JURIST

The Justice Department has entered a Minnesota assault case on the side of an ICE agent charged with pointing his gun at two motorists, and administration officials have described the immunity at stake as absolute. Christopher Armitage argues that nothing in the Constitution, federal statute, or case law says that.

His argument turns on a clause courts read only halfway. The Supremacy Clause makes federal law supreme when it is “made in Pursuance thereof” — a condition, not a formality. Hamilton wrote in Federalist 33 that federal acts outside the constitutional powers are merely acts of usurpation. Armitage proposes a two-question pursuance test: was the conduct in pursuance of the Constitution, and did it violate state law? The burden would sit with the agent claiming the exception. Nothing is struck down; the statute stands and the agent stands trial.

Christopher Armitage (The Existentialist Republic) on where the limits of federal immunity should come from.

Find it under the Commentary section of our Linktree in bio.

A federal judge early Thursday ordered the White House to restore the press credentials of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, granting a 14-day temporary restraining order while the outlets challenge the revocation of their access.

Hours later, Politico reported that reporters from all three outlets were denied entry and had credentials confiscated by the Secret Service. The outlets have filed for an immediate hearing, saying the administration has already violated the order repeatedly and that opposing counsel is unresponsive. Judge Timothy Kelly wrote that nothing in the pre-suit record suggested the revocations were motivated by national security, noting that the announcement had focused instead on the outlets’ alleged lack of truthfulness. The outlets claim viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment and a denial of notice under the Fifth.

Abigail Austin (Vermont Law & Graduate School) on a TRO and what happened at the gate after it issued.

Read it at jurist.org. Link in bio.

The International Criminal Court on Wednesday found Mahamat Said Abdel Kani guilty of four crimes against humanity committed in the Central African Republic in 2013.

Abdel Kani, a former commander of the Séléka rebel coalition, oversaw the OCRB detention facility in Bangui, where detainees perceived as supporters of former President François Bozizé were held between April and August 2013. Trial Chamber VI convicted him as a direct co-perpetrator of unlawful imprisonment, torture, persecution, and other inhumane acts. Former detainees testified to overcrowded cells and confinement in a windowless room beneath the floorboards of his office, and to lasting physical and psychological harm. The judges acquitted him of the war crimes charges, finding insufficient proof. Sentencing is scheduled for November, and the Chamber has opened reparations proceedings.

Cecilia Akoko Attiogbe Atayi (U. Cape Coast Faculty of Law) on the court’s first conviction since December 2025.

Read it at jurist.org. Link in bio.

The World Meteorological Organization forecasts a near-certain chance that El Niño persists through February 2027, and NOAA puts the odds of a very strong event this fall and winter above 90 percent. Cecile Akoeley Attiogbe Atayi argues that a forecasted crisis is a legal problem, not just a meteorological one.

Because El Niño is predictable, states cannot invoke force majeure, which under ARSIWA requires an unforeseen event beyond a state’s control. Instead, the applicable standard is due diligence. The ICJ’s 2025 climate advisory opinion confirmed that adaptation obligations under the Paris Agreement are assessed against it, pointing to early warning systems and resilient infrastructure. Failure to prepare water, food, and health systems can engage state responsibility and undermine rights to life, food, and water.

Cecile Akoeley Attiogbe Atayi (U. Cape Coast Faculty of Law) on the difference between predictable harm and avoidable tragedy.

Find it under the Commentary section of our Linktree in bio.

A trial over Tesla’s alleged racially discriminatory employment practices began Monday in Alameda County, California, and is scheduled to run until October 30 before Superior Court Judge Peter Borkon.

The 2022 complaint by the California Civil Rights Department alleges that Black workers at the Fremont factory faced racial slurs, work-floor segregation, intimidation, and retaliation, and were assigned more dangerous work while being denied promotions. The suit cites emails in which Elon Musk, notified of alleged racial harassment, suggested it was important to be thick-skinned and accept a sincere apology. The case will proceed as a bench trial, with the judge rather than a jury deciding the outcome. Tesla’s cross-claim against the agency was largely rejected in 2023, and the court denied its renewed motion for summary judgment in April.

Max Robinette (U. Pittsburgh School of Law) on a case brought by an agency that acts as a public prosecutor for civil employment claims.

Read it at jurist.org. Link in bio.

More than a century ago, the Iranian diplomat Mirza Yusuf Mustashar al-Dawleh spent four years in Tiflis and came away not with a theory of Europe but with a sharper question about Iran. AmirAli Maleki argues that this is the difference between copying a law and learning from one.

He calls it adaptive legal re-coding: a tradition encounters something foreign, identifies the problem the foreign institution was built to solve, translates that problem into its own conceptual language, and changes itself without becoming the other. Borrowing implies transfer; re-coding implies transformation. Law, in his metaphor, is a house with a door — neither a fortress nor an empty container.

What makes the argument urgent is that Generation Z encounters other legal orders without traveling to them. Comparative judgment now happens before legislation is drafted, in the ordinary moment someone realizes their inherited arrangements are neither natural nor inevitable.

AmirAli Maleki (JURIST Deputy Managing Editor for Commentary, Tehran) on how a legal tradition can learn from abroad without imitating it.

Find it under the Commentary section of our Linktree in bio.

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday vacated a Department of Education directive that had canceled roughly $600 million in educator training grants, and issued a permanent injunction against the policy.

The directive terminated 104 of 109 grants under the Teacher Quality Partnership and Supporting Effective Educator Development programs. Judge Angel Kelley found it arbitrary and capricious and not in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act, pointing to the record’s treatment of categories such as social-emotional learning and family and community in the classroom, which she said bore no apparent connection to discrimination on their face. The directive was issued in response to two 2025 executive orders. A coalition of eight states challenged the policy in March 2025 and obtained a temporary restraining order, which the First Circuit declined to stay.

Brendan Hickey (Vermont Law & Graduate School) on the ruling and the grant programs at issue.

Read it at jurist.org. Link in bio.

South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Wednesday it aims to approve the country’s first abortion pill by early 2027, seven years after the Constitutional Court struck down the criminal abortion ban and ordered parliament to rewrite the law.

Parliament never did. The two-pill regimen would be available up to nine weeks — short of the twelve weeks the WHO says the drugs can be safely used, a gap officials attributed to the clinical trial data submitted. Doctors would prescribe and dispense directly at hospitals for the first two years. Women’s groups called it a first step but urged faster access and insurance coverage; the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea voiced deep concerns, and religious groups plan to sue over the approval.

Joy Nzuzi Esengo (UCLouvain Saint-Louis Brussels Faculty of Law) on a ministry filling a legal vacuum the legislature left open.

Read it at jurist.org. Link in bio.

Israel’s r**e laws broadly meet international standards. For Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Divya Srinivasan argues, a fragmented legal system puts justice out of reach.

Drawing on Equality Now’s January 2026 report, she traces the gap between law and practice. Inside Israel, only about 15 percent of sexual violence reports received by the Association of R**e Crisis Centers ever reach police, and appeals against closed r**e investigations are denied more than 90 percent of the time. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a separate military legal regime governs Palestinians. The UN Commission of Inquiry has found that Israeli forces used r**e, threats of r**e, and sexual torture against Palestinian detainees as a matter of policy, and that ineffective judicial systems signaled such acts could be committed with impunity.

Her conclusion is one the organization did not expect to reach: legislative reform alone cannot deliver accountability while the structures enabling it remain.

Find it under the Commentary section of our Linktree in bio.