Long-term Constitutional Law for Global Public Goods

The rules-based order necessary for realizing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) requires antagonistic, perennial struggles for justice challenging abuses of power and struggling for collective protection of the SDGs. Without such a ‘Sisyphus morality’ and stronger leadership from constitutional democracies for improving multilevel governance of global public goods, realization of the SDGs and protecting ‘human rights of all’ risk remaining a utopia.

15. August 2022

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Pathogen Dematerialisation as an Existential Threat to Global Health Justice

Rapid levels of growth and development within the field of synthetic biology pose an undeniable threat to equity and global health justice as a result of the rise in the dematerialisation of pathogen samples. Until fairly recently, it was impossible to detach physical virus samples from the information they contained - the sample was the information - but technological advancements have allowed for the dematerialisation of pathogen samples to occur on a global scale. Whilst there are undoubtedly benefits to be derived from dematerialisation, it poses an existential threat to those international agreements which are underpinned by access and benefit sharing agreements.

15. August 2022

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Extratemporal Jurisdiction

When may a court legitimately rule over affairs of the future at all? Before thinking about how to resolve such cases, we need to clarify the conditions legitimatising the exercise of judicial authority. My (necessarily cursory) argument in this blogpost is twofold. First, I argue that it is both useful and conceptually apt to think about legitimate authority as a jurisdictional question. Second, I propose a heuristic condition that justifies the judicial exercise of extratemporal jurisdiction over future events: preserving choice.

15. August 2022

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Proactive International Law

In this blog post we challenge the reactive nature of international law, a discipline that has largely developed in response to specific crises and incidents, such as wars, pandemics, mass migrations, economic breakdowns, or technological advancements. While we acknowledge that the reactive paradigm of international law has facilitated adoption of pragmatic solutions to the concrete problems encountered and offered international law a path by which to direct its development, this approach, we contend, has led international law to be backward-looking, short-sighted, and ill-prepared to address newly emerging global threats and advances.

14. August 2022

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The Rise of the Constitutional Protection of Future Generations

Constitutions worldwide have seen the rise of future generations. Considering the 193 UN member states, Kosovo, Palestine, and Taiwan, 41% (81 out of 196) of constitutions explicitly referenced future generations as of 2021. We find that this trend started in the early 1990s, lagging behind environmental constitutionalism by two decades. Why do constitutions increasingly refer to future generations? Based on a comprehensive data collection including all constitutions ever written, we argue that future generations are a significant part of a modern, universalist language of constitution-making.

12. August 2022

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Extra-Constitutional Commitment Mechanisms

The solution to many public dilemmas requires long-term effort by successive generations. Such situation arises whenever the solution to a public dilemma cannot be implemented instantaneously but is dependent on the continuous effort of future governments (and their citizens). In this post I discuss the problem of securing intergenerational cooperation, focusing on the challenge of designing long-term commitment mechanisms. I will also reflect briefly on the tension between commitment mechanisms and the democratic ideal of citizen sovereignty (allowing each generation to make its own choices).

12. August 2022

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Why Banning Russians from Schengen Is Unlawful

Volodymyr Zelensky, the Prime Minister of Finland and others have been calling for an EU-wide ban of Russian citizens from Schengen visas. Unquestionably, the horrible crimes perpetrated by the Russian state should be punished. But Russians are citizens of a totalitarian state, they are not Putin. And whether we like it or not, there is no legal way under current EU law to adopt a blanket citizenship-based ban against Russians acquiring Schengen visas. Even more: political attention paid to it by persons in leadership positions is deeply surprising, if not irresponsible.

12. August 2022

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Narrow Rules are not Enough

With continuing proliferation of increasingly capable AI systems, we will need regulation to address the associated risks. Since our ability to foresee such future risks is very limited, our best bet is to base such regulation on relatively general principles, rather than narrow rules. We think that negative human rights with their existing broad international support could form a suitable foundation both for flexible regulation and for the associated technical solutions.

11. August 2022

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An Intertemporal Perspective on Intergenerational Equity

The traditional understanding of intertemporal law is not persuasive – a modified intertemporal approach to intergenerational equity is necessary. This approach would have to shift the perspective of intertemporal law from a retrospective present-past relationship to a future-oriented perspective. Instead of observing the evolutionary developments of law over time and retrospectively applying them at a certain point in the future, the new approach departs from the contemporary legal regime and attempts to anticipate its prospective evolutionary developments – with regard to intergenerational equity only.

11. August 2022

Solidarity Across Time

I want to focus on the question of what the future can do for us – a question less asked, and which may seem antithetical to the idea of responsible behaviour now, and yet which is simply a part of the idea of solidarity across time. Its practical importance is that it strengthens the relationship between the present and future and so gives a more persuasive and coherent basis for solidaristic behaviour now

10. August 2022

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