29 April 2026
Heavy Artillery, Light Reasoning
In its judgment of 21 April 2026 in Commission v. Hungary (C-769/22), the CJEU took the decisive step: its “value turn”. The Court for the first time applied Article 2 TEU as an autonomous and standalone review standard. The judgment deploys what might be called heavy artillery. Yet, the firepower of the instrument stands in uneasy tension with the lightness of the reasoning marshalled to justify its use. Nonetheless, the critical observations advanced by Riedl ultimately underestimate both the structural logic of the EU legal order and the functional mandate of the Court. Continue reading >>
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24 April 2026
A Constitutional Court without a Constitutional Compass
The ruling in the case of the Commission v. Hungary was eagerly awaited by many, but it will have come as a surprise to few. Public statements by prominent members of the EU Court of Justice indicated a clear desire to extend the applicability of Article 2 TEU. The Court’s findings regarding the Commission’s pleas concerning infringements of the various acts of secondary law are well-motivated, but its reasoning on Article 2 TEU clearly demonstrates the suffocating grip of EU constitutional orthodoxy. Continue reading >>
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09 March 2020
Conclusion to the Symposium “Constitutions of Value”
Here in conclusion, we will not offer a unitary encapsulation of the project as a whole. The contributions are sufficiently diverse, sometimes in disagreement, and any such effort would be premature at this stage. Instead, we are interested to sketch the possibilities going forward for our inquiries into notions of value and value practices, on the basis of what we have assembled here in this symposium. To do this, let us take a step back, to ask a broad question: What makes our questions about value intelligible, and what makes them intelligible now? Continue reading >>
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09 March 2020
Hospitality Ltd
But how do jurists and legal theorists read and write Airbnb’s story? Do they narrate it as a Cinderella story, the fairy-tale rise to power and glory of three drudges? Do they recount the story of a rare and fantastic ‘unicorn’, a start-up company that reached a $1 billion valuation? Do they retell the ballad of Robin Hood, a heroic outlaw, who robbed the rich to give to the poor, a model of ingenuity, altruism, and popular justice? Do they adopt the economic rhetoric of competition, describing the relations between Airbnb and hotels, and between Airbnb and states, as David-and-Goliath battles between stodgy giants and an innovative newcomer? Do they warn Little Red Riding Hood against the Big Bad Wolf? Or do they caution the three bears about Goldilocks, the gentrifier? To problematize the valuation of hospitality, this blogpost examines the interplay between different dispositifs that, so to speak, value ‘hospitality’ – tourism, and also migration and citizenship. Continue reading >>
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08 March 2020
On the Value of Human Rights
Florian Hoffmann analyses the left critique of rights and Marx's account of the function of liberal rights as both a necessary legal infrastructure for the 'free' market exchange of commodified labour – and, hence, as an element of the system underlying the constitution and extraction of surplus value - as well as an ideological configuration that obscures the inequality of the (rights-based) exchange relationship through the semblance of equal rights. Is this really all there is to rights in/under capitalism? And are there sufficiently strong and evident alternatives so as to obviate rights (activism) all together? Continue reading >>
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08 March 2020
Value as Potentiality – Blockchain and the Age of Institutional Challenges
For many, blockchain’s social value derives from its potential to foster freedom, neutrality, openness and transparency; or simply from the implication that otherwise is within the possible. But Bitcoin and blockchain are not all potential; limitations apply. And if confined to their ‘mainstream’ uses, private blockchain systems boost efficiency in producing value in its monetary sense and reinforcing global value chains. Continue reading >>
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07 March 2020
The Constitutional Theory of the Firm and Varieties of Capitalism
In this blog post, Jamee K. Moudud argues that labor relations are conflictual and corporations are fundamentally political creatures who have always attempted to structure the legal and political foundations of the economy so as to further their investment activities. Thus, corporations will generally oppose progressive reforms, especially if they raise costs. Continue reading >>07 March 2020
The Global Forex Market and the Legal Constitution of Money
In this post, I reflect on the relationship between the multi-trillion-dollar forex market in which fiat currencies are traded and contemporary debates over the legal nature and administration of money. Anna Chadwick suggests that the constitutional study of money should be extended to the legal instruments that establish the forex market. Continue reading >>06 March 2020
A Valuable Image: The Publicity of Global Justice Actors
Christine Schwöbel-Patel relies on the Marxian distinction between use-value and exchange value to understand how images of global justice are circulated as a form of publicity. Continue reading >>
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06 March 2020