Public and private discourse online is mediated through global web-based platforms. The platforms hold, enable and carry local and hyper-local conversations between local actors with local consequences. Although online harmful speech has local dimensions, the usual local modes of intervention for harmful speech are no longer viable. Global intervention is difficult since context is often...
Tag: <span>TUESDAY JUNE 26 2018 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM</span>
Rule by Data and the Quest for Data Justice: Lessons from China‘s Social Credit
Big data brings promises and perils. The US and EU have formulated various legal responses attempting to weed out the harm of big data analytics but harvest its benefits. The current legal concerns are largely on the harm of profiling, discrimination and misuse of personal data. This framework hinges on the identification of clear cases...
Revisiting the Constitutional Override: Turning a “Bete Noir“ Into a Useful Constitutional Tool
The Canadian “Notwithstanding“ or “override“ has enjoyed significant scholarly discussion and some name caling: from the “bête noire of Canadian constitutional politics“ to “poison pill“ (CJ Barak in Israel). While in Canada the override preserves the provinces / federation balance, in Israel the override is purely a matter of the last word in judicial review:...
Rights Advocacy through Simulation
As a fledgling civic institution in Taiwan, the Constitutional Court Simulation(CCS)has received much attention and interest from the Taiwan Constitutional Court as well as the general public in the recent years by tackling such salient issues as same-sex marriage, death penalty, and transitional justice. This essay analyzes, explains and assesses the workings of the CCS...
Rethinking Constitutional Law
A dialogue was developed between Calabresi, Ackerman and Skach regarding the most successful separation of powers model. Calabresi argued in favor of USA’s presidential system, Ackerman supported constrained parliamentarism and Skach recognized the popularity of the semi-presidential.Recently, Gardbaum inspired by the work of Levinson/Pildes demonstrated that the separation/fusion between the executive-legislature depends on the political...
Religion and Constitutional Design: Divergences and Convergences in Malaysia and Indonesia
Malaysia and Indonesia are the two biggest Muslim-majority countries in Southeast Asia. The ways in which their respective constitutions address the majority religion (Islam), however, are very different. The Federal Constitution of Malaysia provides Islam as the ‘religion of the Federation‘, while in Indonesia, a special constitutional recognition for the majority religion was explicitly rejected...
Social Media and the Right to Vote
This paper discusses the legal implications of social media for the free exercise of the right to vote. In the last years, social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook) have been responsible for the rise and fall of several politicians. Social media platforms influence voters in numerous ways: they promote political debate, increase the electoral participation of...
The authoritarian/nationalist pushback as a bottom-up challenge to regional integration organizations: an analysis of the EU and Mercosur
Nationalist and authoritarian contestation of global governance is both a recent trend and an old challenge to international institutions. Relying on case studies of the EU and Mercosur (Brexit, Poland, Venezuela), this research will focus on the reversal to authoritarianism and nationalism in member States of regional integration organizations. This research rests on the hypothesis...
The Academic Response to the Constitutional Zone of Twilight
Japan’s postwar constitution is reaching in the zone of twilight–Tasogaredoki or Ōmagatoki in Japanese. As “Your Name “(Kimi no na wa)–the animated film that became a megahit worldwide in 2016-17–shows to us, things contradictory coexist in such moment. Constitutional order and violation. Liberal-democratic and authoritarian regime. Social equality and neo-liberal market state. Judicial activism and...
Strengthening the Brazilian “juristocracy“ in self-interest: the engagement of justices since National Constituent Assembly to the Super Supreme Court thirty years later
The paper analyzes the factors that allowed the expansion of the Brazilian Supreme Court since 1988 compared to other branches of government, but also in a concentration of decision-making powers vis-à-vis other judges and courts. Institutional explanations prevail, which credit the strengthening of STF to the Brazilian Constitution. But, in this process, what is the...