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Thiago Feital - 9th April 2020
The coronavirus outbreak hit Brazil at a particularly difficult moment. Since 2016, Constitutional Amendment (EC) nº. 95 is in force. The provision, dubbed the “mother of all austerity plans“, limits spending on public services and investments by the inflationary variation, over 20 years. The key effect of EC/95, which has been strongly condemned by civil […]
Javiera Arce-Riffo - 4th April 2020
Recently, on March 4, 2020, the two chambers of the Chilean Congress approved gender parity for the election of the Constitutional Convention that will shape the new Chilean Constitution. What is the importance of this? Why did Chilean women fight to obtain gender parity? Since October 18, 2019, Chile has been traversing the most important […]
Katharine Young - 13th February 2020
It is a common and very productive exercise, within contemporary philosophical or anthropological inquires, to examine the foundations and content of human rights. What’s more unusual is for a nation-state to singlehandedly pursue that effort. This may be happening now with the Trump Administration’s new Commission on Unalienable Rights. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in […]
Mary Jiyani - 5th February 2020
In a landmark judgment, Saulos Klaus Chilima & Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera v Arthur Peter Mutharika & Electoral Commission, a unanimous bench of the High Court of Malawi nullified the country’s May 2019 elections and ordered that fresh elections be held in 150 days. Malawi becomes the third African country to nullify a presidential election, after […]
Domingo Lovera-Parmo - 15th December 2019
Chile is in the middle of constitutional upheaval as president Piñera announced — although in a vague and obscure fashion — the need to reach a social agreement in order to have a new Constitution. After almost a month of massive protests and riots, which president Piñera sought to confront by declaring a state of […]
Jonathan Heath - 10th December 2019
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in its most recent Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine has confirmed that some 18,000 Ukrainian citizens living in Crimea have been conscripted into service with the Russian Armed Forces and that the number of conscripts from that region has increased significantly since […]
Poorna Poovamma - 9th December 2019
In September, 2019, the United Nations Secretary General announced the formation of the long awaited Syrian Constitutional Committee, which was subsequently convened on 30th October, 2019. The Committee is constituted by the Syrian Government and the Syrian Negotiations Commission, and its objective is to create a ‘a credible, balanced and inclusive Constitutional Committee that will […]
Caitlin Salvino - 25th November 2019
The notwithstanding clause, also referred to as section 33 of Canada’s Constitution, has been described as a ‘uniquely Canadian invention’. This clause provides provincial and federal legislatures the ability to pass legislation that either pre-empts judicial review or overrides judicial decisions that concern certain rights entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Any […]
Naz Khan - 15th November 2019
In 2003 and 2008, the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) requested the U.N. Secretary-General to investigate reports of gross violations of humanitarian and human rights laws in the Darfur region of Sudan. The International Commission established that the Sudanese government, along with the Rapid Support Forces (Janjaweed militias), carried out attacks on civilians including mass rapes, […]
Joseph Chigwidden - 11th October 2019
A ‘landmark’ case currently in Australia involves one of world rugby’s biggest stars, Israel Folau, who was sacked by Rugby Australia for posting a religious text on his Instagram account. With Folau challenging the termination of his contract on the grounds of religious discrimination, the lack of clarity between freedom of speech and the freedom […]
Hala Ali Alhedeithy and Emily Nicholson - 9th October 2019
It was a “one off”. A conclusive determination on a series of seismic constitutional clashes: representative democracy versus direct democracy, the executive versus Parliament, and the role of the Court in the separation of powers. Judges examining the constitution against a seething political background. But the lions emerged from beneath the throne, unanimously, in a […]
Joelle Grogan - 7th October 2019
Writing only weeks before the (re)scheduled date of UK withdrawal from the EU, there seems little of which to be certain: it is still uncertain whether the UK will withdraw on a ‘No-Deal’ basis, or under a Withdrawal Agreement. Whatever the process of withdrawal, however, there should be no doubt that it will have a […]