The Double Effect of “Double Standards”
The summer may have brought a pause to parliamentary sessions, university lectures, and the editorial of Verfassungsblog, but not to international law. In early September, the Shanghai Summit made the continuing erosion of the so-called liberal international legal order and the looming risk of its fragmentation evident. The leaders of the assembled Asian states (mostly autocracies) once again decried the West’s (or North’s) “double standards” (Tianjin Declaration of 1 September 2025). The accusation of double standards is not new, but in today’s period of upheaval in the world order, it has acquired an entirely new dynamism and urgency. It focuses ... continue reading
