Editor’s Note: Ronald Weitzer is a professor of sociology at George Washington University in Washington, DC, and an expert on the sex industry.  He is the author of Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business and editor of Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry.

By Ronald Weitzer – Special to CNN

Prostitution is in the news because it is legal in Colombia, where U.S. Secret Service and military personnel have been implicated in a sex-for-pay scandal. And just a few weeks ago, a Canadian court threw out two of Canada’s three prostitution laws – laws that criminalize brothel owners and individuals who “live off the avails” of someone else’s prostitution (see my earlier piece in GPS on this ruling). The court ruled these laws unconstitutional, thus raising the possibility that Canada might legalize prostitution in the future.

What many people do not know is that prostitution is legal in many nations. According to ProCon.org’s review of laws in 100 countries, 61% have legalized at least some kind of prostitution. Since 1971, it has been legal in rural counties in Nevada, where about 300 women work in brothels regulated by local ordinances. FULL POST

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Anders Behring Breivik addressed a Norwegian court today, calling his admitted murder of seventy-seven people last summer the most "spectacular sophisticated political act" since World War II (NYT), while vowing to do it over again if given the opportunity. Breivik said he acted– setting off a car bomb in central Oslo that killed eight and gunning down sixty-nine others at a nearby youth summer camp on July 22, 2011–as part of a Norwegian resistance movement in defense of the alleged Islamic "colonization" of Norway. Breivik, who asked the court to acquit him, said his victims were not innocent because they supported multiculturalism. FULL POST

Editor’s Note: Matthew Waxman is Associate Professor at Columbia Law School, and he is also a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law. The following piece is his First Take, reprinted with permission from the Council on Foreign Relations.

By Matthew Waxman, CFR.org

On Wednesday, the Pentagon authorized a military commission trial at Guantanamo for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others accused of orchestrating the September 11 attacks. The charges include murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians and civilian objects, hijacking aircraft, and terrorism. If convicted, the five suspects could face the death penalty.The headlines about this may sound very familiar. Back in 2008,the Bush administration had charged them in a military commission, but the Obama administration suspended the case upon coming into office. The Obama administration then planned to bring the case to a civilian federal court in New York, but congressional and local opposition forced it to shelve those plans. FULL POST

Editor’s Note: Joan Henneberry is a principal at Health Management Associates,  an independent national research and consulting firm specializing in complex health care program and policy issue. Previously, she served as the Planning Director for Colorado’s Health Insurance Exchange in 2011.

By Joan Henneberry - Special to CNN 

For many waiting for the Supreme Court to decide on the fate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the wait may be worse than the outcome. Uncertainty has paralyzed some state officials and engendered a sense of desperation in others.

But delaying key policy and program decisions puts states at risk of not meeting the ACA’s 2014 implementation deadlines and, worse, of missing out on options available to them right now.

The ACA offers avenues for improving health care even in the absence of the individual mandate by bringing efficiencies into the healthcare system, bending the cost curve, and improving overall customer experience.

Here are some things states can do to reform health care even if the mandate is struck down: FULL POST

Editor’s Note: This is an edited version of an article from the ‘Oxford Analytica Daily Brief’. Oxford Analytica is a global analysis and advisory firm that draws on a worldwide network of experts to advise its clients on their strategy and performance.

Compared with the judiciary in any other advanced democracy, the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court are uniquely influential in the country’s politics. With a ruling expected in June on the constitutionality of President Obama’s landmark healthcare legislation, some parallels can be drawn between this Court and the Court under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In the extremely difficult economic circumstances of the 1930s, Roosevelt launched innovative and unprecedented ‘New Deal’ schemes to help stimulate economic growth and job creation. After initially upholding some new laws that expanded federal involvement in economic activity, the Supreme Court turned dramatically against the Roosevelt agenda in May 1935. It unanimously struck down his signature legislation on industrial recovery and agriculture as unconstitutional extensions of federal power not justified by the extraordinary economic conditions facing the country. FULL POST

Editor’s Note: Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review.  He has been heavily involved in the litigation regarding the Affordable Care Act, including having filed briefs on each of the four issues argued before the Supreme Court last week. 

By Ilya Shapiro – Special to CNN

“Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?”  With those words, Justice Anthony Kennedy sent the legal establishment reeling.

Was the Supreme Court really taking seriously the preposterous claims of the Tea Party-inspired hacks who were suing the federal government?  Was there really a chance that five justices, acting as would-be partisan hacks themselves, would throw out President Obama’s signature achievement?  Could Obamacare, which name everyone is now allowed to use because the administration itself has adopted it, really fall on some technicality about mandating economic activity rather than regulating it when it occurs?

In a word, yes. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Tune in this Sunday at 10am or 1pm EST for Fareed Zakaria GPS. 

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Something caught my eye the other day: Pat Robertson, the high priest of the religious right, had some startling things to say about drugs.

"I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol," Mr. Robertson said in a recent interview. "I've never used marijuana and I don't intend to, but it's just one of those things that I think. This war on drugs just hasn't succeeded."

The reason Robertson is for legalizing marijuana is that it has created a prison problem in America that is well beyond what most Americans imagine.

"It's completely out of control," Mr. Robertson said. "Prisons are being overcrowded with juvenile offenders having to do with drugs. And the penalties - the maximums - some of them could get 10 years for possession of a joint of marijuana. It makes no sense at all." FULL POST

Editor’s Note: Ronald Weitzer is a professor of sociology at George Washington University in Washington, DC, and an expert on the sex industry.  He is the author of Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business and editor of Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry.

By Ronald Weitzer – Special to CNN

A remarkable court decision took place in Canada this week. The Ontario Court of Appeal, hearing an appeal of a lower court’s 2010 ruling, affirmed much of the latter’s decision invalidating the nation’s prostitution laws. If left intact, the appeals court’s ruling essentially decriminalizes two prostitution-related activities.

The lower court ruled that Canada’s three main prostitution laws were unconstitutional because they, in effect, increased the risks to prostitutes and thus contradicted the Canadian Charter’s guarantee of "life, liberty and security of the person.” That court threw out the laws against running a brothel, third parties “living off the avails” of prostitution, and the prohibition on solicitation. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Dr. Harry Croft is a former Army doctor who has evaluated more than 7,000 veterans with PTSD.  He is medical director of the San Antonio Psychiatric Research Center, has been in private practice for 35 years and just released his new book, I Always Sit With My Back to The Wall (written with coauthor, Reverend Dr. Chrys Parker).

By Harry Croft - Special to CNN

The shocking news of an American soldier allegedly going on a shooting rampage and taking the lives of 16 Afghanistan civilians has captivated the world this week. The question everyone is trying to answer: What caused him to snap and commit such a heinous act?

Details are slowly emerging, but as a former Army doctor and someone who has evaluated more than 7,000 veterans with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), I believe a combination of factors pushed the unnamed soldier over the edge.

This soldier was more than likely suffering from PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), but these conditions alone would not have caused him to go on a killing spree. Even in the most severe cases I’ve seen in my 30 years of research and treating patients, I have never seen or heard of anyone with PTSD alone doing such a thing. Yes, PTSD typically brings on symptoms of anger, irritability, and even at times, rage.  It causes a person to feel distant and detached, easily startled or hyper-vigilant. The person might be unsociable and have trouble expressing his or her emotions. But killing 16 people is not a result of combat-related PTSD alone.    FULL POST

Editor's Note: Sharanjeet Parmar is the Democratic Republic of the Congo Program Director at the International Center for Transitional Justice.

By Sharanjeet Parmar – Special to CNN

In the past several days, the world's attention has been grabbed by warlords accused of brutal recruitment of child soldiers in Africa. From the campaign focused on Joseph Kony it turned to the first judgment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Thomas Lubanga, convicted of the recruitment of child soldiers in the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Lubanga could face life imprisonment after being found guilty of recruiting children under 15 for his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), using them actively on the frontline.

However, for the millions of victims of the country’s successive wars, Lubanga is just one of many who are responsible for crimes on an astonishing scale. Congolese authorities must end the widespread impunity enjoyed by those who remain in positions of power in the government and military or violence and instability are likely to continue for years to come. As one of the largest aid donors to the country, the United States is in a strong position to pressure the Congolese government to take more meaningful and effective action to reform its military and ensure war criminals are brought to justice. FULL POST