Pakistan’s Call for Climate Reparations
Torrential monsoon rains have triggered Pakistan’s worst floods this century. So far, at least 1,300 people have been killed and a third of the country is under flood waters. Entire villages have been washed away and an estimated three million children are in need of humanitarian assistance. Against this backdrop, Pakistan’s minister for climate change has called for rich nations to pay reparations to developing States suffering climate loss and damage. In this blog post, I will put the claims for climate reparations in an international law context.
Continue reading >>
Reinforcing Patterns
Despite its revolutionary potential, the movement towards amplifying open access can backfire if it does not expand quickly across the world. As it is today, the vast majority of authors who publish open access are based in European research institutions. By making these authors’ works more easily available than others, open access initiatives may end up dictating the terms of the international legal debate around the world.
Continue reading >>
On A Road to Nowhere
On Wednesday 24 November the Polish Constitutional Tribunal will, once again, review the extent to which existing international legal obligations, that were freely entered into by the Republic of Poland, are actually compatible with the Polish Constitution.
Continue reading >>
Constitutional Review in Sight?
On 18 October, the Venice Commission published its first ever opinion on the Netherlands dealing with the Childcare Allowance Scandal. It includes a list of rather detailed recommendations for the legislator, the executive and the judicial branch, also pointing at the prohibition of constitutional review which is one of the hallmarks of the Dutch Constitution. While its conclusions are not groundbreaking, the opinion of the Venice Commission must be welcomed for highlighting the crucial connection between individual justice, proportionality and fundamental rights.
Continue reading >>Resisting Membership Fatalism
While we fully agree with the main thrust of the editorial ‘The Exit Door’ on Verfassungsblog last Friday, we would like to warn against its seemingly fatalistic mindset. Yes, a Polexit from the EU is not on the table until the Polish government itself pushes the Article 50 TEU button, but the other EU Member States do not have to idly wait ‘hoping’ for a resolution to the crisis.
Continue reading >>
“Non-Existent”
Last Tuesday, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal delivered a ruling which makes the extent of the crisis of the rule of law in Poland unambiguously clear. And it shows how the gap with Europe is widening day by day. If the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe lets this pass, it will not only be a blow to the authority and effectiveness of the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights. Then the guardians of the rule of law will have surrendered even faster than we thought.
Continue reading >>