy-fining judges and government lawyers to appear in my video to explain these fines. None would agree to talk about it.

Bureaucrats always want more money. It's a reason the Constitution prohibits excessive fines.

I trust that the Supreme Court will put a stop to these abuses.

COPYRIGHT 2026 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

The post How Local Governments Turn Minor Violations Into Financial Ruin appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Back in 1983, the Supreme Court declared that "a person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another." That increasingly doubtful proposition underpins a nationwide network of more than 144,000 AI-assisted cameras that track the travels of innocent motorists across the country billions of times each week.

So far, state and federal courts have almost uniformly rejected constitutional challenges to automated license plate readers (ALPRs) installed by companies such as Flock Safety. But in a decision that could signal a shift in the legal treatment of Flock cameras, a federal judge in Oklahoma recently recognized that they enable "a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance."

ALPRs are much more sophisticated than the technology that the Supreme Court considered in 1983, when it approved the warrantless use of a radio transmitter that helped police tail a suspected methamphetamine manufacturer's car. Three decades later, by contrast, the Court said police should have obtained a search warrant before attaching a GPS tracker to another drug suspect's car.

The majority opinion in the latter case emphasized the physical intrusion necessary to install the tracker. But five justices embraced an alternative rationale, saying GPS tracking impinges on reasonable expectations of privacy by revealing potentially sensitive information about the target's historical whereabouts.

That theory came to the fore in a 2018 case involving mobile-phone location data collected by cell sites, which the majority said implicated the Fourth Amendment because "individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements." The Supreme Court reiterated that principle this year, extending it to data collected by Google's Location History feature.

"An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone's location," Justice Elena Kagan said in the majority opinion, "and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information." By similar logic, U.S. District Judge Sara E. Hill concluded this month in the Oklahoma case, people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in ALPR records, and police therefore generally need a warrant to search them.

Those databases include "information about all vehicles that pass by any network-connected camera at all times," which police can peruse "on demand," Hill noted. "Freedom from persistent, dragnet-style surveillance while in public is not a foreign concept in our society, and it is a reasonable expectation that society already accepts," as reflected in the Supreme Court's cellphone decisions.

Like cars, cellphones "move in public places where people can see you in plain view," Hill wrote. "But it becomes constitutionally problematic when law enforcement can indiscriminately and passively catalog your whereabouts over an extended period of time and then use that information for any purpose whenever convenient."

At this point, Hill's decision is an outlier. "It appears that nearly every court examining the issue to date has determined that ALPR technology use is not a search under the Fourth Amendment because people have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their movements on public streets," she noted.

Last month, for instance, a federal judge in California held that ALPR database searches are "clearly distinguishable from and less extensive than the 'near perfect surveillance' achievable" with cell-site or Location History data. And the day after Hill's ruling, a state judge in California rejected a challenge to San Jose's Flock camera network, saying "there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in license plate data collected from cameras directed solely at public streets."

A federal lawsuit involving the same city's ALPR system, which the Institute for Justice filed last April, is still pending. So are challenges to Flock cameras in cities such as Wichita, Kansas, and Norfolk, Virginia.

Even when they reject such lawsuits, courts commonly acknowledge that the legal picture could change as the number and capabilities of ALPRs multiply. If so, it seems likely that Hill will eventually be joined by other judges who recognize the perils of "indiscriminate mass surveillance."

© Copyright 2026 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

The post Other Courts Should Heed a Federal Judge's Warning About Flock-Enabled Mass Surveillance appeared first on Reason Magazine.

The high court said Tuesday it will hear arguments on whether Izuchukwu Ozurumba's cooking job for leaders of the Unknown Gunmen qualifies as providing "material support" for a terrorist group.

The Trump administration argues that DOGE is exempt from FOIA's requirements as a presidential advisory body.

Sacrifice the inconvenient, never the project. “Pal-washing” in action.

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A familiar script

On 9 October 2026, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to Navanethem Pillay, an 85-year-old South African jurist, former judge at the International Criminal Court and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The citation speaks of a person who has paved the way for a more comprehensive global legal order. The Committee’s chair, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, added that the prize is a message to those who attack and undermine the international system and its institutions. The verdict is avowedly political, and it is on this level that it must be discussed.

The very same figure who, in 2011, is said to have ‘toppled’ Gaddafi, paving the way for the plundering of Libyan oil and the enslavement of African migrants, would now ‘topple’ Netanyahu, thereby paving the way for Israel’s rehabilitation. The underlying logic would be neither morality nor peace, but the agenda of George Soros’s Open Society: to sacrifice those who have become inconvenient, never the essence of the project itself. Some have dubbed it ‘pal-washing’. The fundamental question is a serious one, for it asks whether there is a pattern behind the prizes and jurisdictions of the liberal order.

It must be emphasised that the script is already familiar. Do you remember when Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize, whilst launching war after war? Or do you recall figures in search of a cause such as Machado, Mohammadi, or the defenders of Ukrainian criminals? But let us proceed in order.

Act One: Libya

In February 2011, Pillay, the High Commissioner, called on the Human Rights Council to take vigorous action to stop the violence and hold those responsible to account; the Council condemned the violations and established a commission of inquiry. The next step fell to the Security Council: referral to the ICC via Resolution 1970, followed by Resolution 1973, approved with ten votes in favour and five abstentions (Brazil, China, Germany, India, Russia). No one claims that Pillay decided to go to war. What matters is the sequence of events: the language of human rights opened the door, that of the protection of civilians authorised the use of force, and the operation gradually shifted towards regime change. As early as April, Lavrov was accusing NATO of exceeding its mandate, and a French minister admitted that regime change would have required a new vote.

Then there are the costs. In 2017, the IOM documented auctions of sub-Saharan migrants in southern Libya, sold for sums ranging from 200 to 500 dollars. The link with the collapse of the state after 2011 is the most plausible interpretation, although the source documents the phenomenon rather than its cause. Libya and the migrants paid the price; the legal framework emerged, formally speaking, intact, even if the controversy over the mandate would later weigh on the vetoes of Moscow and Beijing in other matters.

Act Two: Bibi

On 21 November 2024, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Pillay had left the Court in 2008, but chaired the UN Commission of Inquiry which, on 16 September 2025, concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. This is where ‘pal-washing’ comes into play. International criminal law deals with individuals: a defendant, a charge, a period of time. If the case concludes with the fate of a leader, a narrative break occurs – the ‘before’ and ‘after’ of a man – after which the state can present itself as restored. Libya offers an analogy: there, the case concluded with the fall of a man.

The limitations of the process work in favour of this interpretation. The Court has no police force and the execution of warrants depends on the States Parties; the Commission is not a court and does not speak on behalf of the entire UN; the Committee itself, according to AFP, has stated that it is up to a court to determine whether genocide has taken place. The award has no legal effect, as we know, but it lends legitimacy to a system that promises justice yet cannot guarantee it.

We must also bear in mind that we have already seen dynamics of this kind on numerous occasions within the globalist order that dominates the West. The Open Society Foundations presents itself as the world’s largest private funder of groups working for justice, democracy and human rights, active in over one hundred countries, and Pillay received the Stockholm Human Rights Award, the same prize that went to Soros and Neier in 2011. It certainly seems that the pattern of the Soros agenda is repeating itself once again – an agenda comprising foundations, NGOs, tribunals, commissions and bureaucracies that share a common lexicon and worldview: that of a liberal order to be perfected and never called into question. Those operating within that lexicon may denounce a government, a leader, or even a state, but they cannot challenge the underlying assumptions of the order that grants them legitimacy.

Some will object that Pillay’s Commission attributes responsibility to Israel as a state, not merely to its leaders, which contradicts the idea of a purely personalised operation. The second point concerns the reaction. Netanyahu accused the Committee of having lost its moral compass; the Israeli Foreign Ministry spoke of a grotesque exploitation of the prize; and Washington announced sanctions against the ICC just a few hours after the announcement. All true. But it would make sense and have value if the Western system were not rotten to its very core, if its legal system were functioning properly, but this is not the case, in any respect (and we have already seen sufficient evidence of this – let us not forget the Epstein case either).

If, over the next twelve months, Netanyahu’s political downfall is presented as the conclusion of the case, rather than as a stage in proceedings concerning the state, ‘Pal-washing’ will gain traction. If the proceedings continue beyond his person, and if the State Parties execute the warrants, perhaps it will lose ground. Given the current evidence, the argument is plausible and, until proven otherwise, this is yet another ‘Non-Peace’ Nobel Prize – one we cannot call ‘war’.

O Auditório Municipal Maria Barroso recebe, esta noite, a partir das 21h30, um concerto de Tiago Bettencourt.

O conteúdo Hoje há concertos dos Blind Zero e Tiago Bettencourt no Algarve aparece primeiro em Algarve Marafado.

Russia’s demands for the extradition of International Criminal Court judges and Washington’s sweeping sanctions against the institution have converged within days. The two governments have different grievances, but the consequences of their actions increasingly overlap, raising questions about the political relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and the future of international criminal justice.

Russia and the United States have intensified their campaigns against the International Criminal Court (ICC) almost simultaneously, exposing an increasingly consequential convergence between the policies of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

On 8 October, Moscow demanded the extradition of ICC President Tomoko Akane and eight other current and former officials. The following day, Washington announced sanctions against the court as an institution, extending earlier measures against individual judges and prosecutors.

The timing raises an obvious question: are these independent campaigns arising from different disputes with international justice, or do they reflect a broader political understanding between Washington and Moscow?

There is no publicly established evidence of a coordinated operation or an agreement between Trump and Putin to undermine the ICC. Nevertheless, the strategic consequences of their respective actions are remarkably similar. Both weaken an institution pursuing criminal proceedings against political leaders whom the two governments seek to protect.

Different grievances, overlapping interests

Russia’s hostility towards the ICC is directly connected to the arrest warrant issued against Putin in March 2023 over the alleged unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied territories.

The court subsequently issued warrants against senior Russian military commanders, including Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, over alleged crimes involving attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.

Moscow’s response has been to pursue ICC personnel through its own criminal justice system. The latest extradition demands follow convictions handed down in absentia by a Russian court in December 2025.

Washington’s confrontation with the ICC has a different immediate origin. The Trump administration objects to the court’s jurisdiction over American nationals and Israeli officials, particularly following the arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has presented the American campaign as a defence of US sovereignty. Yet the sanctions announced on 9 October are not confined to the Israeli proceedings or any investigation involving American personnel.

They target the institution itself, potentially disrupting financial transactions and commercial relationships essential to its operation. This distinction matters because a court-wide restriction necessarily affects investigations beyond those cited by Washington. That includes Ukraine.

The Anchorage question

The political context cannot be separated from the relationship between Trump and Putin, including their meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, in August 2025.

The summit formed part of Trump’s efforts to negotiate directly with Moscow over the war in Ukraine. The American president has repeatedly treated relations with Putin as a question of diplomatic bargaining, seeking arrangements that might produce an agreement where conventional Western pressure has failed.

Against this background, suggestions that pressure on the ICC might form part of a wider accommodation with Moscow warrant scrutiny. However, the proposition that Trump specifically offered Putin assistance in neutralising the court during their Anchorage discussions remains unsubstantiated. There is no verified public account establishing such a commitment.

A more defensible conclusion is that Washington’s independently declared campaign against the ICC also advances an important Russian interest. For Putin, the benefit is clear. Measures designed to restrict the court’s financial and administrative capacity could complicate investigations into Russian conduct, irrespective of the American administration’s stated intentions.

The relationship therefore need not involve explicit coordination to produce politically significant results.

Why sanctions against the institution matter

The escalation from targeting individual prosecutors to sanctioning the entire ICC represents a substantial change. Previous American measures imposed personal and financial restrictions on selected officials. The latest approach threatens the broader infrastructure upon which international criminal proceedings depend.

The court requires banking facilities, secure communications, technology services and commercial suppliers. American sanctions can reach beyond US territory because of the international financial system’s dependence on dollar transactions and American service providers.

The ICC had already anticipated this vulnerability. According to details disclosed in September, the institution has pursued alternatives to American software and financial services to reduce its exposure.

Nevertheless, operational continuity and investigative effectiveness are not necessarily the same thing. The court may remain formally functional while facing additional costs, delays and restrictions affecting prosecutors, investigators and international cooperation.

For Ukraine, this is particularly significant. The ICC holds and evaluates evidence connected to alleged Russian war crimes, including the deportation of children and attacks on civilian infrastructure. Its proceedings preserve a judicial process independent of whatever diplomatic settlement Washington and Moscow might eventually negotiate.

Weakening that capacity would not invalidate existing warrants or automatically destroy evidence, but it could make the pursuit of accountability more difficult.

Europe’s response and its limitations

The European Union now faces a dispute with Washington over an institution that European governments have spent decades supporting.

On 9 October, eight governments issued a joint statement, reaffirming their support for the ICC and rejecting the American sanctions. The signatories included Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Britain, Japan and Canada.

The European Commission also indicated that the EU was prepared to take measures necessary to preserve the court’s operations. Such assurances are politically important, but they do not automatically resolve the practical consequences of American restrictions.

European financial institutions and technology suppliers must consider their own exposure to US sanctions. Sustaining the court may require alternative payment arrangements, commercial protections and potentially further European regulatory intervention.

The EU has discussed extending its blocking statute to shield European operators from the effects of American sanctions. Whether that mechanism can provide sufficient protection remains uncertain.

The dispute also extends beyond the ICC’s current investigations. Ukraine and the Council of Europe are developing a separate Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression, designed to address jurisdictional limitations preventing the ICC from prosecuting Russia’s leadership for the decision to launch the invasion.

The two institutions have distinct legal mandates, although cooperation between them is envisaged. Undermining the ICC would not automatically prevent the special tribunal from operating, but it would weaken an important part of the wider international accountability framework.

A convergence with consequences for Ukraine

Washington and Moscow have not adopted identical positions towards the ICC. Russia seeks to discredit and punish the officials responsible for pursuing Putin. The Trump administration is attempting to restrict the court’s authority and operational capacity, principally in response to proceedings involving Americans and Israelis.

Yet their actions converge at precisely the point where the ICC’s independence becomes politically inconvenient. The distinction between motive and consequence is essential. It would be premature to describe the American sanctions as evidence of a secret bargain struck in Anchorage. It would be equally mistaken to overlook the assistance these measures could provide to Moscow.

The broader concern is that the United States, traditionally central to Western efforts to hold Russia accountable for its invasion of Ukraine, is now applying pressure to one of the principal institutions carrying out that work.

For European governments, the immediate question is no longer simply whether they support the International Criminal Court. It is whether they are prepared to protect its practical independence when the political and financial pressure comes not only from Russia, but also from Washington.

US President Donald Trump has accused the Norwegian Nobel Committee of discrediting the Peace Prize after it awarded the 2026 honour to South African jurist Navanethem Pillay, warning Norway that Washington would not forget the decision.

US President Donald Trump has launched an attack on Norway and the Nobel Peace Prize committee after being overlooked for the 2026 award, declaring that the decision had permanently damaged the prize’s credibility and left an indelible stain on the country responsible for selecting its recipient.

Speaking at a campaign rally on Friday, 9 October, Trump insisted that his diplomatic achievements entitled him to the distinction and accused the committee of allowing political ideology to determine its choice.

His remarks followed the announcement that South African lawyer and former United Nations human rights chief Navanethem “Navi” Pillay had received this year’s prize for her contribution to peace and international law.

“The United States of America, represented by me as your president, should have received the Nobel Peace Prize, but didn’t,” Trump told supporters.

He described the committee’s decision as disgraceful and embarrassing before issuing a pointed warning: “We will not forget, Norway.”

The American president went further, claiming that the award had been discredited by radical ideologues whom he characterised as opponents of democracy and civilisation. He also questioned Pillay’s qualifications, telling his audience that he had never heard of the South African jurist.

Nobel Committee Recognises International Justice

The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s announcement honoured Pillay’s contribution to peace and international law.

Born in Durban in 1941 under South Africa’s apartheid system, Pillay became a prominent human rights lawyer before serving as a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and subsequently at the International Criminal Court (ICC). She was also UN High Commissioner for Human Rights between 2008 and 2014.

Her judicial career included work on cases involving genocide and sexual violence during the Rwandan conflict. More recently, she chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. Israel rejected the commission’s findings.

The award comes at a contentious moment in Washington’s relations with international judicial institutions. On the same day as the Nobel announcement, the Trump administration introduced new sanctions against the ICC, expanding American restrictions and bringing Washington into conflict with European governments that support the institution.

Trump’s Claims of Diplomatic Success

Trump has repeatedly argued that his interventions in international disputes justify receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. During Friday’s rally, he claimed to have settled eight wars and suggested that he was approaching further breakthroughs involving Iran and Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Those claims remain contested. Several disputes cited by Trump have not resulted in comprehensive peace agreements, while others involved ceasefires or diplomatic arrangements that did not permanently resolve the underlying conflicts.

His administration also participated alongside Israel in the war against Iran earlier this year. Although Washington subsequently pursued a negotiated settlement, the conflict raised questions about the relationship between American military intervention and Trump’s presentation of himself as an international peacemaker.

Trump has likewise maintained that he can secure an end to the war in Ukraine, although Russian military operations continue and no comprehensive settlement has been reached.

The president’s dispute with the Nobel Committee is not new. He has frequently contrasted his diplomatic record with that of former President Barack Obama, who received the prize in 2009, less than a year after taking office.

Machado’s Medal and the Norwegian Connection

Trump’s frustration has also been shaped by his relationship with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who received the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her campaign for democratic rights and political change in Venezuela.

In January 2026, Machado presented her Nobel medal to Trump in a symbolic gesture. However, the Nobel Committee subsequently reaffirmed that a Nobel Prize cannot be transferred to another person, regardless of what happens to the physical medal.

The president’s latest criticism also draws Norway into a dispute over which its government has no direct authority. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by an independent five-member committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament, rather than by the Norwegian government.

Under the rules governing the award, the committee is responsible for selecting the individual or organisation judged to have made the greatest contribution to peace in accordance with Alfred Nobel’s will.

Trump’s warning therefore raises a separate diplomatic question: whether his dissatisfaction with an independent committee’s decision will have consequences for relations with Norway, a longstanding NATO ally.

For European governments, the controversy also comes against the background of Washington’s escalating confrontation with international courts. Russia has separately demanded the extradition of ICC President Tomoko Akane and other judicial officials over proceedings connected with the war in Ukraine.

The Nobel Committee’s decision to honour a former ICC judge, just as the institution faces pressure from both Moscow and Washington, has consequently acquired significance beyond the question of Trump’s personal ambitions.

The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize will be formally presented in Oslo on 10 December.

The man charged with murdering Ann Widdecombe and targeting Nigel Farage, Joshua Kerry, had "an extreme Left-wing mindset" and hostility to Reform, a court has heard.

The post Man Charged With Murdering Ann Widdecombe and Targeting Nigel Farage Was Motivated by Extreme Left-Wing Mindset and Hostility to Reform, Court Hears appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Russian prosecutors have asked the Netherlands to surrender Tomoko Akane and eight other International Criminal Court officials convicted in absentia by a Moscow court, extending the Kremlin’s retaliation against those investigating alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

Russia has demanded the extradition of International Criminal Court (ICC) President Tomoko Akane from the Netherlands, seeking to enforce criminal sentences against judges and prosecutors involved in issuing arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and senior Russian military officials.

The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office announced on Thursday, 8 October, that it had submitted requests to several governments for the extradition of nine current and former ICC officials, including Karim Khan, who served as the court’s chief prosecutor when the arrest warrant against Putin was issued in March 2023.

The requests follow a ruling by Moscow City Court on 12 December 2025, when nine ICC officials were convicted in absentia and sentenced to prison terms ranging from three and a half to 15 years. Their alleged offences arose from their participation in investigations and judicial decisions concerning Russian officials suspected of international crimes.

Moscow’s latest move is unlikely to secure Akane’s extradition from the Netherlands, which hosts the ICC and is among its principal supporters. Russian authorities are nevertheless seeking cooperation from several countries, potentially exposing court officials to arrest when travelling to jurisdictions maintaining close relations with Moscow.

Japan Protests Against Russian Demands

Japan has condemned the proceedings against Akane, a Japanese national who became ICC president in March 2024.

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Masanao Ozaki said Tokyo had repeatedly protested to Moscow over its treatment of ICC personnel and regarded the latest measures as unjustified and unacceptable.

He indicated that Japan would consider further diplomatic action in consultation with the court and other states parties to the Rome Statute.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi reaffirmed Japan’s support for the ICC during a parliamentary session on Friday, 9 October, saying Tokyo would continue to defend the institution as part of its commitment to international law.

Akane, who was elected president for a three-year term in March 2024, served on the judicial panel responsible for the arrest warrants against Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.

Russian investigators opened criminal proceedings against the judges shortly after those warrants were announced, subsequently adding other ICC officials to their wanted lists as investigations concerning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine progressed.

Moscow’s Retaliation Against the Court

The confrontation began on 17 March 2023, when the ICC issued arrest warrants against Putin and Lvova-Belova over the alleged unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied areas to Russia.

The judges found reasonable grounds to believe that both officials bore individual criminal responsibility for the alleged offences. The warrants remain in force, although neither suspect has been brought before the court.

The investigation concerns the removal of children from Ukrainian territory following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukrainian authorities have documented cases involving children transferred to Russia, placed with Russian families or subjected to measures intended to integrate them into Russian society.

Russia maintains that the transfers were humanitarian evacuations. The ICC’s investigation concerns whether children were unlawfully deported or transferred from occupied territory, conduct prohibited under international humanitarian law.

The court subsequently issued further warrants against senior Russian commanders. In June 2024, former defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov were accused of responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity connected to attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.

Russian prosecutors responded by expanding their criminal cases against ICC personnel. The charges included knowingly prosecuting innocent individuals and attacking representatives of a foreign state.

The December 2025 convictions provided Moscow with the domestic judgments it is now attempting to enforce through extradition requests.

Extradition Requests Raise Questions Over Travel

The Netherlands has not indicated any intention to surrender Akane. Dutch authorities have consistently supported the ICC’s independence, and the Russian convictions concern actions undertaken by officials in the exercise of their judicial responsibilities.

The position may be less predictable in countries maintaining extradition arrangements with Moscow. Although Russian convictions would not automatically require another state to surrender an ICC official, the existence of arrest warrants could complicate international travel and expose those named to detention pending legal proceedings.

The situation recalls the difficulties surrounding Putin’s own international movements since March 2023. His arrest warrant has restricted travel to ICC member states, which are generally required to cooperate with the court’s requests for arrest and surrender.

Russia’s withdrawal of its signature from the Rome Statute in 2016 did not prevent the ICC from investigating alleged crimes committed on Ukrainian territory. Ukraine had already accepted the court’s jurisdiction and became a full member on 1 January 2025.

The ICC investigation into Ukraine continues, covering alleged offences committed since 21 November 2013 within the scope of Ukraine’s acceptance of jurisdiction.

US Sanctions Add to Difficulties Facing ICC

The Russian extradition demands coincide with a separate dispute between the ICC and the United States, whose government has sanctioned several members of the court.

On 18 August 2026, President Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on Akane and senior ICC trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye. Washington has objected to investigations involving American personnel and Israeli officials, arguing that the court has exceeded its jurisdiction.

The ICC condemned the additional American sanctions, warning that restrictions targeting judges and prosecutors interfere with its judicial work.

The American measures primarily involve financial restrictions, while Russia has pursued criminal convictions and extradition requests. Both have placed ICC personnel under pressure for their involvement in proceedings opposed by governments outside the Rome Statute system.

The European Union has repeatedly defended the ICC against attempts to interfere with its investigations. The Netherlands, as host country, has particular responsibilities concerning the court’s operations and the security of its personnel.

Moscow’s latest requests are therefore expected to meet resistance from European governments. Their possible consequences elsewhere will depend on the countries approached and whether local authorities are prepared to act on Russian arrest warrants.

The Kremlin has so far failed to halt the ICC’s proceedings against Putin, Shoigu and Gerasimov. Its response has been to pursue the judges and prosecutors responsible, seeking prison sentences against international judicial officials while the allegations against Russia’s own leadership remain before the court.

As one advocate warned India’s Supreme Court on Monday that “this country will burn” unless action is taken to stop what thousands of protesters have denounced as an illegal purge of voters by the head of the Election Commission of India, the court demanded accountability from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Chief Justice Surya Kant […]

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No one knows how the US Supreme Court will rule in Suncor v. Boulder, the case that will kick off the court’s fall term next week and will likely decide whether the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, will be able to put oil giants ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy on trial for deceiving the public for decades about the climate harms of fossil […]

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