Humanities & Society

The U.S. Justice Department has narrowed its interpretation of the foreign emoluments clause, allowing foreign countries to court President Donald Trump through patronizing his hotels, condos and golf courses and through granting him trademarks, suggests a new article by ethics expert Kathleen Clark of Washington University in St. Louis.

The Trump Administration announced the U.S. will deny or revoke visas for International Criminal Court staff, a move aimed at deterring a potential investigation by the court into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The decision represents a rejection of the international rule of law, said Leila Sadat, director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute.

Stephen Legomsky, an immigration law expert at Washington University in St. Louis, comments on the Feb. 15 announcement of a state of emergency by President Donald Trump. “This much is crystal clear,” he said. “There is no national security emergency at the southern border.”

As part of its work on gun violence and human rights, the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University in St. Louis has submitted comments to the United Nations Human Rights Committee ahead of the group’s periodic review of the United States, urging stronger action on gun violence.

Now, Lidong Pan, LLM ’04, is a managing partner at a Chinese law firm, where he excels at dealing with international clients. He says it’s in part thanks to the education and practical experience he got through Washington University.

The legality, let alone the wisdom, of closing the southern border amid a partial government shutdown is called into question by Stephen Legomsky, an immigration-law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

When she was 10, Shirley Padmore Mensah survived a coup in her native Liberia. Due to that and encouragement from her father, Mensah studied at Washington University’s School of Law eventually becoming a judge in Missouri with a deep appreciation of the rule of law.

President Donald Trump on June 20 directed his administration to detain migrant families together instead of separating parents from their children, but one of the nation’s leading immigration experts argues that jailing migrant families is still “cruel and unnecessary” under U.S. law.

Bridging divisions in religion and politics will be the topic of a series of interdisciplinary panels, beginning Tuesday, Feb. 6, sponsored by Washington University in St. Louis’ John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics.

As Americans begin to file their last returns under a fading tax system, as President Donald Trump concludes his first State of the Union with a great emphasis on the economy, as the world watches this country undergo tectonic changes, it’s time to cut through the politicking and positioning. Washington University in St. Louis compiled researchers and experts across campus to attempt to put the new tax reform into perspective, plainly speaking.