Publications

Apple’s celebrated fight with the FBI over the security of its encrypted iPhones has shone the spotlight on an old and obscure federal law from 1789 known as the All Writs Act (AWA).

The AWA is a short little statute, giving federal courts the power to “issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.” Read more » about Apple v the FBI: why the 1789 All Writs Act is the wrong tool

On February 10, 2016, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission convened a Congressional briefing devoted to the topic of advancing accountability for the commission of international crimes in Iraq and Syria. Read more » about Iraq & Syria: Prospects for Accountability

For nearly three decades, the government of Sri Lanka fought with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but after years of resistance, the new government has committed to launching a genuine transitional justice program to address, and redress, the grave international crimes committed by all sides during the conflict. Read more » about “More Than a Domestic Mechanism”: Options for Hybrid Justice in Sri Lanka

One would think privacy was a concept that Justice Antonin Scalia disliked. After all, how could a textualist, who firmly believed in lawyers’ obligation to follow the text, respect a concept as nebulous and blurry edged as privacy? A concept whose very meaning continues to befuddle lawyers, political philosophers and social scientists more than a century after it was introduced into legal jargon by Louis Brandeis, another Supreme Court giant to come? Read more » about Scalia’s privacy impact will be felt for years to come