The Roundtable
Welcome to the Roundtable, a forum for incisive commentary and analysis
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
 By Ally Margolis
Ally Margolis is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences studying Political Science and History. Former President Trump’s legal challenges to the outcome of the 2020 election were largely if not entirely struck down by courts. In the most recent case, the Supreme Court threw out a case brought by the Texas Attorney General to invalidate election results in various states that President-Elect Biden won. Not one of the Justices offered a public dissent in favor of relief. Justices Alito and Thomas said that they would have let the case be filed but would not have provided any further relief [1]. This decision came just days after the Court denied Pennsylvanian Republicans’ case to throw out all of Pennsylvania’s mail-in votes from the recent election [2]. Again, there were no written dissents to this decision.
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 By Nicholas Williams
Nicholas Williams is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences from Los Angeles, California who plans on majoring in Political Science and History. On November 25, 2020, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision in the case of Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York v. Cuomo [1]. In the decision, the majority held that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s executive order that limited attendance at in-person houses of worship due to the COVID-19 pandemic constituted an unconstitutional violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The case’s outcome could significantly affect both the future of the Supreme Court and government policy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.  By Saranya Das Sharma Saranya Das Sharma is a junior studying English in the College of Arts & Sciences and Operations, Information and Decisions at Wharton. Twelve years ago, the world was in the throes of a similar crisis as the one before us today. Although there was no global pandemic, the recessionary scenes seem eerily familiar: staggering unemployment, government bailouts and an uncertain economic recovery. However there is one key difference- no major bank has become insolvent. A large part of this can be attributed to one of the world’s largest soft law mechanisms- the Basel III Capital Accords, which are a product of the aftermath of the previous crisis.
 By Joseph Squillaro
Joseph M. Squillaro is a member of the Class of 2022 at the University of Pennsylvania studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) with a concentration in cyber policy and internet law. In the past few years when visiting various websites, how many times have you encountered a salient prompt asking for you to accept “cookie” permissions or select which types of data the website is able to retain? I know I personally have seen more than I can count. Yet prior to 2018, you likely would not have seen any such prompt and that was because it simply was not required, at least not in the European Union. That all changed, however, when on May 25th 2018, the European Parliament implemented a sweeping set of cyber reforms collectively known as the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR revolutionized the ways in which tech companies can collect and store your data. From that day forward, companies were required to ask your permission to save information to their servers in the form of the aforementioned cookies. This included details such as your navigation history for personalizing results or your IP address to provide location specific content, among many other examples [1]. This policy, on balance, is a great boon for the liberty for all users of technology: to have control on who stores your data and what kind of information they collect. But a large number of users of technology, including myself, do not reside in the European Union, nor are a citizen of any EU country, yet the prompt and intention of the GDPR still applies. Why is this?  By: Akshita Tiwary
Akshita Tiwary is a 3rd year law student at Government Law College, Mumbai, India. She serves as an Assistant Editor for JURIST, University of Pittsburgh, and is keenly interested in international law, human rights and constitutional law. She may be reached at akshitatiwary@gmail.com. INTRODUCTION On October 22, 2020, a constitutional tribunal in Poland ruled that abortions in case of fetal abnormalities are illegal, as it violates the constitutional right to life of the fetus [1]. This decision has resulted in mass protests across the nation [2]. The ruling effectively tightens abortion laws further in a country which already has one of the strictest abortion regulations in Europe.  by Mina Nur Basmaci
The author is a third-year undergraduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she is majoring in both English and Religious Studies. She can be reached at minabasmaci@ucsb.edu. The impulse to ask what a survivor of assault was wearing, or to defend police intervention based on somebody’s donning of a hoodie, implies that one’s appearance invites others to treat them in prescribed, stigmatizing ways. These explicit manifestations of respectability politics are made possible through the normalization of more implicit ones, such as those in dress codes and in grooming policies.  Keshav Sharma
Keshav Sharma is a freshman at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, who plans on majoring in Health Sciences. At the forefront of the enigma of American healthcare lies the contentious debate of the value of private healthcare in serving the welfare of the American people. While the United States continues to boast the highest spending of all OECD countries in the healthcare sector, allocating an average of 16.9% of its annual GDP from 1980 to 2018, which is more than double the OECD average, the health outcomes for Americans persist in a downward spiral. Compared to other OECD members, the United States has the lowest life expectancy at 78.6a, the highest suicide rates at 13.9 deaths/100,0002b, the highest chronic disease burden at 28%2c, and the highest obesity rates at 40%2d.  By Hetal Doshi
The author is a law student at the National University of Study and Research in Law (NUSRL), Ranchi. She can be reached at hetaldoshi.hvd@gmail.com. The Protest “Maang wahi hai – jal, jungle, zameen,” This statement that translates to “our demand is the same – water, forest and land,” echoed in India’s capital, Delhi, on November 21, 2019 where about 1000 people from Adivasi and forest-dwelling communities from different states of India had assembled for their decades old demand of water, forest and land [1]. This marked a protest against the order passed by the Supreme Court of India on February 13, 2019 [2] evicting the Adivasis from their habitat and seeking the implementation of the dormant Forest Rights Act of 2006 [3].  By Nicholas Williams
Nicholas Williams is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences from Los Angeles, California who plans on majoring in Political Science and History. As the 2020 election draws to an end and results come in, one outcome is clear: there will be two runoff elections for Georgia’s seats in the United States Senate in January, 2021 [1]. One of these runoff elections, between incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler and the Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock, is a runoff for what is known as a “special” election. But what makes special elections special? First, it is important to note the two other main kinds of elections: primary elections and general elections. In primary elections, voters express their preferences for who will compete in the general election. In the United States, this is often done via “closed” or “semi-closed” primaries, where voters choose candidates affiliated with a party to advance to the general election [2]. The winner of the general election then officially wins the office for which he is running.  By Sneha Sharma
Sneha is a junior in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania majoring in Politics, Philosophy, & Economics and minoring in Healthcare Management and Engineering Entrepreneurship. Recently, four congresswomen; Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Rashida Tlaib (MI-13), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) and Ilhan Omar (MN-05) sent a letter to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet. This letter called for the organization to launch independent investigations into the reported human rights abuses committed by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), its components, and its private contractors. Many significant groups such as the SPLC and the Human Rights Watch also co-signed the letter.[1] In the current socio-political climate, some argue that it is an expected but nonetheless rare occasion to witness sitting US congressional representatives release such a strong statement against their own government. |
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