Law

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

David Cole

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

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

The Latest

David Cole

A Rush to Execute

In six months, the Trump administration put to death over three times as many people as the federal government had executed in the previous six decades.

February 25, 2021 issue

Alexandra D. Lahav

Medicine Is Made for Men

In medical research, drug regulation, and product design, the male body is too often considered as the default—which can have dangerous, even fatal, consequences for women.

February 11, 2021 issue

Diane Ravitch

The Dark History of School Choice

How an argument for segregated schools became a rallying cry for privatizing public education.

January 14, 2021 issue

Burt Neuborne

When Religious Liberty Collides with Public Health

Justice Scalia had it right when he warned that judicial enforcement of the First Amendment should be limited to purposeful efforts to harm religion.

December 8, 2020

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