06 November 2026
AI, Epistemic Loss and Troubled Visions for Legal Pluralism
The aim of this article is not to simplify, but rather to establish that introducing AI in legal contexts is complicated, since epistemic injustice is entangled with the very design of the technology, its ethics and the socio-political contexts of its possible applications. How AI will change the practice of law through modelling reasons, generating texts, developing arguments for and against a case, predicting and explaining legal outcomes – I leave that for technologists and legal professionals to evaluate for themselves. Continue reading >>
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04 November 2026
How Do We Determine the Existence of Torture Today?
A key question in the legal scholarship on torture consists in setting the criteria to differentiate it from other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. This blog post shows in which ways the Inter-American Human Rights System can contribute to answering this difficult question. One is the idea of the need to consider both “endogenous” and “exogenous” factors in the determination of the gravity of the suffering. Another one is the understanding of torture as something linked to the attacked person’s personality and capacities. Continue reading >>
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02 November 2026
Usual Suspects
Thinking reflexively about militant democracy requires us not only to point to party-centrism as a flaw, but to take the opportunity to revisit the doctrine as a whole, particularly since it matters to every democratic society facing anti-democratic threats of various kinds. Below, I trace and define party-centrism and argue more narrowly that moving beyond it is valuable not only because it brings more actors into view, but because it extends to them the same level of protection that parties already receive. Continue reading >>
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30 October 2026
Confluence Constitutionalism
What does a Bollywood soundtrack have to do with the future of constitutionalism? More than one might think. Just as Chutney music defies notions of cultural purity, constitutionalism has emerged from centuries of entanglement between Western and non-Western ideas. Challenging both Eurocentric histories and romanticised visions of an authentic indigenous past, the idea of confluence constitutionalism opens up a different path to decolonisation. Continue reading >>
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11 February 2026
International Law and the Imperial Ordering of the International
International law is an ordering language. It is predicated upon an imperial, western-centric, and hierarchical structure. It is a language of domination, of exclusion, of differentiated inclusion, but also of promise. The language of international law, which the Global South uses and appeals to, does not simply hold the promise of rectification; it also reproduces the problems it is supposed to help solve. This short reflection addresses such contradictions and how reflexivity in international law could help mitigate them. Continue reading >>
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10 February 2026
Who Decides, Who Pays, Who is Sacrificed
The energy transition has become a central normative axis of global climate action. However, the acceleration of renewable energy, frequently presented as inherently positive, is not politically neutral. On the contrary, it unfolds asymmetrically across territories marked by deep historical power imbalances, particularly in the Global South. This article puts forward the proposition that a truly reflexive energy transition necessarily requires not only recognising harms and measuring impacts but also dismantling entrenched forms of control, authority, and epistemic hierarchy within the governance of the transition itself. Continue reading >>
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06 February 2026
RefLex and the Possibility of Transformative “North-South” Research Collaborations
On 20 November 2024, Humboldt University of Berlin became a signatory to the Africa Charter for Transformative Research Collaborations. This piece introduces the key argument of the Africa Charter, posits its relevance as a benchmark for RefLex, a new Centre for Advanced Studies at HU, and proposes a set of queries to guide its operationalisation within the Institute and possibly beyond in similar “North-South” initiatives. I offer these reflections drawing on my close involvement in the development of the intellectual underpinnings of the Africa Charter. Continue reading >>
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05 February 2026
Reflexive Globalisation, Law and Placemaking
Students demand the decolonization of curricula. Civil society debates the presentation of Non-Western artefacts and entangled histories in museums across the world. European governments apologize for slavery and genocidal killings, while former colonies request reparations, and the Indian legislature decolonizes the Indian Penal Code. The legacies of colonialism and empire are debated everywhere these days. We propose that these developments signal a new phase in the dynamics of globalisation. Continue reading >>
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18 March 2025
Left Behind
The recently introduced EU Omnibus package aims at “simplifying” corporate sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements envisaged under the European Green Deal. Reflecting on its wider effects on sustainability and human rights for the Global South, this article argues that the reform overlooks the realities of informal economies and risks diminishing the EU’s credibility as the global forerunner for corporate governance. Continue reading >>
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19 October 2024
How the judgment by the German Federal Constitutional Court on the German debt brake entrenches climate injustice
Germany, as a major greenhouse gas emitter, has a critical obligation to support developing countries affected by climate change; however, its adherence to the constitutional “debt brake” undermines this responsibility and exacerbates global inequalities. Continue reading >>
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