The paper analyzes political resistance as an aesthetic phenomenon by taking as an example a protest in which two asylum seekers stabbed themselves in front of the Finnish Parliament House in the autumn 2017. An aesthetic reading of refugee activism allows critical insights into paradoxes of politics, identity and rights in the western juridico-political context....
Tag: <span>MONDAY 25 June 2018 16:45-18:15</span>
Regional Human Rights Courts and Institutional Failure
This paper investigates the role of the regional human rights system in Europe and Latin-America in combating institutional failure, as opposed to addressing individual instances of human rights violations. I define institutional failure as a violation of a constitutional duty, typically a human right, of large scope ie that 1. affects large numbers of people,...
Public procurement in a “21st century“-way: how new technologies may change public spending?
According to EU statistics governments and other public authorities are spending about 16% of the GDP through public procurement contracts. This way the regulation of the public procurement process highly effects the business environment, and can work as a catalysis for sustainable, eco-friendly and financially rational supply. This system is however a static one: stability...
Reviewing the experts: a principled approach to the scrutiny of expert-based decision making in the CJEU
Arguments grounded on separation of powers and contextual expertise suggest that courts should refrain from undertaking searching inquiries into complex factual backgrounds. Measures that are the result of expert-intensive decision making have therefore traditionally been subject to a light-touch judicial review by the European Courts. Interestingly, things may be changing, as the CJEU has been...
Reverse Law-making: Constitutional Review with Chinese Characteristics
Around the globe, constitutional review is normally performed in a confrontational or hostile environment, where the reviewing organ, be it a court, or an institute in other forms, usually nullifies an unconstitutional legislation to uphold the authority of the supreme law of a specific jurisdiction. By contrast, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, the de...
Rethinking Democracy in the Context of Globalization
Globalization, the process of increasing interdependence around the world, has massively transformed patterns of legal and political order from the mostly clear-cut divisions between international and national systems to the ever more overlapping coexistence of various governance arrangements at different levels. This ongoing transformation is creating problems for democracy. On the one hand, many international...
Rethinking Gay Visibility
This paper draws on theories of visual culture to posit a paradigm of ‘gay visibility’ for legal studies. It demonstrates that visibility is critical to gay life and politics, but that it operates as a paradox because it simultaneously advances and undermines minority rights and identity. It then analyzes the ways in which this paradox...
Rethinking populism and its threats and possibilities
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...
Revamping the Rule of Party’s Rule
It is widely observed that over the past six years under the current government there has been a re-focusing on and re-strengthening of the Chinese Communist Party in the social, economic and political lives of contemporary China. To many commentators, this noticeable return of the Party is much alarming given the authoritarian nature of the...
Repeal or Replace? Debating Ireland‘s Eighth Amendment and the Shadow of Judicial Intervention
Ireland is in the process of proposing removal of the 8th Amendment – the provisions, inserted in the 1980s, recognising the right to life of the unborn as equal to that of the mother. The process – which should result in a referendum in June of 2018 – has involved a Citizen‘s Assembly debating such...