27 February 2024
The EU’s Eastern Border and Inconvenient Truths
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, alongside with the EU’s confrontation with Russia’s ally Belarus, however, has deeply impacted the securitisation of migration within the EU. Highly politicised conflict-related securitisation narratives have rarely found their way so swiftly into Member States’ domestic migration and asylum laws, leading to open and far-reaching violations of EU and international human rights law. Hardly ever before have ill-defined concepts and indiscriminate assumptions been so broadly accepted and used to shift from an individual-focused approach to blanket measures stigmatising, dehumanising and excluding entire groups. And rarely before have radical changes of this kind received so little criticism - a deeply unsettling and dangerous trend. Continue reading >>
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24 February 2024
Accountability for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine
Two years have passed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine – an act of aggression which 141 states of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) condemned as such shortly after. This crime of aggression has brought unimaginable suffering to the people of Ukraine. As this blog will highlight in the following, a reform of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) concerning the crime of aggression is necessary and long overdue. The current jurisdictional regime leaves accountability gaps, which have become painfully visible in the past two years. Plausible suggestions for the reform are already out there – it ultimately “all depends on the political will” of the 124 ICC state parties. Continue reading >>18 February 2024
The Triumph of Evil
Putin's regime finally murdered Alexei Navalny, a Russian patriot and freedom fighter. Regardless of how the events on 16 February unfolded, his death is a direct result of the actions of Russian state agents who had long been working towards his death. Putin’s belief in his absolute impunity, reinforced by appeasement, was a decisive factor that facilitated Alexei Navalny's murder. However, what happened to Navalny must not happen to Vladimir Kara-Murza, Aleksei Gorinov, Ilya Yashin, and many others. Navalny’s death is a huge loss for all Russians who believe in a free and peaceful future for their country, but also for Europe and the world. Continue reading >>
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01 December 2023
A Borderline Case
On 28 November 2023, Finland decided to close all its land border crossing stations to Russia due to the latter's apparent instrumentalization of migrants. That a foreign power, which conducts war elsewhere in Europe, directly engages in unfriendly acts against the EU’s (as well as NATO’s) eastern flank highlights the issues of national security involved. The situation is part of a broader European dilemma but presents certain idiosyncracies. How is an EU Member State such as Finland, respectful of the rule of law, to respond to such unfriendly acts which intrumentalize the vulnerable position of asylum seekers whose rights must, in principle, be observed at all times? This brief post addresses some of the legal issues involved in the currently unfolding situation. Continue reading >>
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28 August 2023
The New Russian School
The beginning of the new school year in many countries of the former Soviet Union, including in Russia, is celebrated on September 1st and is known as “Knowledge Day”. This year, September 1st will be unique as the new educational amendments enter into force in Russia and Russia-controlled territories. These amendments introduce controversial changes to the educational process, which raise serious concerns about children’s rights and freedoms. These changes include new unified textbooks on history, the legalisation of children’s forced labour, and the continuation of “Conversations about the important” lessons with an enhanced militaristic element. Continue reading >>
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26 June 2023
Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russia’s Expanding Prerogative State
Over the weekend, the world’s attention was gripped as a well-equipped Russian private military company led by Evgeny Prigozhin seized control of a key Russian city and military hub, and marched on Moscow. Prigozhin’s actions reveal a deeper truth about Putin’s Russia: the absence of formalised, legal mechanisms for peacefully resolving high-level, intra-elite disputes. As the war in Ukraine drags on, what Ernst Fraenkel called the ‘prerogative state’ is expanding. This lawless realm of unchecked public power has no rules or institutions that can settle disputes among the Russian elite; these can only be resolved by Putin himself. Continue reading >>
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25 April 2023
Education as Indoctrination: Mnemonic Constitutionalism and History Teaching in Russia
In January 2023, Russia adopted new amendments to the Law "On Education in the Russian Federation" which will become effective by September 1st, 2023. The amendments establish mandatory, federal curricula for the following school subjects: "Russian language", "Literary reading", "The world around", "Russian language", "Literature", "History", "Social science", "Geography" and "Basics of life safety". The content of the curricula was developed and pre-approved by the Ministry of Education in November 2022, and aims to establish a single, uniform standard of teaching for these subjects. The amendments are emblematic of Russia’s increasingly aggressive pursuit of mnemonic constitutionalism. This article will detail how its legislative governance of memory in the context of history teaching violates the right to education enshrined in international human rights law. Continue reading >>
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12 December 2022
Moving On in Strasbourg
Russia’s justified expulsion from the Council of Europe after the beginning of the full-scale military invasion in Ukraine continues to pose problems for the European Court of Human Rights and the European Convention machinery in general. Even though Russia remained bound by the Convention until 16 September 2022, a number of decisions in Moscow, but also in Strasbourg, made matters complicated. Especially processing the outstanding 17,000 cases and enforcing those judgments now require innovative solutions. Continue reading >>
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29 September 2022
The Visa Ban, Nikolai and his Russian Sister
The absence of an EU-level decision to bar perceived Russians ‘tourists’ from visiting the EU, however, did not prevent several Member States from adopting such measures at the national level, departing from EU law provisions currently in force. Contrary to the ‘tourist -only’ narrative, however, the new rules severely affect Russian family members of EU citizens and residents – an issue that, so far, has escaped public attention. Continue reading >>08 September 2022
The “Year of Historical Memory” and Mnemonic Constitutionalism in Belarus
On 1st of September 2022, the academic year in all Belarusian schools started with an atypical lesson, on “historic memory” – led in Minsk by none other than the country’s “President” himself, Aliaksandr Łukašenka. There is a constitutional dimension to historical memory in Belarus, which is better grasped through the looking glass of mnemonic constitutionalism. Continue reading >>
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