Media Mentions

When President Biden calls Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” and says that Russia’s war in Ukraine amounts to “genocide,” what does it mean? Do such prounouncements place obligations on the United States? Does it threaten some sort of legal jeopardy for the Russian president? When an artilleryman a thousand yards away sends a projectile slamming into an apartment building full of civilians, is that a war crime? Is the soldier who released the shell more or less responsible than the politician a thousand miles away who ordered the assault on a city? Ray Suarez tackles these questions with a war-crimes prosecutor and a former student organizer who played a critical role in the downfall of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who was the first sitting head of state indicted for war crimes. Guests: Ivan Marovic, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict Alex Whiting, war-crimes prosecutor and visiting professor at Harvard Law School

The Supreme Court's rejection of a Missouri pipeline's plea to review a decision vacating its permit will buoy efforts to strengthen the federal permitting process for new gas infrastructure, legal experts predicted. Although the commission still has a long way to go in gaining consensus on the more contentious issues facing pipeline permitting — notably whether a pipeline can be rejected based on the impact it has on the climate — the high court's denial represents another blow to the gas industry, which will have to step up efforts to prove the necessity of new pipelines to pass muster with FERC, according to experts. ... Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School, wrote in an email that “FERC clearly has legal authority to enforce a new policy statement like the one Christie outlines in his dissent. I’m sure industry would challenge its implementation, but it’s hard to imagine a court would find that FERC does not have legal authority to analyze whether there is demand for a new pipeline when the only evidence of need is a contract between two corporate affiliates.”

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority said Monday afternoon it was reviewing the decision by a federal judge in Florida voiding the national mask mandate on airplanes and public transit. “The MBTA is continuing to follow CDC guidelines and will review the court order. The MBTA is also reaching out to its federal partners to get further guidance,” MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said in an e-mail Monday afternoon. Massport spokeswoman Jennifer Mehigan referred questions to the US Transportation Security Administration. ... Mizelle also was criticized by Laurence Tribe, an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School. He said the decision was “misguided” and noted that the American Bar Association had found in 2020 that Mizelle, who was 33 at the time, was “not qualified” because of inexperience.

An article by Ashley Nunes: It’s now or never. That’s the message climate scientists have for politicians, policy wonks and anyone (and everyone) willing to listen. Members of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say that global carbon dioxide emissions must peak within the next three years to avert the most severe impacts of climate change. Their solution? Action that delivers, “rapid, deep and immediate” emissions cuts. For IPCC leadership, this entails “having the right policies, infrastructure and technology in place.”

Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe joins MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell to explain his belief that current U.S. law allows Pres. Biden to liquidate tens of billions of dollars Russia has in the U.S. in foreign exchange reserves which officials have already frozen.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: Among the weird things in Elon Musk’s recent TED interview was how blatantly he appeared to violate the terms of a settlement agreement he reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018. At issue was his claim that he had the financing to take Tesla private. “Funding was actually secured,” he assured TED chief Chris Anderson.

The organizing campaign at Starbucks has succeeded in unionizing nearly 20 of the coffee chain’s U.S. stores so far, a historic breakthrough for the labor movement. But the union effort is now in the early stages of an even heavier lift: negotiating a first contract. Starbucks has every incentive not to offer the workers a satisfactory deal, since that would only encourage more workers to organize. From the perspective of the union, Workers United, securing solid gains in a collective bargaining agreement could turbocharge an already hot organizing drive, and bring many more of Starbucks’ 9,000 corporate-owned U.S. stores into the fold. Both sides are now girding for what’s likely to be a bruising fight at the negotiating table, one that could ultimately determine the future of unions inside Starbucks. ... Sharon Block, a labor law professor at Harvard University and former official in the Biden White House, said the brand dynamic is “hard to quantify,” but reputable considerations must figure into Starbucks’ calculus. “I imagine it weighs on their decision-making,” she said. “It isn’t just about doing the [financial] math.” If workers can successfully organize hundreds of stores, there may be a point in which Starbucks finds it in the company’s interest to acknowledge itself as a union employer and bargain accordingly, rather than continue to wage a battle at every store where a union petition pops up.

An essay by Jeannie Suk Gersen: In 2003, when the Supreme Court held, in Lawrence v. Texas, that criminalizing gay sex was unconstitutional, it insisted that the decision had nothing to do with marriage equality. In a scathing dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “Do not believe it.” Then, in 2013, when the Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act’s definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, emphasizing the tradition of letting the states define marriage, Scalia issued another warning, saying that “no one should be fooled” into thinking that the Court would leave states free to exclude gay couples from that definition. He was finally proved right two years later, when the reasoning on dignity and equality developed in those earlier rulings led to the Court’s holding that the Constitution requires all states to recognize same-sex marriage.

If climate change were a disaster film, it would likely be accused of being too over-the-top: wildfires reducing entire towns to ashes, hurricanes swamping cities, droughts draining lakes and withering fields, and raging oceans redrawing the very maps of our coasts. And now, many cities and states are asking, who's going to pay for all of this? ... Richard Lazarus, who teaches environmental law at Harvard, said, "The scope of the problem is one that requires really a national approach. Cities and counties and states are being the ones left with the problem when the federal government doesn't step up to the plate." Lazarus said even if the cities and states prove the fossil fuel companies deceived the public about climate change, it doesn't necessarily mean they will win: "They've done a really good job of showing that the oil and gas industry, I think, engaged in fraudulent activity. The challenge will be causation, to prove that their fraudulent behavior is what prevented the United States from passing the laws we needed to reduce those greenhouse gas emissions."

Michael Newton, Law professor and former Senior Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, and Visiting Harvard Law professor, Alex Whiting who is also deputy specialist prosecutor at the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague, join host Carol Castiel to discuss potential war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine and the important ongoing process of documenting evidence, which is needed to hold perpetrators, up to and including Russian President Vladimir Putin, accountable at the ICC or any other national or international venue.

Trillions of dollars of financial assets are at risk of losses related to the climate, so the Biden Administration is now moving to require public companies to disclose their climate risk. Host Steve Curwood talks to Jody Freeman, Harvard Law professor and former Obama White House official, about the proposed Securities and Exchange Commission mandate.

The brutalities of Russia’s war in Ukraine have stoked enormous demand among Ukrainians and much of the Western world for investigations, indictments, arrests and trials for the invaders and their commanders, notably President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Some leaders, including President Biden, have even accused them of genocide. ... “There’s no question an act of aggression was done,” said Alex Whiting, a visiting professor of international law at Harvard and a war-crimes prosecutor. “And the most straightforward case, in a crime of aggression, is against Putin himself.”

Boise residents on Saturday found bookmark-sized fliers in their neighborhoods. A large black box at the top read, “POLITICAL PROSECUTION.” Below it were photos, home addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of two people: 4th District Magistrate Judge Annie McDevitt and Ada County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Whitney Welsh. The flier claimed that McDevitt and Welsh were “using their position of power to retaliate against a gubernatorial candidate because of his opposition to the inequity of justice and systemic excessive force used by government agents” — a reference to Ammon Bundy. ... “Any of these laws could be subverted by the powerful,” Bruce Schneier, a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, told The Markup last year.

A Harvard Law program will join the ACLU of Nebraska as counsels in a lawsuit against Cody Kilgore Unified Schools – a suit that stems from cutting Native American children’s hair. A Cody Kilgore employee allegedly cut two children’s hair for a lice check without their parents’ permission in spring 2020. The family, members of the Lakota tribe, believe hair is a sacred symbol. A year later, the Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of the family – alleging first amendment violations. The lawsuit caught the Harvard Law School Religious Freedom Clinic's attention. “We are proud to team up with the ACLU of Nebraska on this important case," said Josh McDaniel, the clinic's director, in a statement. "As a Clinic, we are committed to protecting the religious rights and traditions of people of all faiths — especially those with misunderstood or marginalized beliefs.”

An op-ed co-written by Laurence Tribe: As Vladimir Putin vows to continue his genocidal invasion of Ukraine, investigators at the Treasury Department and Justice Department are scrambling to seize Russian yachts, mansions and the other spoils of his despotic regime. Meanwhile, in Washington, Representatives Tom Malinowski of New Jersey and Joe Wilson of South Carolina have advanced a bipartisan measure to clarify exactly how much power the executive branch has to liquidate those assets. These efforts are laudable and important. But they are neither bold enough nor swift enough to provide what Ukraine needs.

Think about modern warfare and it's likely images of soldiers, tanks and missiles will spring to mind. But arguably more important than any of these is something on which they all rely: the humble truck. Armies need trucks to transport their soldiers to the front lines, to supply those tanks with shells and to deliver those missiles. In short, any army that neglects its trucks does so at its peril. Yet that appears to be exactly the problem Russia's military is facing during its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, according to experts analyzing battlefield images as its forces withdraw from areas near Kyiv to focus on the Donbas. ... Matthew Stephenson, a Harvard Law School professor and editor in chief of the Global Anti-corruption Blog, wrote in March that corruption had a particularly corrosive effect on the Russian military's maintenance and supply logistics. "All of these problems that anti-corruption experts and national security specialists had been emphasizing for years do seem to be manifesting in the current Russian invasion," he wrote.

The Ukrainian security service released a photo this week of a disheveled man in a conspicuously crisp Ukrainian army uniform manacled in a chair next to a radiator. For President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the picture of Viktor Medvedchuk that Kyiv released on social media presents a triumph for the Ukrainian secret service operatives who tracked down the Russian oligarch missing for nearly two months in the midst of a brutal conflict. The close ally of President Vladimir Putin now represents a lucrative prize to trade for the release of soldiers in Russian captivity, as the Ukrainian leader suggested in a pre-dawn video address on Wednesday. ... “In theory, perhaps some members of the Russian leadership might be interested in seeking to reduce Mr. Medvedchuk’s susceptibility to being subject to a proceeding in a court in Ukraine or, if the [International Criminal Court] or a foreign court institutes proceedings against him, in his potential transfer outside Ukraine,” says Dustin Lewis, research director for the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict, adding that he would need more clarity on the facts of Medvedchuk's detention to determine which legal provisions may be applicable.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: Even before the Supreme Court reverses Roe v. Wade, as most court watchers expect it to do this June, the legal battle about the aftermath of the decision is getting underway. By far the most consequential aspect of the fight is likely to be about state attempts to regulate medical abortions using the drug mifepristone. For pro-choice advocates, mifepristone represents the only cost-effective workaround for women who want to end unwanted pregnancies but who live in the 25 or more states that will ban abortion after Roe is overturned. Some people have the means to travel out of state for surgical abortions. And, with enough financial support, some national organizations might be able to help pay the way for those who cannot afford the trip and the surgery.

An article by Terri Gerstein: In the past two weeks, Amazon workers at a Staten Island warehouse and Starbucks baristas in four New York cities and beyond all voted to unionize. While these victories are remarkable and inspiring, there’s still a David-and-Goliath battle going on—and it’s still much too difficult to understand the full forces arrayed against these workers and those at other locations nationwide. When confronted by workers seeking to unionize, the vast majority of employers hire professional consultants—“persuaders”—to thwart workers’ efforts. These persuaders meet one-on-one with workers, train managers, and hold mandatory anti-union “captive audience” meetings that employees must attend. (Last Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel issued a memo arguing that these meetings violate the law. Until this is litigated, such meetings will likely continue apace, unfortunately.)

This week, the European Union announced it will provide funding and support to prosecutors from the International Criminal Court who are investigating alleged war crimes. The move comes days after E.U. President Ursula von der Leyen visited Bucha, a Kyiv suburb where hundreds of Ukrainian civilians have been found dead in the streets. On Sunday, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told ABC’s “This Week” that Russian forces are intentionally targeting civilians as part of their strategy. However, when asked whether the U.S. would be involved in prosecuting the alleged war crimes through the International Criminal Court, Sullivan deferred. The United States has a complicated relationship with the ICC. Neither the U.S. nor Russia are signatories to the Rome Statute, which established the court back in 2002. And the U.S. has long been opposed to allowing the court jurisdiction over citizens of countries that aren’t part of the ICC. We have a panel of legal experts to discuss the path forward on war crimes in Ukraine. GUESTS Alex Whiting Deputy Prosecutor of the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s office

The internet is increasingly emerging as a source for identification and documentation of war crimes, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has devastatingly proven yet again. But how does an image of a possible war crime go from social media to before a tribunal in a potential war crimes prosecution?  On a recent episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Nick Waters, the lead on Justice and Accountability at Bellingcat, about how open-source investigators go about documenting evidence of atrocity. This week on the show, Evelyn and Quinta interviewed Alexa Koenig, the executive director of the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and an expert on using digital evidence for justice and accountability. They talked about how international tribunals have adapted to using new forms of evidence derived from the internet, how social media platforms have helped—and hindered—collection of this kind of evidence, and the work Alexa has done to create a playbook for investigators downloading and collecting material documenting atrocities.