scholarly journals The Blizzard of the World: COVID-19 and the Last Say of the State of Exception

2021 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 17-32
Author(s):  
Przemysław Tacik

The paper aims to grasp the COVID-19 pandemic as a socio-political catastrophe in the Benjaminian sense. As argued in the article, the scope and nature of the COVID-19 crisis eludes us due to our closeness to its inner core. What is obfuscated in this moment is the politico-legal framework on which the international community is based, where sovereignty and turbocapitalism join their forces to produce biopolitical devices. The paper looks into uses of the state of exception in particular countries, concluding that the rule of law in the pandemic was generally put on the back burner even by the countries that officially praise it. Sovereignty clearly returned to the stage, undermining parliamentarism and civil liberties in the sake of necessity. International law remained incapable of addressing this return, let alone of enforcing responsibility of China for infringing WHO rules. As a conclusion the paper argues that COVID-19 opened new-old paths of governing the living that will play a planetary role in the future fights for dominance and imposing a new face of capitalism.

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 15-29
Author(s):  
Aswasthama Bhakta Kharel

 Democracy allows the expression of political preferences of citizens in a state. It advocates the rule of law, constraints on executive’s power, and guarantees the provision of civil liberties. It also manages to ensure human rights and fundamental freedoms of people. In democracy, people are supposed to exercise their freely expressed will. Ordinary people hold the political power of the state and rule directly or through elected representatives inside a democratic form of government. Democracy is a participatory and liberal way of governing a country. Different countries in the world have been practicing various models of democracy. There remains the participation of people in government and policy-making of the state under democracy. But when the majority can pull the strings of the society without there being legislation for protecting the rights of the minority, it may create a severe risk of oppression. Many countries of the world at the present time are facing democratic deficits. In several countries, the democratic practices are not adequately regulated and governed, as a result, the rise of violations of rules of law is observed. Even a few countries practicing democracy are not living peacefully. This situation has put a significant question about the need and sustainability of democracy. Democracy is a widely used system of governance beyond having several challenges. Here the concept, origin, models, dimensions, practices, challenges, solutions, and future of democracy are dealt to understand the structure of ideal democracy.


Author(s):  
José Duke S. Bagulaya

Abstract This article argues that international law and the literature of civil war, specifically the narratives from the Philippine communist insurgency, present two visions of the child. On the one hand, international law constructs a child that is individual and vulnerable, a victim of violence trapped between the contending parties. Hence, the child is a person who needs to be insulated from the brutality of the civil war. On the other hand, the article reads Filipino writer Kris Montañez’s stories as revolutionary tales that present a rational child, a literary resolution of the dilemmas of a minor’s participation in the world’s longest-running communist insurgency. Indeed, the short narratives collected in Kabanbanuagan (Youth) reveal a tension between a minor’s right to resist in the context of the people’s war and the juridical right to be insulated from the violence. As their youthful bodies are thrown into the world of the state of exception, violence forces children to make the choice of active participation in the hostilities by symbolically and literally assuming the roles played by their elders in the narrative. The article concludes that while this narrative resolution appears to offer a realistic representation and closure, what it proffers is actually a utopian vision that is in tension with international law’s own utopian vision of children. Thus, international law and the stories of youth in Kabanbanuagan provide a powerful critique of each other’s utopian visions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 14-18
Author(s):  
V.F. Obolentsev

The rule of law is a fundamental principle of the legal sphere. Its assertion in the state institutions of democratic countries is an outstanding achievement of mankind. The implementation of this principle is the basis of civil society and civil liberties. The rule of law is the supremacy of law in society. The rule of law provides for its implementation in law-making and law enforcement activities. The manifestation of the rule of law is that the law is not limited to legislation as one of its forms, but also includes other social regulators (norms of morality, traditions, customs, etc., which are legitimized by society). All these elements of law are united by a quality that corresponds to ideology of justice – the idea of law, which is largely implemented in the Constitution of Ukraine. The first problem for the implementation of the principle of law in Ukraine is that this principle has not yet received the proper normative consolidation and official interpretation. The second problem is its extension to socio-economic rights and social benefits. The third problem is the insufficient level of legality in our state. The aim of the paper is to establish the peculiarities of implementation of the principle of the rule of law at the present stage of development of scientific and technological progress. The task of the paper is to investigate the peculiarities of implementation of the rule of law in the application of information and analytical technologies of system engineering in the legal sphere. In accordance with the experience of using information-analytical technologies of system engineering in the legal sphere, the paper outlines the peculiarities of implementation of the principle of the rule of law in the system analysis and modeling of the state system of Ukraine. The principle of the rule of law must be taken into account in such modeling as "governing circumstance". That is the resource according to which the state system of Ukraine functions. Our preliminary works give grounds to assert that information and analytical technologies of systems engineering are also a promising methodological tool for studying the principles of state building. The principle of the rule of law is the cornerstone of building a democratic state governed by the rule of law in Ukraine. Three years ago, scholars moved away from identifying the rule of law with the law-creating instruments.


Author(s):  
Andrea Bianchi

This chapter is an attempt at assessing the overall response provided by the international community, and the main normative strategies pursued by international law in countering international terrorism. To find concrete ways in which the coordination of norms and institutional policies can lead to the implementation of an effective holistic approach to fighting terrorism is the challenge lying ahead for the international community. The chapter argues that respect for human rights and the rule of law may play a central role in this process, by contributing to its legitimacy and increasing its chances of efficacy and stability in the long term. The other new challenge and the real paradigm shift, particularly at times of increasing terrorist violence, lies in thinking of counterterrorism as a precondition for economic growth and sustainable development.


2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 7-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Watson ◽  
Mark Fitzpatrick ◽  
James Ellis

This paper recognises the complexity of the legal framework in which international police deployments take place. The personnel, and often the mission itself, are subject to a number of different legal regimes: international law, host State law and sending State law. After briefly discussing the nature and purpose of overseas police deployments, the paper identifies the legal regimes applicable to such deployments and discusses the significance of international and domestic law to police deployments. Ultimately, this paper argues that compliance with all applicable legal regimes is essential to ensure the rule of law on overseas police deployments.


2005 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 699-729
Author(s):  
Jacques Zylberberg

This essay undertakes a review of national and international law to demonstrate that law is mainly an ideological and variable instrument of the State and of the United Nations, which is a by-product of the states. In this perspective, the author opposes the pragmatical ideology of resistance against the sovereign state to the juridical legitimation and the behaviour of the States who reluctantly have conceded some civil and political rights. Those rights are endangered by the growing bureaucratization of the state, the inflation of the juridical norms and rules, in addition to the permanent repressive characters of the State. The criticism of the contradiction and the variation of the rule of law when it relates to "human rights" is also extended to international law as well as to the international organizations.


2015 ◽  
Vol 109 (2) ◽  
pp. 314-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
BLAISE BACHOFEN

In theSocial Contract, Rousseau declares that he has given up the idea of discussing the “external relations” of states. Yet numerous texts—including a recently reconstituted work about the law of war—show that he thought very seriously about the question of the nature and origin of war and of the possibility of making war subject to the rule of law. Rousseau, in contrast to Hobbes, links war's appearance to that of the sovereign states; the state of war is therefore the necessary result of international relations. Moreover, he considers the international law as chimerical. How can he then conceive a non-utopian theory of “just war”? My hypothesis is that his conception of the law of war is deduced from principles of internal political law and arises from pragmatic necessity. The state that discredits itself in its manner of waging war weakens itself while believing that it is reinforcing itself.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-172
Author(s):  
Justyna Przedańska

The last decade has exposed the recession of freedom throughout the world. It arises from the latest Freedom in the World 2020 report that civil liberties and political rights have deteriorated in 64 countries, while only 37 have seen a slight improvement in these areas. The principles of liberal democracy (the rule of law, free elections, minority rights and freedom of expression) in Europe, historically the best-performing region in terms of freedom in the world, have come under serious pressure in recent years. In the article, starting from an analysis of the categories of freedom presented in many aspects, followed by a discussion of the assumptions and concepts of liberalism, as well as the political project referred to as non-liberal democracy, which has grown out of their criticism, the author identifies the problem of instrumentalization and relativization of freedom, which leads to the restriction of freedom of speech, freedom of minorities, religious freedom and sexual freedom, replacing the individual freedoms of the citizens with the so-called collective freedom.


Author(s):  
Janina Dill

This chapter argues that the process commonly described as the development of international law “from bilateralism to community interest” should be dis-aggregated into its formal, procedural, and substantive dimensions. A move away from formal and procedural bilateralism is always a move towards community interest because it furthers the rule of law. In contrast, a move away from formal/procedural bilateralism does not guarantee a better protection of the community’s substantive interests. International humanitarian law is a trailblazer of procedural and formal progress, yet a slacker in the substantive move toward what is commonly taken to be community interest: protecting the individual. The chapter further shows that alongside protecting the individual, the international community has a second competing substantive interest in the regulation of warfare: preserving military efficacy. International humanitarian law’s development highlights that progress in international law is more complex than the phrase “from bilateralism to community interest” suggests .


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document