This article highlights the complex legal and ethical challenges attorneys face when addressing state-sanctioned actions like targeted assassinations especially in the context of national security and counterterrorism.
In backsliding democracies facing such state behavior—whether through repression, abuse of power, or militarized actions—attorneys play a critical role as defenders of legal order and democratic accountability.
This article argues that moments of political upheaval shape the legal profession’s collective identity, showing how divergent experiences under authoritarianism in Taiwan led judges, lawyers, and prosecutors to develop distinct normative commitments based on their roles in resisting or navigating state power during democratization.
This article explores how the Hong Kong state counters cause lawyering by promoting “state-embedded lawyers” who defend regime stability, resulting in a polarized legal profession that mirrors broader societal divisions and reshapes public perceptions of the rule of law under mainland China’s influence.
This article examines how ethically driven Russian criminal defense lawyers, motivated by professional values and exposure to rights violations, could form a collective force to strengthen professional associations, push for legal reform, and hold law enforcement accountable within a deteriorating democratic system.
This chapter argues that in authoritarian and transitional contexts like Egypt, the evolving precarity of the legal profession transforms cause lawyers into adaptive, embedded actors who blend legal advocacy with grassroots activism to resist repression and support social movements.
The Trump administration is pressing forward with criminal charges against Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan, who is accused of helping a man evade federal immigration agents in her courtroom. Dugan faces charges of obstruction and concealing an individual to prevent arrest after allegedly escorting the man out a back door. The DOJ argues that dismissing …
This article examines how cause lawyers and allied actors collectively resist restrictive EU migration policies during the Canary Islands crisis by strategically using legal and human rights tools to challenge exclusionary practices.
This study reveals how public interest lawyers strive to empower asylum seekers in Los Angeles despite facing significant challenges from a restrictive and politicized U.S. immigration system.
The article highlights how Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s challenge to military dominance in Pakistan sparked a nationwide lawyers’ movement that ultimately restored judicial independence and reshaped the country’s constitutional landscape.