Articles for category: AAA General

Judicial Paternalism and Free Speech in India

The Indian Supreme Court has recently decided two cases pertaining to the speech acts of two different individuals—a podcaster and a legislator of the Legislative Council of the State of Bihar. In both cases, the Court chose to reprimand the individuals for their ‘indecent’ and ‘unparliamentary conduct’ and also sanctioned punishments upon them, without any a priori determination of whether their speech acts, in any manner, violated the limits of the right to free speech as guaranteed under the Indian Constitution. The reprimand and the sanction, I argue, emerged from the Court’s false belief that it is tasked to school the citizens on the appropriate and correct ways of using their speech rights.

4. März 2025

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Fast-Tracking Ukraine

Whatever the outcome of the current crisis, Ukraine needs to join the European Union as fast as possible. Neither Trump nor Putin can veto this. The EU, for long lukewarm about widening and deepening, must take rapid steps to facilitate Ukraine’s entry. This will involve revising the terms and conditions of accession. Although Volodymr Zelensky has seen EU membership as second best to NATO, he well knows that his country’s sovereignty now depends on the European Union. Enlargement is a geostrategic investment in peace, security, stability and prosperity.

3. März 2025

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From the EU-Belarus Border to Strasbourg

On 12 February 2025 the ECtHR considered for the first time the interpretation of the Convention in the context of so-called ‘migrant instrumentalisation’ or ‘hybrid attacks’, allegedly orchestrated by the Belarusian regime after the EU imposed sanctions on Minsk. This contribution critically reviews the key arguments of the respondent governments with respect to the interpretation of Art. 3 ECHR and Art. 4 Prot. 4 ECHR and considers the relationship between the two in the particular context.

3. März 2025

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Judicial Independence and the EU-Switzerland Framework Treaty

The European Union is about to finalise a package of sectoral treaties with Switzerland. Its goal is to institutionalise five existing treaties and to conclude three new ones. At the core of these agreements lies the dispute settlement mechanism, modelled after the EU’s agreements with the post-Soviet states of Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. This mechanism would grant the European Commission the unilateral right to bring Switzerland before an ‘arbitration tribunal’.

28. Februar 2025

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Reciprocity in Trade?

Trump’s plans to impose "reciprocal" tariffs, announced in a Memorandum of 13 February, fundamentally contradict the existing rules of the world trade order, in particular the USA's tariff obligations and the principle of providing the same benefits to all imports and exports – known as the most-favoured nation (MFN) treatment. The absence of a bolder protest against this flagrant disregard of the law might be due to a shared understanding that the existing rules-based international economic order is in a deplorable state. The crucial question, therefore, is whether we should quietly accept its final abolition by someone with the power to do so, or rather set about repairing it. Now, tariffs may be a very mundane matter. But what is at stake here is the more general and fundamental question of international law today: how do we deal with rules that were created in better times and are now in danger of disintegrating?

28. Februar 2025

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A Glimpse of Hope for the Rohingya

On Thursday, 13 February 2025, a federal criminal court in Buenos Aires, Argentina, took a significant step toward international criminal accountability by issuing arrests warrants for Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and 24 other Myanmar military officials. This marks the first public arrest warrants to be issued against the Myanmar military in a universal jurisdiction case. This legal development represents a rare moment of hope for the roughly one million Rohingya forced to live in refugee camps in Bangladesh.

27. Februar 2025

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The Dismissal of the Romanian Prosecutors Annulment Action

In the latest chapter of the EU rule of law saga, the General Court dismissed an annulment action lodged by an association of Romanian prosecutors, which challenged the termination of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism in 2023, due to lack of direct concern. We argue that a too-narrow view of the issue does not reflect the rule of law situation in the country, including open non-compliance with the CJEU’s own rulings, and leads to several undesired consequences.

27. Februar 2025

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