25 March 2025
The Death Knell for American Free Speech Tradition
In a case that has received global attention and reproach, Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident of the United States and recent graduate of Columbia University (another target of the Trump administration’s ire), was arrested on 8 March by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in front of his apartment in New York and subsequently transferred to a detention facility in Louisiana. In this blog post, my aim is to show that the case of Mr. Khalil implicates perhaps the most sacrosanct of American constitutional rights: free speech. Continue reading >>
0 
24 March 2025
International Law Under Pressure
In this blog post, we document and analyse the numerous apparent breaches of international law that have occurred within the first six weeks of the 2025 Trump administration. What began as an informal discussion at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law has evolved into this analytical overview. We believe this documentation serves both academic purposes and potentially supports future legal proceedings. While defenders of these actions will undoubtedly offer justifications for what we identify as clear breaches of international law, our analysis aims to provide an assessment based on established international legal principles. Continue reading >>
0
13 March 2025
Die Judikative in der Herrschaft des Bullshits
Die politische Situation in den Vereinigten Staaten hat ihren Siedepunkt noch nicht erreicht. Jede Eskalation scheint bloße Etappe, jede Etappe wiederum von flüchtigster Dauer. Die New York Times hat einen Liveticker für den in toto akuten Vorgang namens Trump-Administration eingerichtet, der die Demontage des Staates immer etwas atemlos protokolliert. Entlang einer von langer Hand vorbereiteten Strategie („Project 2025“) lässt sich der konfuse Furor nicht mehr nachvollziehen und auch das liberale Schreckgespenst der frühestens seit Reagan, spätestens seit G. W. Bush im republikanischen Ideenreservoir befindlichen unitary executive theory verspricht keinen spezifischen Erkenntnisgewinn. Die konkrete Lage nötigt andere Beschreibungen ab. Continue reading >>
0
26 February 2025
Reading Project 2025 as a Manifesto
Manifestos have very often prefigured constitutional crisis, revolution, the overthrowing of legal orders, and set the terms of what follows. Project 2025, or the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, can be read as a manifesto, and one that is now well on its way to being implemented. Examining it through the lens of constitution (re)making sets out some of the terms in which it could be opposed, including by counter-manifesto. Continue reading >>
0
24 February 2025
A Power Grab Is Not a Constitutional Theory
Lawyers love legal theories. President Trump’s unprecedented executive actions have reignited interest in theories about the U.S. Constitution, especially conservative ones. Is he working with an extreme conception of the unified executive theory, a strong version of “originalist” or even “post-originalist” legal reasoning, or will the “political question doctrine” dominate? These debates are fascinating, but they strike me as pointless. Why? Because Trump’s supporters are not deploying them in good faith. Rather, these theories are being used as rhetorical maneuvers to dress up a power grab in theoretical garb. Continue reading >>
0
13 February 2025
Trump’s Straussian Shysters: The Scary Sequel
Nearly three years ago I wrote here about the far-right constitutional theory behind Trump lawyer John Eastman’s role in the inept yet deadly January 6, 2021 coup attempt against then President-elect Joe Biden. I described the idiosyncratic reworking by Eastman and other so-called west-coast Straussians at California’s Claremont Institute of the ideas of the German-Jewish refugee Leo Strauss, an imposing, deeply conservative political theorist, into an apology for an executive-directed counterrevolution aimed ostensibly at restoring the original US constitutional order. Little did I imagine that Strauss’ Claremont disciples would soon enjoy a political comeback, and that they would once again be wreaking constitutional havoc. Continue reading >>21 January 2025
Zuckerberg’s Strategy
On January 7, 2025, and in the days following, the founder and CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, made a series of statements that framed Meta's previous and future content policy with an evidently strategic intention. The change of content moderation policy, as described in three comprehensive points in his personal announcement on his own platforms, may even sound reasonable, as discussed below. However, the reasoning and the framing of these changes appear to show that Meta is up to something entirely different from just further optimizing its curation of content on its platforms. Continue reading >>20 January 2025
Plutocracy 2025
When thinking about this current moment in time when major currents of political and economic power seem to flow into each other in exceptional and perhaps unparalleled ways, it might be useful to tease out in some more detail how exactly plutocracy 2025 differs from the entanglements of economic and business power that have come before. Here is one difference that seems particularly striking. Plutocracy in 2025, unlike its typical predecessors, is not really engineered in discrete fashion behind the scenes by deep-rooted dynasties of political and economic life. Instead, it is a full-frontal brash attack right on the public stage. Continue reading >>20 January 2025
Trump’s Order of Law
Today, January 20, 2025, Donald Trump is going to be inaugurated a second time as the 47th President of the United States. His presidency is expected to herald a dramatic change to America’s policy on immigration as his hardcore rhetoric may transform into hardened policy. To fulfil his campaign promises, in particular his planned mass deportation policy, Trump has repeatedly stated his intention to invoke two archaic laws: the 1807 Insurrection Act and the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. This blog will provide an overview of the two acts, explain the requirements for the President-elect to utilize them, and detail potential ways to cabin their use. Continue reading >>
0
17 December 2024
Das Zollschwert des Präsidenten
Die feierliche Amtseinführung von Donald J. Trump am 20. Januar 2025 wird weitreichende geopolitische Auswirkungen haben. Darauf deuten alle Aussagen von Präsident Trump während seines Wahlkampfes, nach seinem Wahlsieg sowie auch die Erfahrungen mit seiner ersten Amtszeit von 2017 bis 2021 hin. Neben allen globalen politischen Herausforderungen, die mit der erneuten Amtszeit von Trump verbunden sein werden, wird auch die internationale Rechtsordnung Belastungsproben ausgesetzt sein. An seiner angekündigten Zollpolitik zeigt sich dies deutlich. Continue reading >>
0