"...why should an American student newspaper have to take the time to learn other countries’ laws?".
Students! Learning! (Continents!).
Students! Learning! (Continents!).
I’m not sure how I’m supposed to parse this. Maybe the “continents” is meant to be a correction from “countries’ laws”, but that would be a mistake because the EU isn’t a continent but rather a union of sovereign nations, and “countries’” is plural possessive so the original wording is correct.