Within Italian criminal law, the category of motive entitled motivi futili, or futile motives, is used as an evaluation standard in determining an increase in the severity of a penalty for a crime committed, not unlike the designation ‘aggravated’ in common law systems. An application of the penalty means that…
Human rights, when understood and applied interculturally, offer an interface for translating and mediating values across global diversities. Religions have long done the same, attempting to provide meaning that bridges human-to-human as well as human-to-divine relationships through a universalist ethos. Still, the two are often pitted against each other with…
The restrictions on human movements put into place by states in response to the 2020 global outbreak of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 have disrupted every category of society, not least religion and law. Freedom of religion has been pitted against right to health across several categories. Areas of conflict such as…
This paper addresses questions of legal personhood that have been coming to the fore in European courts in recent years through what has been termed the “Right to Be Forgotten.” These cases center around conflicts between the permanence of online information and the desire of users to instead make their…
From the right to information to the right to privacy, from freedom of expression to protection from defamation, online conflicts are troubling private entities and jurists alike, particularly as the ever-increasing spread of global communications changes the meaning and impact of territories and jurisdiction. Beneath the hubbub runs a babbling…
Overpopulation is a fraught concept because it immediately involves several competing ideas. First, the primary objectives of the human race vis a vis reproduction. Second, conflicting ecological understandings of the planet and the human impact on it, and finally, complex contradictions regarding what humans can and should “do” about all…
Sweden has been widely recognized as one of the most modern and progressive European democracies. Swedes themselves often claim they are more democratic, progressive, and intrinsically more “freedom-loving” than other nations. The case of Ellinor Grimmark, a Swedish midwife who has been denied the possibility to conscientiously object to performing…
