Category: Law

Law / Britain / Europe

 by Jaffa Levy

Jack Baud and the New Meaning of ‘Propaganda’: Sanctions, Speech and Power in Peacetime Europe

This article examines the EU sanctions imposed on Jack Baud, a former Swiss Army colonel, and compares them with the UK sanctions case of Graham Phillips. It argues that modern sanctions regimes increasingly classify speech as “propaganda” based on executive alignment rather than falsity or criminality, creating domestic coercive effects in peacetime and raising fundamental constitutional concerns about free expression, property rights and procedural safeguards.

Opinion / Law

 by Jaffa Levy

The Year the World Stopped Pretending

Christmas 2025 arrives as institutions continue to speak in the language of permanence while operating through discretion, conditionality, and managed risk. This editorial records the quiet divergence between declared principle and actual practice across guarantees, law, trust, and power. It is not a forecast or a manifesto, but a reckoning with how the system now behaves and what follows if that reality remains unacknowledged.

Law / Britain / United States

 by Jaffa Levy

What Losing Both Legs Is Worth Depends on Which Side of the Atlantic You’re On

Two construction workers suffer the same catastrophic accident and lose both legs. One is in Seattle, inside Washington State’s workers compensation system. The other is in Manchester, under Britain’s dual track of state benefits and civil liability. The difference is not sentiment or severity. It is legal design. One system buys certainty. The other prices fault.

Law / China / Venezuela

 by Jaffa Levy

When Sanctions Become Seizure: The Law of the Sea on Trial

The US boarding of a Panama flagged tanker carrying Venezuelan oil tests a fundamental question of international law. Can sanctions be enforced at sea without UN authority, or does this cross into unlawful interference with freedom of navigation?

Law / China / Diplomacy / India / Nepal

 by Jaffa Levy

When Borders Move on Paper Before They Move on the Ground

Border conflict rarely begins with soldiers. It begins with passports, currency, maps, and iconography that harden claims before diplomacy can unwind them. From a woman stopped in Shanghai over her passport to Nepali Banknote with disputed borders, South Asia shows how nationalism now advances through paperwork long before blood is shed.

Technology / Law

 by Jaffa Levy

Telegram Is Becoming a Pocket State and Governments Are Responding Like It Is One

Telegram is no longer just a messaging app. At a billion user scale, it behaves like a pocket jurisdiction with its own rules, enforcement, and political gravity. That is why France targeted Pavel Durov personally, why Europe is tightening platform law, and why the next regulatory fight is not about content. It is about sovereignty, evidence, and who governs the network.

Law

 by Jaffa Levy

Euroclear in the Dock: Moscow Tests the Legal Limits of Europe’s Frozen Assets

As Russia’s central bank brings its claim against Euroclear before a Moscow court, the EU’s attempt to mobilise immobilised sovereign assets without crossing into confiscation faces its first live legal test. The case exposes where risk truly lies in Europe’s reparations loan strategy: not in rhetoric, but in custody, immunity, and Member State balance sheets.

Law

 by Jaffa Levy

Britain’s Abramovich Problem Is Not About Ukraine. It Is About Property

The dispute over the frozen proceeds of Chelsea’s sale is being framed as a question of humanitarian destination. It is not. At issue is whether Britain can lawfully convert a sanctions freeze into a compelled transfer of private property without clear legal authority. The answer matters not just for one oligarch, but for the credibility of English property law itself.

Law / Britain

 by Jaffa Levy

Britain’s Courts Are Broken. The Government’s Cure Targets the Jury

Britain once sold trial by jury as proof that serious criminal justice belongs in the hands of ordinary citizens. Now ministers want to strip juries from a wide band of cases and blame them for a Crown Court backlog that years of cuts created. This Telegraph Online analysis tests whether the plan is a necessary response to crisis or a quiet transfer of power from the public to the state.

Law / Artificial Intelligence (AI)

 by Jaffa Levy

Getty Defeat and Meta Fair Use Win Signal Shift in AI Copyright Battles

Two courts on opposite sides of the Atlantic have handed AI developers narrow but significant wins. In London, the High Court ruled that a trained model is not an “infringing copy,” while in California, judges upheld fair use on limited facts. The real fight over data provenance, training locality, and market harm still lies ahead.

Law / Opinion

 by Jaffa Levy

Nexperia and the Law of Overreach

The Dutch government’s intervention in Nexperia is no ordinary corporate dispute. It marks the first time in peacetime that The Hague has used Cold War-era powers to take control of a functioning private company in the name of “technological security.” By removing Nexperia’s Chinese chief executive and suspending shareholder control, the state has effectively placed Europe’s largest discrete-chip producer under direct administration.
This legal commentary examines whether that act was lawful, proportionate, or politically orchestrated