Law

A New Assault on Marriage Equality

A case before the Supreme Court tests whether its conservative justices will violate their long-standing constitutional principles in order to expand religious liberty.

December 3, 2020 issue

Roger Stone celebrating outside his Florida home after President Trump commuted the sentence of his ally, Fort Lauderdale, July 12, 2020

Ankush Khardori

Rule by Law

The threat that faces the country is of an increasingly dominant rule by law that could include a more comprehensive deployment of the criminal justice system against perceived opponents of the administration.

September 25, 2020

International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda addressing the court, The Hague, December 2019

David Luban

America the Unaccountable

The Trump administration has declared war on the International Criminal Court—the world’s only permanent court whose mandate is to pursue cases of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

August 20, 2020 issue

Claudia Dreifus

An Interview with Russ Feingold

Russ Feingold: It’s not that I think that Neil Gorsuch isn’t otherwise qualified to be a justice, but his seat was obtained illegitimately. It was not Donald Trump’s to fill. This was a theft of the Supreme Court.

July 14, 2020

Adam Tooze

How ‘Big Law’ Makes Big Money

Katharina Pistor’s ‘The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality’

February 13, 2020 issue

Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg preparing to address a meeting of the Congressional Women’s Caucus, Washington, D.C., 2001

Linda Greenhouse

The First and Last of Her Kind

Evan Thomas’s ‘First: Sandra Day O’Connor’

November 7, 2019 issue

Former inhabitants of Chagos Archipelago, the last British colony in Africa, claiming compensation for being exiled from their homes, High Court, London, October 31, 2002

Philippe Sands

Britain’s Colonial Legacy on Trial at The Hague

Never more clearly than now have I seen how the untaught, unspoken legacy of colonialism has rendered the UK unable to confront the perceptions of others, and the realities of its racist past and their continuing legacy.

June 23, 2020

Anti-abortion demonstrators on the first day of the Supreme Court’s new session, Washington, D.C., October 2019

Noah Feldman

Why Precedent Won’t Protect ‘Roe’

July 2, 2020 issue

The Latest

Noah Feldman

The Battle Over Scalia’s Legacy

The late justice advocated judicial restraint, textualism, and originalism, but conservative jurists will have to choose among them.

December 17, 2020 issue

Ankush Khardori

Holding the Fraudster-in-Chief to Account

“To my mind, the Justice Department as an institution is in its worst state in decades,” says the former federal prosecutor.

November 21, 2020

Ankush Khardori

The Case for Prosecuting Trump

Putting the former president on criminal trial carries big political risks. But to let this lawless leader off scot-free may be more dangerous still.

November 20, 2020

David Cole

Can Liberals Win in a Conservative Court?

Recent history suggests the justices don’t like being too out of step with the country—especially if they feel under scrutiny. So that’s our job: watch them.

November 17, 2020

Madeleine Schwartz

Criminalizing a Constitutional Right

For many Americans, Roe v. Wade might as well have been overturned already.

December 3, 2020 issue

Jed S. Rakoff

Getting Away With Murder

It’s time to start prosecuting executives for crimes they commit on behalf of their companies.

December 3, 2020 issue

Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court shortly after being sworn in, Washington, D.C., August 1993

Pamela Karlan

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1933–2020

The late justice not only wrote about the connection between sex equality and liberty; she lived it.

October 22, 2020 issue

David Cole

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1933–2020

Her career illustrates that one can be radical and incrementalist at the same time; indeed, as she argued, it may be the only way to achieve enduring change.

September 20, 2020

Honoré Daumier: Le Défenseur, circa 1862–1865

Janet Malcolm

A Second Chance

A trial jury is like an audience at a play that wants to be entertained. Witnesses, like stage actors, have to play to that audience if their performances are to be convincing.

September 24, 2020 issue

Natalie Pattillo

Family Court Amid Pandemic

With Covid-19 putting additional strain on people and an already overtaxed system, one has to wonder, would victims be facing these grave dangers amid a pandemic if an abuser’s parental rights weren’t competing with a child’s safety in the first place?

September 2, 2020