Karakoram Mountains in Pakistan by King Elliot (CC BY-SA 4.0). Since its founding in 1947, Pakistan’s trajectory on women’s rights has been marked by a persistent tension between constitutional promises of equality and periods of legal ambiguity. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan affirms women’s equal status before the law, political participation, and…
New York City Skyline by Janusz Sobolewski (CC BY 2.0). Recently, a number of us on staff at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, ranging from Gen Z to Baby Boomers, had the occasion to take stock of different generations and their perspectives on human rights. Baby Boomers are old enough to…
The West Virginia State Capitol Building by O Palsson (CC BY 2.0). Since 2020, a foster family from West Virginia fostered, and eventually adopted, three girls. In 2023, the girls’ newborn biological brother, M.B., was immediately placed with the foster family. Notably, the foster family are members of an Old Order Amish community. M.B.’s guardian ad…
Carlo III di Borbone visiting the Pope Benedetto XIV in the coffee-house of the Quirinale, Rome (US-PD). As the eighteenth century unfolded, theories aimed at limiting the Roman Catholic Church’s authority, shaped over the previous centuries and influenced by humanist and natural law thinking, started to really take hold in the religious policies of some…
New York, New York by Mario Hains (CC-BY-SA-3.0). In November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public, and within five days, the chatbot had acquired one million users. By January 2023, it had become the fastest-growing consumer application in history, with over 100 million monthly active users. The artificial intelligence could write essays, debug code,…
The Reservation Tribal Office at Lake Superior via the National Park Service. From the earliest Supreme Court rulings to the annual presidential proclamations that mark National Native American Heritage Month, the United States has treated Native sovereignty as both a legal and moral question, one rooted as much in theology as in jurisprudence. The very…
A Woman Reading by Ivan Kramskoi (PD-Art). The right and responsibilities of parents regarding their children’s religious education form a foundation of religious freedom. In many legal systems, this right is considered an implicit component of the broader freedom of religion or right to education. However, a specific, explicit constitutional guarantee for parents’ right to…
Lady Justice at The Palace of Justice, Rome, Italy by Jebulon (CC0 1.0) Against the backdrop of the affirmation of the Modern State and the birth of national legal systems, the hundred years from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-seventeenth century represent a period full of changes for Europe also in the legal field. As…
Nature (AI) by Alan Warburton (CC BY 4.0). In 2014, users on LessWrong, an internet forum, encountered a post by a user named Roko, who posited that humanity would invent a superintelligence. This superintelligence would have the power to create fully accurate computerized simulations of people, essentially ending death. The AI, knowing that its creation…
Tonto National Forest by Janet Ward (CC BY 2.0). Among the Supreme Court’s most significant decisions on religious exercise this term was the decision not to act. The case—Apache Stronghold v. United States—was relisted 17 times before the Court issued a denial of certiorari indicating they would not hear the case. The conflict involved a…