Phantom Sovereignty and the Imaginary Version of International Law

In this brief review, I will explore two aspects of the legal cartography offered in the book in the entry on nomos and the entry on military courts. The entry on nomos, authored by Orna Ben-Naftali, takes on a thematic thread of the entire book and explains how Israel created an alternative legal universe of international law. The entry on the military courts, written by Hedi Viterbo, looks at the institutions that have intervened in the lives of most of the Palestinian population: Israel has arrested and detained over three quarters of a million Palestinians. In 2018 alone, the military arrested 6500 Palestinians, 1800 of whom were children.

From ‚Assigned Residence‘ to ‚Zone‘: Introduction to the Book Review Symposium on The ABC of the OPT

Israel's half-a-century long rule over the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been the subject of extensive academic literature, also in international law. Yet, there had been no comprehensive, theoretically informed, and empirically based academic study of the role of various legal mechanisms, norms, and concepts in shaping, legitimizing, and responding to the Israeli control regime. The ABC of the OPT. A Legal Lexicon of the Israeli Control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the most timely and award-winning new book by Orna Ben-Naftali, Michael Sfard and Hedi Viterbo (Cambridge University Press 2018) fills this gap and offers a comprehensive and yet detailed study of law’s role in constructing and maintaining this protracted and highly institutionalized regime.

Shared International Responsibility for Human Rights Violations: The 2022 World Cup in Qatar

Since Qatar won the hosting rights for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in 2010, recurrent human rights violations of migrants working on building or refurbishing new infrastructure for the tournament have been denounced. As football’s governing body, FIFA should have been aware of the risk that the organisation of the 2022 World Cup could entail human rights violations in the country. In this blog, I investigate how a migrant worker could engage the legal responsibility of the different actors involved in the organisation of the FIFA World Cup 2022.

Demise of „One Country, Two Systems“?

Hong Kong's existence as a liberal pocket within a socialist party state has been a risky experiment from the outset. The substance of the dispute about extradition to mainland China does not pertain to the viability of the “one country, two systems” governing model. The way in which the saga unfolded, however, reveals flaws in Hong Kong’s political system that, if unrectified, may prove fatal to the model.

»Mama Laudaaa«: der Sommerhit des deutschen Migrationsrechts­diskurses

Während die Sommerferien und die Hitzewelle den Großteil der Bevölkerung in die Badeseen und Freibäder treiben, herrscht in Migrationsrechtskreisen wieder einmal helle Aufregung. Dieses Mal scheint der liberale Verfassungsstaat zu eruieren, weil der Bundestag sich anschickt, einige kleinere Änderungen des Staatsangehörigkeitsrechts zu beschließen. Astrid Wallrabenstein warnte an dieser Stelle kürzlich vor einem „Paradigmenwechsel“. In diesem Blogbeitrag geht es mir um eine inhaltliche Replik auf ihren Beitrag und die Logik des migrationsrechtlichen Diskurses.

France Criminalises Research on Judges

In March, France made a controversial move and became the first country in the world to explicitly ban research on individual judicial behaviour. It is now a criminal offence to ‘evaluate, analyse, compare or predict’ the behaviour of individual judges. The result is a flagrant violation of the freedom of expression, represents an affront to basic values of academic freedom, and disregards basic principles of the rule of law.

Die Egalisierungsfunktion der Staatsangehörigkeit

Der Entwurf der Bundesregierung zur Änderung des Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetzes sieht die Ausbürgerung von Deutschen vor, die sich an Kampfhandlungen einer Terrormiliz im Ausland konkret beteiligen. Dies gilt freilich nur für Mehrstaater und bringt damit einen fundamentalen Paradigmenwechsel zum Ausdruck: die Staatsangehörigkeit verliert ihre grundlegende staatsrechtliche Funktion, die darin besteht, Menschen als gleiche Staatsbürger des politisch verfassten Gemeinwesens zu verstehen. So wichtig es ist, dass die Bundesrepublik Deutschland Terrorismus effektiv bekämpft, so wenig darf sie dabei einen Unterschied nach der Staatsangehörigkeit machen.

A Perfect Storm

On 9 June 2019, Hong Kong became the focus of international attention as hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marched on Hong Kong Island to oppose the imminent enactment of a bill that would introduce a rendition arrangement, inter alia, as between Hong Kong and other parts of China (including mainland China, Taiwan and Macau). This legislative proposal has not only led to the largest protests in the history of postcolonial Hong Kong but has also brought about one of the greatest crises of governance in post-1997 Hong Kong.