Law Commons^™

The United States, The International Criminal Court, And The Situation In Afghanistan, Sara L. Ochs

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

The United States has always had a very complicated and tense relationship with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and with international criminal law generally. Yet, under the Trump administration, the U.S.–ICC relationship has deteriorated to an unprecedented level. Within the last few years, the U.S. government has launched a full-scale attack on the ICC—denouncing its legitimacy, authority, and achievements, blocking investigations, and loudly withdrawing all once-existing support for the court.

These hostilities bubbled over following the November 2017 request by the ICC Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, for the court to open an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against …

Shareholders United?, Andrew K. Jennings

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

Securities regulation has a way of crossing into other lanes. What public companies do is substantive regulation. How they govern themselves while doing it—or more importantly, how they disclose it—is securities regulation. So it is no surprise that the perennial concern over regulating money in politics should also become a question of federal securities regulation. The Shareholders United Act (the “Act”)—passed by the House of Representatives as part of House Bill 1, an early, major piece of legislation in the 116th Congress—does just that. The Act would require that before engaging in political spending, public companies poll shareholders on how …

Splitsylvania: State Secession And What To Do About It, Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

Intrastate secession is the true secession fever: not the perennial postelection calls of losing parties to secede from a nation controlled by the opposition, but a growing movement for secession from states, with the rural parts of states (sometimes geographically very large parts of states) wanting to separate from the population-dense urban areas that essentially control state decisionmaking. Feeling ignored, put-upon, and mistreated, secessionists want to take their fate into their own hands. These movements are common, but not likely to succeed on their own, as intrastate secession is, though not entirely unknown (see, e.g., West Virginia), very difficult to …

There Is A Place For Muslims In America: On Different Understandings Of Neutrality, Mark A. Goldfelder

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

American neutrality is not about the government making sure religion is not visible or even treated benevolently. The American concept of neutrality just means that the government should not treat religion as special, for better or for worse, simply because it is religion. For example, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that laws touching religion must have a valid secular purpose, and not serve primarily to advance or inhibit religion. But that does not mean that religion should not be respected. The key to the American conception of religious neutrality lies in the understanding that religion is valuable—despite what strict …