09 March 2024
Ecocide à la Bruxelloise
Belgium's new ecocide provision has been hailed as a resounding victory for environmental activists, particularly so for the burgeoning Stop Ecocide campaign. But is the widespread excitement justified? Can the new law deliver on the lofty expectations? And how does it fit within the soon-to-be adopted revision of the Environmental Crime Directive at the EU level? Despite constituting a highly symbolic step, I argue that the Belgian law’s constrained scope makes it a toothless tool to punish environmental outlaws in practice. Continue reading >>
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25 October 2023
The Mexican Standoff
In a historical march, tens of thousands of judicial staff, lawyers, and judges – including at least one justice of the Supreme Court – took to the streets of Mexico City on 22 October 2023. Chanting slogans such as ‘¡El Poder Judicial de la Federación no se toca!’ and ‘¡Somos los garantes de la Constitución!’ protesters rallied against the Mexican government’s plans to slash the federal judiciary’s (Poder Judicial de la Federación, PJF) funding. In this contribution, we analyse what this dispute is all about and explain why the government’s plans jeopardise the independence of the Mexican judiciary. In particular, we argue that the recent, seemingly innocent financial measures come at the cusp of an alarming authoritarian turn. Finally, we offer some tentative thoughts on what the endgame in this quickly escalating dispute might look like. Continue reading >>
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15 August 2022
Extratemporal Jurisdiction
When may a court legitimately rule over affairs of the future at all? Before thinking about how to resolve such cases, we need to clarify the conditions legitimatising the exercise of judicial authority. My (necessarily cursory) argument in this blogpost is twofold. First, I argue that it is both useful and conceptually apt to think about legitimate authority as a jurisdictional question. Second, I propose a heuristic condition that justifies the judicial exercise of extratemporal jurisdiction over future events: preserving choice.
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24 February 2022
Green(wash)ing Global Commodity Chains
Yesterday, the EU Commission finally published its proposal for a corporate sustainability due diligence directive – nearly a year after the Parliament’s resolution to the same effect. Tensions were running high among policymakers, businesses, and civil society alike following several delays, DG Internal Market weighing in on the DG Justice file, and two negative verdicts by the obscure Regulatory Scrutiny Board. Have these distortions left their mark on the final text, as many had feared? Yes and no, as I shall explain, focusing on the proposal’s operative environmental dimension. Continue reading >>
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