This paper analyses President Macron‘s initiative to hold EU-wide democratic conventions in the run-up to the 2019 EP elections as a method of reviving citizen participation in shaping European integration. The analysis scrutinises the benefits and pitfalls of this initiative and develops a threefold argument. First, while the initiative correctly concentrates on bottom-up democratisation, it...
Tag: <span>TUESDAY JUNE 26 2018 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM</span>
Fundamental Rights as “Legal Rights and Interests“ in Chinese Administrative Litigation
Since the Qi Yuling case, the main focus of Chinese constitutional law has turned to the protection of fundamental rights. Doctrinal legal studies do not only cover abstract questions such as the third party effect of fundamental rights or the state‘s duty to protect, but also the analysis of specific fundamental rights. In addition, there...
Genetic Identity: A Mereological Fallacy in the Law?
Genetic identity often differs from the established forms of cultural identity (ethnicity, gender, class, citizenship) or family law status. Over the past two decades, however, we can observe that genetic features have become more and more important elements of personal identity. Genetic testing and genetic screening, paternity testing and forensic identification have emerged as powerful...
Geographical Indication as National Identity
The identity of a nation can be determined from many things, one of them through geographical indication. Geographical indication is a sign indicating the origin of an item and / or product. As part of intellectual property rights, geographical indications can also be interpreted as the identity of a nation because the determining factors of...
History and the constitution
Sajó argues that constitutions, rather than being forward-looking, ‘reflect the fears originating in, and related to, the previous political regime‘. Exploring this thesis in reference to contemporary constitutions drafted as part of peace-making or regime change processes, I argue that not only are constitutions shaped by historical circumstances, but that they create and utilise historical...
Holocaust survivors and their Polish passports – a saga of refusals
Professor Aaron Seidenberg was born in 1943, in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a citizen of Poland, even though his Polish homeland was in ruins, under German occupation. Saved by a Polish family and miraculously reunited with his mother, an Auschwitz Death March survivor, he emigrated to Israel. For more than 15 years, Professor Seidenberg has...
Hubris, Constitutionalism and the ‘indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation’
The paper analyses the struggles of the Catalan Government to organise a referendum on secession and the Constitutional framework invoked by the Spanish central authorities to prohibit it. On then one hand, it shows that the repression of secessionist referendums within the Spanish Constitutional framework triggers several problematic questions concerning the role of constitutional supremacy...
Human Rights in South Korea: Fault Lines and Frontiers
This paper maps out current challenges for human rights and the human rights movement in South Korea. It argues that, while recent political developments in the country may appear to give us reason for optimism, they also mask fault lines that the human rights movement must address, including issues surrounding gender rights, LGBT rights, and...
Identity and Communitarian Constitutional Rights in Singapore
This paper presents a theory of an inclusive communitarian approach to constitutional rights that non-liberal, self-professed communitarian Singapore should adopt. Instead of prioritising the community over the individual and subjugating some identities to the collective will, the paper argues that, by adopting a pluralistic conception of ‘community’ as the communities that constitute our identity, a...
Impeachment by Judicial Review: Israel‘s Odd System of Checks and Balances
One of the most intriguing questions in contemporary constitutional theory is why are political power-holders willing to bestow power on courts and to acknowledge their autonomy. In the current paper, I seek to offer an explanation. It focuses on a doctrine developed by the Israeli Supreme Court (ISC) since the early 1990s under which the...