Resurgent populism is depicted as a pathological perversion of democratic principles, an enemy of the rule of law. But is this an inherent feature of populism or only of its contemporary manifestations? ‘Populist‘ is not usually a label adopted by way of self-description but is deployed by others to deprecate any political movement, leader, policy...
Religious Identities and the Right to Religious Profession in Indian, Malaysian, and Singaporean Law
India, Malaysia and Singapore recognise constitutional rights to profess, practise and propagate religion. Little attention has been paid so far to the first of these compared to the other two. I explore the concept of profession and argue that the right to profession is logically prior to the other two, because the act of profession...
Reluctant Reviewers: Judicial Responses to Social and Economic Rights in Indonesia and the Philippines
A. Sen has argued that the law lacks proper purchase on economic and social rights because these rights impose “imperfect“ obligations, involving complex decisions about standards and resources. Courts have tended to agree and traditionally been wary of enforcing these rights. However, courts in some developing countries jettisoned this tradition. The Indian and South African...
Renewing a Court: Consequences for Judicial Decision Making and Identity
Over the course of the next five years, no less than 9 out of 12 judges on the Belgian Constitutional Court will have to be replaced because of mandatory retirement. As it stands, the law provides that half of the judges are former politicians, who, theoretically, need not even be lawyers. Of the other half,...
Separation of Powers under Siege: What Went Wrong in Central Europe?
The concept of separation of powers is notoriously vague and contested. Usually, we realize what separation of powers (SOP) is only once we have lost it, as evidenced by recent efforts by ruling parties in Hungary & Poland. We argue that to understand recent challenges to the SOP in Central Europe (CE) we need to...
Settling Human Rights Violations
My paper explores the role of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as a human rights arbitrator through the use of friendly settlements. I discuss whether friendly settlement mechanisms provide better avenues for implementation of international legal standards. By forcing States to internalize the agreement they reach with petitioners, this mechanism creates a different power...
Sex/Gender Rights and Untimely Evolution in International Human Rights Law
In international human rights law (IHRL), women‘s rights have been a staple of UN activity since the 1990s. LGBT* rights have entered the UN stage more recently via focus on non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and developments such as the Yogyakarta Principles. Women‘s and LGBT* rights, however, continue to be perceived as distinct....
The Aesthetics of Constitutional Space
Constitutional theory will by default subsume spatial phenomena under the territorial template of its statist paradigm. Constitutional space is, then, the ‘container‘ that is more or less compatible with the spatial expanse that the constitutionally delimited state occupies. Alternatively, constitutional space may be seen metaphorically as an organizational schematic, as a ‘constitutional architecture‘ in which...
The Algorithmic Governance of Administrative Decision-Making: Towards an Integrated European Framework for Public Accountability
The emergence of networks made up by both public and private entities governing sensitive decisions about the allocation of public services requires a deep rethinking of the traditional notions of public accountability. This study‘s assumption is that in the era of algorithmic administrative decision-making governments‘ accountability is intrinsically connected to the transparency of companies‘ processing...
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Ambivalent Relationship between Law and Democracy
Hong Kong and Taiwan score high on “rule or law“ but diverge on democracy. The “one country, two systems“ arrangement for Hong Kong, promising gradual progress toward democracy, and the happenstance of post-colonial Hong Kong‘s inherited legality and non-democracy contrast with Taiwan‘s concurrent democratization and rising rule of law. The contrasting cases offer potential lessons...