Author: Ben Wallace
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Visa Revocations Disregard South Sudan War Risks, Overlook U.S. Communities’ Embrace of Refugees
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Saturday that the State Department was acting to “revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders and prevent further issuance to prevent entry into the United States by South Sudanese passport holders.” The rationale for this sweeping announcement is that …
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The Imperative of Solidarity in Response to Assaults on Legal Services, Universities, and Independent Media
Through the fog of norm-defying news, at least one pattern is clear: President Donald Trump is targeting three bulwarks of democracy and the rule of law: lawyers (law firms and legal service organizations), academics (universities), and journalists (independent news media). His emerging playbook is to …
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Trump is fast dismantling the free press. We all have to stop him.
As Rebecca Hamilton, an American University law professor, put it in Just Security last month, it all amounts to “a wholesale effort by Trump and his allies to eviscerate the free press in order to construct an information ecosystem dominated and controlled by those who espouse his …
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Trump’s Anti-Media Rhetoric Turns to Action
“I don’t know if Trump himself has a ‘game plan’ per se, but it is clear that the overall picture is of an Administration that disdains a free press,” Rebecca Hamilton, a law professor at American University, said in an email. “Their view — and …
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Connecting the Dots: Trump’s Tightening Grip on Press Freedom
A free press is a pillar of democracy, just as state-controlled media is a hallmark of autocracy. That is why monitoring actions that stifle the freedom of the press is a time-tested means of tracking the health of a democratic system. As journalists themselves scramble to keep …
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Taliban Charges Show US Dilemma, Double Standards in Opposing International Criminal Court
On Thursday, Jan. 23., 2025, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan announced his Office is seeking arrest warrants for the Supreme Leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and the Chief Justice of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, for the crime against humanity of gender persecution (Rome …
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Meta Is Laying the Narrative Groundwork for Trump’s Mass Deportations
Multiple experts drew comparisons between Meta’s recent changes around immigration and what happened in Myanmar in 2017, where Facebook contributed to a genocide by allowing the spread of hate.
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Unpacking the Meta Announcement: The Future of the Information Ecosystem and Implications for Democracy
On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to “eliminate fact-checkers” across Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, signaling a major shift in how the company handles misinformation. He also outlined plans to adopt a user-driven “community notes” system, inspired by Elon Musk’s approach on X. Zuckerberg stated Meta …
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Criminalizing Ecocide
Amid widespread acknowledgment that we live on a planet in peril, the term “ecocide” packs a powerful rhetorical punch. Extant regulatory approaches to environmental protection feel insufficient in the face of the triple threat of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. International criminal prosecution for …
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“What Kind of Court is This?” Perceptions of International Justice Among Rohingya Refugees
Among human rights scholars and practitioners, global justice is a sacred aspiration that finds expression in institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and investigative bodies established by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council. The intended beneficiaries …
