Are foreign consulates located in the United States considered foreign territory when it comes to abortion laws? My friend and I got into a debate whether a woman could step into a foreign consulate, take an abortion pill, then leave without fear of prosecution if abortion is illegal in the State where she resides. (More of a hypothetical question considering a possible scenario if Roe v. Wade is overturned.)
The idea that a diplomatic mission is &quot;foreign soil&quot; is an exaggeration of the legal situation. Certain individuals (diplomats) are immune from arrest, so if the woman is the ambassador, she can't be arrested, period. The limits on legal actions w.r.t. entering a mission are spelled out in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961, Art 21-25. See Art 22: &quot;1. The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission&quot;. Otherwise, criminal actions carried out within the premise of a diplomatic mission can be prosecuted under the laws of the receiving jurisdiction just as though the action had taken place outside of the mission – being inside a mission does not confer immunity from prosecution. As a general rule, when you enter an foreign embassy you do not have to go through passport formalities upon entering and exiting, and your single-entry visa is not &quot;used up&quot; by visiting your home country embassy (or any other embassy). That is because an embassy is not foreign soil.
There appears to be no general federal statute addressing the legality of a male entering a female-labeled bathroom, or vice versa, within federal jurisdiction. There are various regulations that touch on bathrooms, for example the OSHA regulations pertaining to sanitation require that "toilet facilities, in toilet rooms separate for each sex, shall be provided in all places of employment in accordance with table J-1 of this section", but "Where toilet facilities will not be used by women, urinals may be provided instead of water closets". These are regulations imposed on employers, and there is no provision for enforcement by employers, for instance no clause saying that the employer must call the police, or in any way intervene or sanction an employee, if a person enters a bathroom of "the wrong sex". It is apparently not a crime, as reflected anywhere in the US Code, for a male to enter or remain in a female bathroom, or vice versa. Building managers have some discretion regarding the operation of federal facilities, for example courthouses, which could extend to requesting a male to not enter a female bathroom or vice versa, but there isn't a practical way to determine what departmental regulations exist that would allow eviction of a bathroom-cross-user. Federal law does not protect against sex/gender discrimination in public accommodations. As for Maryland law, the owner of private property has the right to control his property up to the point that state law take that control from him, and therefore in principle he could call the police to remove a person trespassing in a bathroom (this article addresses the trespass angle in North Carolina). Maryland does not appear to have any case law or statutory exception to trespass laws related to labeling of bathrooms, so enforcement actions would be at the discretion of the owner. At the lower end of the political hierarchy, Baltimore has an ordinance requiring single-use bathrooms to be gender neutral, and a proposal exists to enact a state law with this effect. In other words, there does not appear to be any direct, enforceable legal requirement regarding bathroom entry and sex. Trespass laws could be used, but are at the discretion of the property owner (who might be civilly sued for his actions, but the police don't decide the merits of a discrimination suit before evicting a trespasser).
There is no internationally-enforceable mechanism regarding how other people call something, or what alphabet can be uses to write a word. I can legally call that country between Bangladesh and Thailand "Burma" or "Myanmar", I can call Україна Ukraine, The Ukraine, or Ukrainia (the latter seems to be old-fashioned, but it's still legal). As a diplomatic matter, the US government seems to have settled on certain designations so that it uses the version "Myanmar" for official purposes although it includes "(Burma)" in popular communications (State Department travel advisories). If it wanted to, the US could call The Republic of North Macedonia by the name "Macedonia", though there would be political protests. The EU, NATO, UN etc. can likewise set its own rules regarding names of countries. There are many additional complications in the case of countries that are not universally / widely recognized, such as Trasnistria and the Republic of Somaliland. If the president of the Republic of Somaliland sought to address the UN, his problem would not be what people would call his country, it is that the Republic of Somaliland is not "recognized" by the UN (it has no official status), or anyone else. The question of "sameness" of language is a prominent feature of nationalist movements. Claims are made that Flemish and Dutch are "the same" or "different", likewise Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, Montenegrin; Dari, Farsi and Tajik. Thus there is no real chance of litigating the matter of whether Moldovan and Romanian are the "same language" and which name should be used. But if the EU parliament wants to, it could rule that the language of Moldova is to be called "Romanian", or "Moldovan".
The way "with intent to lose citizenship" works in US law is extremely demanding; it is very hard to establish it by doing anything short of appearing before a consular officer and formally renouncing citizenship. Other ways include serving in the military of a country at war with the US, being convicted of treason for committing one of the specified potentially expatriating acts (serving in an army at war with the US is sort of a trial-less special case of that, because engaging in a war against the US is treason), or serving in a "policy-level position" in a foreign government. The State Department says as much in the link. Obtaining citizenship is listed as a case where the administrative premise applies; so is swearing allegiance to a foreign state, serving in the military of a state at peace with the US, and serving in lower-level government posts of a foreign state. In those cases, the person retains US citizenship but at some point in the future may be asked by the State Department if they wanted to renounce it. Intent to renounce citizenship is established only by explicit declaration if you've only obtained citizenship in another country. With "policy-level posts" the premise doesn't apply, but then the State Department just decides on a case-by-case basis. You may well lose US citizenship (although the King of Thailand was born in the US, and I'm not sure if he's considered to have lost citizenship), but it's not automatic. Your senior ministers may lose citizenship, but it is likewise not automatic. But the normal citizens? The link explicitly says that the administrative premise covers that.
The answer isn't clear, but Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence in Dobbs suggests that such a prosecution would be unconstitutional: May a State retroactively impose liability or punishment for an abortion that occurred before today’s decision takes effect? In my view, the answer is no based on the Due Process Clause or the Ex Post Facto Clause. Dobbs. v. Jackson Women's Health Org., 597 U. S. ____ (2022). Kavanaguh relied largely on the Supreme Court's decision in Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U. S. 347 (1964). There, black protesters were charged for trespass because they staged a sit-in at a diner and refused to leave when police told them to. They argued they couldn't be convicted because the state's trespass statute only prohibited entering land after being told not to, but the courts convicted them anyway, holding that the statute also outlawed remaining on land after being asked to leave, even though the statute said nothing like that. The Supreme Court reversed the convictions, holding that &quot;an unforeseeable judicial enlargement of a criminal statute, applied retroactively, operates precisely like an ex post facto law, such as Art. I, § 10, of the Constitution forbids.&quot; By applying such a construction of the statute to affirm their convictions in this case, the State has punished them for conduct that was not criminal at the time they committed it, and hence has violated the requirement of the Due Process Clause that a criminal statute give fair warning of the conduct which it prohibits. Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 350 (1964). But Kavanaugh's opinion isn't controlling, and Bouie isn't exactly on point, so the question remains open. The defendant probably has the more straightforward argument -- the abortion was legal up until Dobbs was decided -- but there's a pretty good argument for the state, as well: When Roe was still good law, abortion law was quite fuzzy, so it was never entirely clear whether new restrictions on abortion were or were not unconstitutional. Given those conditions, the state laws outlawing abortions were clear enough to provide fair warining, even if there were legitimate questions as to the constitutionality of those laws; if a woman wanted to do something contrary to the law, she should have petitioned the courts to invalidate it, rather than simply breaking it. So there's no real way to say what the answer is at this point, but I suspect we'll get a real answer before too long.
Regarding the situation in Germany, it is not a crime by itself to travel to Syria (or in fact any other country), nor to take residence there. When people are arrested after such a trip, it is because they are suspected of having committed a crime during their stay. In this context, the crime could be, e.g., murder, abduction, or rape, but there are more specialized crimes, too, such as: Forming terrorist organisations (§&nbsp;129a StGB; translation) Preparation of a serious violent offence endangering the state (§&nbsp;89a StGB; translation) Preparation of a serious violent offence includes participating in a terrorist training camp where people are taught how to use weapons, construct explosive devices, etc. The definition of the crime was recently extended such that it is already punishable to make an attempt at leaving Germany with the intention of travelling to and participating in such a training camp. It is important to note that this intention would need to be demonstrated in court in order to get someone convicted; and someone travelling with different intentions, such as a journalist, would obviously not render oneself liable to prosecution. Outside of criminal law, there are other measures that the authorities may take to try and prevent people from travelling abroad if they are suspected future terrorists. As these are administrative measures and not criminal prosecution, the requirements for evidence are less strict. It has long been possible under German law to deny someone a passport (§&nbsp;7 PaßG; translation), or to revoke a passport that was already issued. The idea is that, without passport, the destination country or any transit countries are going to reject the traveller. This didn’t work too well in the case of Syria because a national ID card is sufficient for German citizens travelling to Turkey, which shares a land border with Syria. Therefore, also very recently, it was made possible to deny or revoke an ID card in much the same way as a passport (§&nbsp;6a PAuswG; no translation currently available). (Note that the translations I linked to are official but non-authoritative. In particular, be warned that the translation for §&nbsp;89a StGB at least does not yet reflect the latest amendments.)
What exactly would a prosecutor charge? State? Federal? It depends on whether it is a state or federal prosecutor. It appears that the president has at least flirted with violating both federal and state law, in which case he may be charged by both the federal and state prosecutors, each one laying charges under the relevant body of law. Would Trump be vulnerable to Federal prosecution of the phone call after he leaves office? Yes, if the facts support such a prosecution. It's not clear to me that the conversation constituted an unambiguous violation of the federal statute, but I have no knowledge of any precedent that might inform such a determination.
"Law" is actually a very broad term, which encompasses statutes, rules, regulations, precedent and I'm sure some other things that I'm forgetting. The popular understanding of "law" is the statute, which involves Congress (at the federal level) or the legislature (and the state level). That is the kind of law that we say is "passed". At the federal level, some number of representatives or senators will introduce a bill into the House or Senate, and it is discussed in a relevant committee; if it is approved, it moves to debate by the whole House / Senate and if it passes it moves to the other house. Once it has passed both the House and Senate, it goes to the President where it may be signed, rejected, or ignored. If signed, it becomes "a law", if rejected (vetoed) it can become law anyhow if it gains a 2/3 majority vote in both houses. If the President ignores it ("pocket veto"), it becomes law in 10 days (Sunday is not a day), unless Congress is not in session. Oh, and, that's just the tip of the iceberg. At the state level, there is a similar process, with the further option of referenda and initiatives. In the former case, a particular law will have been passed by the legislature and then it is put to a popular vote for affirmation / overturning, and in the latter case a new law is proposed by the people (generally through a petitioning process) and then voted on by the populace. There is a fair amount of variation on how this works and what can be done, by state. A law can be repealed (withdrawn) by passing a law that repeals a given part of the existing law, and it can be re-written. The Supreme Court of the jurisdiction can also withdraw a (part of a) law if it is found to be unconstitutional. No foreign body can override US law, although if the US is bound by treaty (which necessarily involves another country) then we might have to do whatever that treaty says, because we approved the treaty. One limit on what we can be forced into by treaties is that a treaty cannot violate the constitution. The largest source of law in the US is actually not statutory, it is regulatory law, where a regulatory agency writes rules with the force of law (so really, it is law). In that case, there has to be a statutory basis, where at the federal level a law is passed empowering an agency to write rules, where the scope of the regulation is supposed to be related to the empowering statute in some manner. In that case, there is a vetting process, but basically no voting, just an announcement, some discussion, and eventually the rules are set. Analogous processes exist at the state level. We also have various county and city governmental bodies, where e.g. the city council can vote to create a law; or, they can empower an agency to write regulations. Yet another source of law is the Executive Order, where the president can decree that such and such will be the case (as long as it has something to do with what the executive branch does). These are somewhat limited in scope, but every president seems to like to test what that limit is. Governors get to do it too! And lastly, courts have an indirect power to make law, by ruling on how an existing law is to be interpreted (as well as ruling that a law or part of a law is unconstitutional).