16 May 2023
Please Be Kind and Polite. Or Else…
Britain loves to project an image of polite calmness; of a stiff upper lip; of tea, crumpets, and lashings of ginger beer. The Paddington the Bear Twitter account epitomised this sentiment on the morning of the Coronation, reminding people to ‘be kind and polite today.’ Yet in England's green and pleasant land, as loyal British subjects scoffed their scones, quaffed their Pimm’s and raised a glass to their new Monarch, it was not soft-power but good ol’ fashioned state violence that ensured the historical Coronation went off without a hitch. Continue reading >>
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18 May 2022
Vom Krieg gegen Terror bis zum Klimawandel
Von Terrorismus und Wirtschaftskrise bis hin zu COVID-19 und Klimawandel: In den ersten Jahrzehnten des 21. Jahrhunderts sind die Demokratien von Krise zu Krise getaumelt und haben rechtliche und politische Maßnahmen ergriffen, um der jeweiligen Bedrohung zu begegnen. Viele dieser vermeintlichen Notfallmaßnahmen sind jedoch zu dauerhaften Maßnahmen geworden, die die Legitimität sowohl der von der Notfallmaßnahme betroffenen Verfassungsnormen als auch der Notfallmaßnahme selbst in Frage stellen. Dieses Plädoyer für den Notstand muss jedoch hinterfragt werden. Continue reading >>
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18 May 2022
From the War on Terror to Climate Change
From terrorism and economic crisis, to COVID-19 and climate change; the first decades of the 21st Century have seen democracies lurch from crisis to crisis, implementing legal and political responses to tackle the threat at hand. Many of these ostensibly emergency responses have, however, become permanent, raising profound challenges to the legitimacy of both the constitutional norms impacted by the emergency response, and the emergency response itself. This plea to emergency must, however, be interrogated; Ultimately, what is key to understanding permanent emergencies is not the threat but the decision-maker that claims such an emergency exists. Continue reading >>
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05 December 2020
Dead Lawyers, Complicit States
The decision by Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis to refuse an inquiry into the 1989 murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane was just the latest episode in a long and sorry saga. The result is that a 2003 judgment from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) finding that the UK had breached Article 2 ECHR (right to life) by failing to hold an appropriate inquiry into Finucane’s murder has still not been acted upon and any possibility of justice or accountability fades just that little bit more. Continue reading >>
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11 April 2020