On the Supreme Court's Hidden Hand in Immigration Policy
On September 11, 2019, the Supreme Court issued an unsigned per curiam order that dramatically altered the course of a major immigration policy. In a one-paragraph decision containing no explanation, the Court stayed a nationwide injunction that had blocked enforcement of the Trump administration's new "asylum-transit" rule, a regulation denying asylum eligibility to any non-citizen who traveled through a third-world country en route to the United States without first seeking protection there. The state meant that the government could immediately implement the asylum transit ban despite lower courts' findings that the policy likely violated federal immigration law and administrative procedural requirements. Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a brief dissent where she warns that the Court's precipitous intervention short-circuited the normal judicial process and failed to honor the "extraordinary" showing needed for such emergency relief. Apart from Sotomayor's dissent, however, the court offered no legal reasoning for its decision.
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Who Owns Ideas? Humans versus AI in Intellectual Property
The Artificial intelligence actress Tilly Norwood was created in February of 2025, by the UK-based production company Particle6. She looks and acts completely human and, since her creation, has been in a few short films with a large presence on social media. However, since her first appearances, the AI-actress has faced severe backlash across social media. Norwood’s debut was only the beginning of a sweeping campaign with AI emerging in the entertainment industry. As NBC points out, AI filmmaking over the past few years has quickly entered mainstream media. Studios have begun working with AI companies to explore the technology’s potential in content creation, and apps like Sora by ChatGPT allow people to create, upload, and view AI-generated videos featuring anyone via a face-scan and text prompt. The use of AI across art mediums has quickly become a polarizing topic to many artists. In an age where AI has inevitably found its way into entertainment and art industries, how does intellectual property law create boundaries that protect human-generated art, and where, if at all, is the boundary drawn on what can be protected as intellectual property when AI is used? With AI rapidly evolving, intellectual property law must be able to distinguish between artists who use AI and works of art that are simply machine-generated, in order to protect human creativity and ingenuity without blocking the use of technology.
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The €1 Billion Game of Tag: Europe's Costly Hunt for the Sea Raiders
They live by the sea, but outside the law. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of pirates? Perhaps Captain Jack Sparrow, multi-masted ships, treasure chests, or the Jolly Roger flag. The enduring legacy of piracy doesn’t revolve around treasure; it revolves around the archaic legal systems molded to destroy pirates’ enterprise. While modern usage defines piracy as “the act of attacking ships to steal from them,” this oversimplified definition fails to reflect the term’s evolution. The critical shift, since the 14th century, lies in the lack of state sanction. By overlooking this crucial element, the current definition depoliticizes the crime, treating it merely as a violent act and failing to recognize its genuine implications for national sovereignty. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton posited that piracy was ‘‘a seventeenth-century crime’’ requiring ‘‘twenty-first century solutions.” This further highlights the persistent tension in how outdated legal assumptions continue to shape modern anti-piracy approaches.
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The Erosion of Due Process: An Invisible Justice in New York’s Immigration System
In October 2025, the New York Civil Liberties Union, ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, and Make the Road New York filed African Communities Together v. Lyons, a lawsuit against ICE challenging the agency’s courthouse arrest practices, under which hundreds of immigrants in New York City were detained during court hearings despite having no criminal records. The high arrest rate in the state is a huge enforcement tactic deployed by ICE that has expanded significantly. The recent rulings from the court provide proof the country needs a more powerful state protection in our society and a more thought-out community for immigrants. The ICE enforcement in New York City has been characterized by mass courthouse arrest rates, limited legal aid, and defied state protections. Recent court rulings expose the due process crisis in New York’s immigration enforcement system, revealing the urgent need for stronger state protections to shelter immigrant access to justice.
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Inside the Ethiopia–Sudan Border Crisis: From Colonial Boundaries to Modern Conflict
Ethiopia-Sudan border tensions can be traced back to the 20th century, with the presence of a third party, England, which exercised colonial control over Sudan. In 1902, the British drew a border between Sudan and Ethiopia, as outlined in the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1902. Although Ethiopia’s name is included in the title, this agreement omitted Ethiopia’s consideration as to where the border should be drawn. The border was hastily drawn by an outside party that was barely cognizant of the sensitive cultural or ethnic relations. Groups with similar heritage were split apart without a second thought. The highly contested al-Fashaga region was claimed as part of Sudan by the British. This region is highly fertile and provides many coveted resources. Despite both Sudanese and Ethiopian farmers living in and cultivating this area, British Sudan claimed the entire region. This lack of an official and fair agreement allowed for more conflicts between the two nations, the impacts of which are still felt today.
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The 22nd Amendment and Trump’s Possible Path to Reelection
Many have questioned whether President Trump will seek a third term. While the 22nd Amendment establishes a strict two-term presidential limit, President Trump has hinted at running again in 2028, noting that he would “love to do it,” and his backers like Steve Bannon have gone so far as to say that he will not only run, but will win reelection in 2028 in order to “finish what we’ve started.” This article will investigate possible loopholes that the Trump administration may take to bypass the 22nd Amendment. Three main avenues exist for President Trump: directly repealing the 22nd Amendment, becoming vice president or Speaker of the House in the next administration then succeeding the acting president upon his or her resignation, or declaring war against a foreign nation and claiming that war powers supersede term limits.
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America’s Antitrust Renaissance: Big Tech and the Sherman Act
The United States government is facilitating an antitrust renaissance. The emergence of neo-trustbusting comes in the wake of Big Tech corporations toeing the line between anti-democratic monopolies and fair economic competition. Recent court decisions and ongoing cases regarding the Big Tech industry have dealt with the issue of what monopolies look like in the world of tech, and how far the federal government can intervene in private enterprise in the name of prioritizing democracy. The modern revival of antitrust laws in U.S. federal courts, largely driven by developments in the Big Tech industry, has prioritized safeguarding democracy but is showing signs of blurring the line between corporate competition and judicial intervention.
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Rethinking Responsibility: Pakistan’s Flood Crisis and the ICJ’s 2025 Advisory Opinion
The International Court of Justice’s 2025 advisory opinion regarding climate change does not resolve the climate crisis. What it offers Pakistan is something more precise: a legal vocabulary that understands the injustices it lives through. Behind every submerged house and broken embankment is a deeper question: who is responsible for protecting the planet, and what obligations do states have when their choices place entire nations at risk? By reframing climate devastation as a matter of responsibility rather than misfortune, the Court shifts the discussion from humanitarian response to legal obligation. For Pakistan, one of the world’s lowest emitters and most flood-vulnerable states, this reframing carries profound consequences.
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Who Shut Down the Government? Unpacking the Legal Battle Behind the 2025 Federal Shutdown
The 2025 government shutdown, which ended on November 12, became the longest in U.S. history. During the shutdown, at least 670,000 federal employees were laid off, while about 730,000 kept working without pay. Although the White House’s public-facing “government shutdown clock” attributed the lapse to congressional action, the underlying circumstances were legally more complex. The administration directed federal agencies to initiate large-scale Reduction in Force (RIFs) during the funding gap, despite longstanding statutory limitations on personnel actions in such periods, representing an unprecedented extension of executive authority. According to the unions challenging these actions, the administration lacked lawful authority to bypass notice requirements, disregard established RIF procedures, and reinterpret the Antideficiency Act as permitting the suspension of statutory duties. Their lawsuit, which has already secured a temporary restraining order blocking some layoffs, asserts that the firings were procedurally defective and exceeded permissible executive authority, raising questions under both federal personnel statutes and the constitutional separation of powers.
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Defining “Sex” For Sports?: Legal Frameworks Under Title IX
In recent years, the legal definition of “sex” has become the subject of an integral debate in the athletics community. International federations are moving towards chromosome or gene-based screening, while states in the United States have adopted various rules on how “sex” affects sports’ participation. Now, the US Supreme Court is being asked to decide how Title IX constrains institutional efforts to regulate who may compete in women’s sports, with oral arguments for West Virginia v. B.P.J. (2025) and Little v. Hecox (2024) scheduled on January 13, 2026. West Virginia v. B.P.J asks whether state policies that ban transgender students from participating in girls’ school sports are consistent with Title IX and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Little v. Hecox similarly asks whether athletes should be required to compete under their biological sex as opposed to their gender identity.
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Authority and Overreach: The Illegality of U.S Military Strikes in the Caribbean Sea
Since late July 2025, the Trump administration has been authorizing military strikes in the Caribbean against individuals deemed “terrorists.” Specifically, after the administration announced that it would prevent the entry of illicit drugs into the United States, fourteen known strikes have killed at least 69 “narco-terrorists” on boats. Although the Trump administration has defended its actions as self-defense against these so-called “terrorists,” it has not provided sufficient evidence as to whether the individuals killed were actually involved in drug trafficking, limiting transparency about the identities of those who were on board. Thus, there has been significant concern about whether the U.S. president can lawfully authorize military strikes against suspected drug traffickers in international waters under national and international law. By authorizing military strikes in international waters near Venezuela without clear evidence of an armed attack or congressional approval, the Trump administration is undermining international law and violating constitutional limits on presidential war powers, setting a dangerous precedent for the unilateral use of force.
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Reconfiguring Remedial Power in the Post-CASA Landscape: Lower-Court Constraints and the Supreme Court’s Expanding Shadow Docket
Class action lawsuits, which allow a collective group to sue as one, are foundational to understanding the modern American legal system. Before the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were adopted in 1938, the class-action style of litigation arose through the equitable doctrine of “representative suits.” The seminal case, Smith v. Swormstedt (1853), allowed members of the Methodist Episcopal Church to litigate a dispute on behalf of the entire denomination; the court reasoned that equity could bind absent parties when their interests were identical and adequately represented. That idea, rooted in equity, was later codified in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which recognized that individuals could sue as a collective, and seek collective redress.
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Unwilling or Unable? The Legal Controversy Behind U.S. Naval Strikes on Alleged Drug Boats
As of November 13, 2025, President Donald Trump had authorized a series of 20 strikes on 21 vessels he claimed were used to smuggle drugs from South America, resulting in at least 80 deaths. According to a Trump administration memo obtained in October, these actions fall under what the administration describes as a “non-international armed conflict,” with drug cartels treated as unlawful combatants. Conversely, the governments and families of those killed from these U.S. strikes have stated that many of the dead were civilians, primarily fishermen, prompting questions into the legality of these strikes absent any form of due process or congressional approval. The absence of publicly available evidence demonstrating the necessity of the attacks has only deepened these substantial concerns.
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Architect to Arsonist: The United States’ Use of the National Security Exception in the World Trade Organization
After World War II, the United States spearheaded the liberal international order and pursued its global diffusion as the dominant political and economic system, promising to satisfy human needs through freer trade, multilateral institutions, and democracy. The World Trade Organization (WTO) was born from the order in the pursuit of lessening trade barriers, creating a predictable globalized economy, and establishing an official legal foundation for international trade. This delicate global trading system thrived only to be later challenged by the very nation responsible for its rise, primarily through a recent manipulation of the national security justification, addressed in Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which permits a country’s exception from WTO legal regulations when necessary to protect essential national security interests. The national security exemption in trade is further represented in U.S. courts through Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The United States’ recent manipulation of the national security exception upheld in the WTO’s Article XXI of the GATT, as well as the U.S.'s Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, violates WTO international trade law obligations and undermines its dispute settlement system.
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When AI Talks Back: A New Liability Approach for Chatbot-Induced Mental Health Crises
Ever since their inception, learning language models (LLMs) have been a source of both optimism and opposition, fueling debates on how they should be governed. While supporters frame them as the next step in a long line of new technologies, critics warn of their far-reaching influence and insufficient oversight. Privately run companies that create and operate LLMs, such as OpenAI, DeepSeek, and Claude, have been remarkably difficult to regulate, leading to concerns from parents, educators, and policymakers alike. To understand why, it’s necessary to look at the legal framework that has long governed online platforms, starting with Section 230.
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Automation on the MTA: Are We Protected?
First implemented in 2024, the MTA's Automated Camera Enforcement (ACE) system seeks to improve the reliability of bus routes through "a bus-mounted camera system that issues violations to vehicles occupying bus lanes, to double-parked vehicles along bus routes, and to vehicles block bus stops." As the New York City MTA seeks to expand the ACE system, allowing private contractors and automated systems to regulate roads without apparent oversight threatens to violate due process and extend the MTA's powers beyond those established by the New York Vehicle and Traffic Law.
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Drawing Democracy Apart: The Emerging Role of State Courts in Determining Gerrymandering
On August 29, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Texas House Bill 4, approving a new congressional map that reshaped the state’s electoral districts to potentially increase the Republican Party’s representation in the United States House of Representatives. In response, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced Proposition 50, a proposal to redraw California’s congressional lines in an effort to “fight back” against Texas’s redistricting. While both Governor Abbot and Governor Newsom’s actions are based on partisan conflict, they do call into question the ability of states to redraw electoral maps before encroaching on constitutional limits. The United States Supreme Court has limited jurisdiction over partisan gerrymandering, meaning that state judiciaries are responsible for ensuring electoral fairness. States are turning to mid-decade redistricting —the practice of redrawing maps between the decennial censuses, meant to reflect population changes— and breaking from standard democratic practices. In the post-Rucho and post-Moore era, following the lead of Texas and California, state courts now hold decisive power in determining the constitutional limits of redistricting. The mid-decade efforts seen in Texas and California are indicative of a shift of authority to state courts, possibly leading to a polarized, patchwork democracy in which the partisan majority in each state defines ‘fair electoral representation’ by their own standards.
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Copyright in the Age of Generative AI, Part III: Structuring Residual Rights in the AI Economy
In past articles, I argued that outdated copyright laws place disadvantages on digital artists trying to secure intellectual property rights. Moreover, slow-paced litigation over the DMCA 1202b delays resolution in copyright regulation for gen AI training datasets. In this article, I discuss ongoing artist-led initiatives to protect intellectual property rights and stipulate guidelines for emerging copyright policy.
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Copyright in the Age of Generative AI, Part II: Reinterpreting DMCA 1202 and Encoded Representations
Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd. is an ongoing lawsuit since January 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where visual artists are seeking compensation and intellectual property protections from generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) platforms, including Stability AI, Midjourney, Inc., DeviantArt, Inc., and Runway AI, Inc. In recent months, key developments in the lawsuit have underscored the need for technical clarity in interpreting copyright law for software. The information disparity between artists and gen AI corporations was heightened by the defendants’ objection to disclosing sensitive source code to an expert witness and the plaintiffs’ delayed request to review the training data used for Runway and Midjourney’s gen AI. Tracing Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd. and related case Doe v. GitHub, Inc., this article discusses how recent litigation pushes courts to confront nontraditional interpretations of the DMCA 1202b to regulate software against the hurdles of information asymmetry and confidential trade secrets.
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Immigrant Nation and Mass Deportations: Legal Arguments For and Against
In the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has made headlines as deportations have drastically increased. ICE is now aiming to arrest three thousand immigrants a day. Current data shows that ICE has at least fifty thousand immigrants being held in detention, with thirty thousand of those detainees having no criminal record at all. Additionally, ICE has been scrutinized for denying many detainees due process. Recent reporting has found that ICE is giving detainees only six hours to find a lawyer before deportation proceedings continue. Despite the outcry about the constitutionality of ICE’s enforcement tactics, the U.S.'s right as a sovereign country to control its immigration proceedings has been reaffirmed by the 2018 Supreme Court case Trump v. Hawaii. The Court found that the president and federal government have the right to suspend and control the entry of aliens into the country under Section 1182(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This issue highlights a growing tension between the government’s right to enforce immigration law to ensure national security as it sees fit, and the constitutional right to due process, which has been integral to the American legal system since its inception.
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