Articles for category: USA

Trump’s Straussian Shyster

Emails now available to US House of Representatives’ investigators suggest that John C. Eastman, the Trump lawyer behind the failed attempt to overturn the presidential election results, knew that his activities violated the US Electoral Count Act. Eastman’s activities shed light on ideological traits of Trumpism that have received little attention from legal scholars. He and other hardcore Trump disciples have relied on a highly selective interpretation of the ideas of Leo Strauss (1899-1973), the German Jewish refugee political thinker, to justify Trump’s authoritarian proclivities. Their ideological brew continues to threaten constitutional government in the United States.

15. März 2022

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Donald Trump’s Post-9/11 Presidency and the Legacy of Carl Schmitt

Shortly before Trump’s inauguration in 2016, I suggested that the president-elect might prove to be a chief executive in the mode of Carl Schmitt. Trump, though, represented something different. If the early Bush years were characterized by legal interpretations that pushed the edges of executive and sovereign power, Trump’s vision of the presidency was that of a man who had no interest in legal interpretation whatsoever. As he later said of the portion of the Constitution that spells out the details of presidential power, “I have an Article II, which allows me to do whatever I want.”

10. März 2022

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Terror, emergencies, drastic conditions and democratic constitutionalism

Constitutions establish governmental powers, but they do not in themselves confer legitimacy, let alone constitute the body politic that alone can grant legitimacy. Liberal democratic constitutions institute respect for individuals in different ways, but some lines are firmly and almost universally drawn. Torture and mutilation, however, are almost universally condemned in properly liberal societies. But when government, betraying its own duly constituted role as agent of society, turns to torture as a tool to inquire into, protect against and punish even the severest threats to itself and to individual persons, it runs up against an absolute limit of morality, decency, respect for the human person, and undermines itself.

9. März 2022

Die Auswirkungen von 9/11 auf die Meinungsfreiheit in den Vereinigten Staaten

In den Vereinigten Staaten waren die tatsächlichen Auswirkungen des 11. Septembers und des anschließenden "Kriegs gegen den Terror" auf die Informations- und Pressefreiheit komplex und in vielerlei Hinsicht weitaus geringer als erwartet. Tatsächlich sind die Rechte auf freie Meinungsäußerung gegenüber der Regierung in den Vereinigten Staaten nach wie vor weitgehend gewahrt; die wirklichen Konflikte und Fragen betreffen heute die Rolle privater Internetunternehmen, insbesondere der sozialen Medien, bei der Einschränkung der freien Meinungsäußerung.

31. Januar 2022

The Impact of 9/11 on Freedom of Expression in the United States

In the United States the actual impact of 9/11 and the subsequent “War on Terror” on speech and press freedoms has been complex, and in many ways much less than expected. In fact, free speech rights vis-à-vis the government remain largely robust in the United States; the real conflicts and issues today concern the role of private Internet companies, notably social media, in restricting free speech.

31. Januar 2022

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The Death of Law and Equity

On the same day, the U.S. Supreme Court issued decisions governing requests for emergency stays of two rules protecting Americans from COVID 19. Both rules relied on very similar statutory language, which clearly authorized protection from threats to health. Both of them presented strikingly bad cases for emergency stays. Yet, the Court granted an emergency stay in one of these cases and denied it in the other. These decisions suggest that the Court applies judicial discretion unguided by law or traditional equitable considerations governing treatment of politically controversial regulatory cases.

19. Januar 2022

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The Iron Cage of Veneration

From my perspective, the most fundamental question that Arato and Sajó are asking is precisely how committed lawyers and constitutionalists should be to particular political systems that do not, at least on the surface, offer any grounds for optimism that the next election will “vote the rascals out of office” and enable forward movement to achieving the grand aspirations of a liberal constitutional order. Paradoxically or not, one might have more hope about Hungary, Poland, Chile, Brazil, or other countries unafflicted by “veneration” of a constitutional system that, left unreformed, serves as an iron cage, a “clear and present danger” to the actual achievement of liberal constitutional aspirations.

27. Dezember 2021

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Ein hohles Versprechen

In der Zeit nach dem 11. September haben wir erlebt, dass es den Gerichten nicht gelungen ist, das Wachstum des Überwachungsstaates einzudämmen, was neue Missbräuche indirekt fördert und billigt. Diese Ausweitung des Überwachungsstaates rückt zunehmend in den Mittelpunkt des politischen Diskurses in den USA. Wir sehen neue lokale Gesetze, die einige der missbräuchlichsten Technologien verbieten und die zivile Kontrolle wieder stärken.

13. Dezember 2021

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A Hollow Promise

Throughout the post-9/11 period, we’ve seen the courts fail to check the growth of the surveillance state, inviting and sanctioning new abuses. But we do see reason for hope. The expansion of the surveillance state is increasingly taking center stage in American political discourse. While it’s unclear if America’s political, legal, and constitutional systems will ever fully recover from the post-9/11 moment, it is clear that only mass political movement will be able to edge back us from the precipice of authoritarianism and reassert constitutional checks and the rule of law.

13. Dezember 2021

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Biden’s Vaccine-or-Test Mandate in Legal Limbo

COVID-19 vaccine, a medical marvel of the first order, has in due course become the subject first of political and then legal controversy. Several states and businesses brought suit against the Biden administration’s mandate that large employers require vaccinations or weekly testing, and a federal appeals court has issued a stay blocking the mandate. As if the stakes in this litigation weren’t high enough, the case could turn into a showdown not only over vaccination, but over the power of regulatory agencies in the United States more generally.

10. November 2021

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