Points and Vectors
On reasons of last resort, final cigarettes and other matters of constitutional ultimativity.
Continue Reading→The ECtHR as a drowning ‘Island of Hope’?’ Its impending reversal of the interpretation of collective expulsion is a warning signal
The outcome of the case ND and NT v. Spain currently pending before the Grand Chamber may determine the future course of the Court in other migration policy cases. It will show whether the ECtHR still deserves its title as an ‘island of hope in stormy times’ or whether this island is drowning under the pressure of some of its Member States.
Continue Reading →President Trump’s ‘Get it Done Faster’ Emergency
President Trump’s declaration of a state of emergency is constitutionally dubious as well as politically irresponsible. But perhaps its most astonishing feature is Trump’s perversion of the traditional temporal justification for executive-centered emergency government.
Continue Reading →Trump’s Non-Emergency Emergency, Part II
Trump evidently declared an emergency just because he wanted to do it. But, as I will show here, the emergency may never come into effect. That doesn’t mean that we should think that the constitutional system of the United States is out of danger.
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Volume 7, Issue 3November 2018
Global Constitutionalism
Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law- Outlawing war is not enough to promote international peace: The ambivalence of liberal interventionism
ANNA GEIS
- Double bind at the UN: Western actors, Russia, and the traditionalist agenda
KRISTINA STOECKL, KSENIYA MEDVEDEVA
- AND MORE ARTICLES..
Trump’s Non-Emergency Emergency
The US has entered a state of emergency that is almost surely unconstitutional. But it says something about the state of US constitutional law that it is hard to see how the president can be stopped.
Continue Reading →A National Emergency on the Border?
Declarations of emergency are in bad odor in modern constitutional democracies. the U.S. Constitution makes no provision for emergency declarations. And while the Constitution’s guidance is cryptic at best on many separation-of-powers issues, it couldn’t be clearer that Congress—not the President—has the power to appropriate funds. So: can he really do that? The better argument is that he cannot, but it’s not so open-and-shut a matter as you might suppose.
Continue Reading →The Spanish Model of Democracy Facing Trial
Tomorrow, the trail against nine Catalan separatist leaders will start. Without doubt, this trial will shape the future of the Spanish Constitution.
Continue Reading →Why Referendums in Ireland Work Better than in the UK
Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown has recommended the Irish innovation of the citizens’ assembly to inform and guide public opinion. Theresa May, too, included a glancing reference to the notion in her recent House of Commons speech. They are mistaken, though, if they believe that this formula has much to offer in the UK.
Continue Reading →A Part of the Constitution Is Unconstitutional, the Slovak Constitutional Court has Ruled
The 30th of January 2019 will undoubtedly be remembered as a milestone day in the development of Slovak constitutional law, signaling the start of a new, second, stage of development. The first stage started on 1 September 1992 (the day of adoption of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic) and lasted until 30 January 2019. The second stage started with the Slovak Constitutional Court decision, of 30 January 2019, that an amendment to the Constitution is invalid for violating the material core of the Constitution.
Continue Reading →Disastrous Stability: Brexit as a Constitutional Crisis
The reason Continental Europe so often misunderstands what is happening in the UK is that it views events there either as developments in an international negotiation or as a crisis of the Tory party. The reality is that we are witnessing a constitutional system in crisis. One of the oldest constitutional systems in the world is trying to digest three paradigm shifts – and it is trying to do so in one gulp.
Continue Reading →Transitional Justice in Colombia Under Attack: An Interview with GABRIEL ROJAS
Colombia is the first country in the world with a peace agreement that includes the Rome Statute obligations of the International Criminal Court in its new transitional justice system. But after a change of government last year, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP) is already coming under attack before it has barely started.
Continue Reading →The First Live-Broadcast Hearings of Candidates for Constitutional Judges in Slovakia: Five Lessons
In 2019, Slovakia selects nine out of thirteen constitutional court judges and the hearings of the candidates for the nominees for the vacant seats were publicly broadcast. The atmosphere of the hearings and the overall context of the 2019 appointment process, however, yield at least five, and not that optimistic, lessons.
Continue Reading →The EU Regulation on Terrorist Content: An Emperor without Clothes
The draft EU Regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online constitutes a grave threat to freedom of expression. It could be applied in respect of journalists, non-governmental organisations, political parties, trade unions, indigenous peoples, scholars of history or social sciences, novelists, cartoonists, photographers and filmmakers. Its cross-border application makes it a dreadful tool in the hands of authoritarian regimes or rogue officials.
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