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In Libya's protracted conflict, authoritarian, illiberal, and democratic practises exist at local and (inter)national levels. The repeated occurrence of crises in governance and rule of law, such as sudden restrictions on civil society or deferred elections, opens a window for the emergence of civic practice. Drawing on Kaldor's concept of war and peace logic and a development ethics viewpoint, this study will critically discuss how manifestations of civic logic depend to start with on inclusive actor selection. This paper, based on Libyan-led co-inquiries and an analysis of dialogues and actions from an EU-funded rule of law programme, will demonstrate how the involvement of a diverse group of Libyans initiates manifestations of civic practice that are used during times of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the influence of the implementation of Artificial intelligence (AI) based- systems in democratic governance and their potential threats to the rights to participation. The use of those AI tools has become widespread over the last decades and tend to be widely utilized by governments to make decisions. There is then a concern that the use of AI may threaten the trinitarian view of global governance: the rule of law, democracy, and human rights. This paper describes the mitigated impacts of AI by positing the advantages and the risks that may hamper the rights to political participation. It argues that a responsible use of AI that does not hamper technological advancement is needed, to protect the rights to participation. By examining the connection between governance, human rights, and AI, the paper suggests a particular attention to the Low- and Medium-Income Countries (LMICs) where the use of AI and related tools jeopardize democracy. It urges for the strengthening of laws and regulations to ensure responsible use of AI that does not impede technological advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After more than a decade of inaction or, at best, using soft instruments, the EU has become more assertive against democratic backsliding in member states. This special issue adopts a multi-level perspective to tackle the new research avenues that arise from this change in EU policy. Its contributions investigate two broad questions: first, the causes of this policy change, and second, its potential domestic impact in the backsliding countries. Focused on the EU level, a first set of articles revisits and refines existing accounts of EU inaction in order to explain the EU's recent turn towards greater assertiveness. A second set of contributions concentrates mainly on the domestic level to explore the potential impact of the EU's efforts to counter democratic backsliding in the member states that are the targets of EU actions. This introduction identifies the main themes of this new research agenda, provides an overview of the individual contributions to the special issue and their main insights, and sketches avenues for further research on countering democratic backsliding in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010, the European Union has been challenged by rogue Member States that reject its fundamental values. The European Commission cajoled, expressed concern and occasionally brought infringement actions. Yet autocratisation continued. Then the EU passed three regulations with the 2021–2027 EU budget cycle and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that explicitly permitted the Union to freeze funds to rogue Member States. At the end of 2022, the EU had acted on all three, freezing all non-agricultural funds to Hungary and Poland. Did this action restore EU values? The results are mixed. One the one hand, given the financial stakes, the funding freezes spurred rogue governments' responses and moved rogue states' publics to challenge their leaders more than any other mechanism had. On the other, the EU has since buckled under pressure to unfreeze all funds to Poland and most to Hungary, both before meaningful changes were implemented. Therefore, the jury is still out on the longer-term impact and benefits of budgetary conditionality, and on the question of whether we will see a definitive move away from the default of Money for Nothing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Member States' support for rule of law (RoL) enforcement in the Council of the European Union (the Council). Existing studies regarding this topic produce puzzling findings: there is a stable pro-RoL enforcement coalition between older Member States, while the positions of the newer members appear to be more nuanced in relation to different RoL issues and instruments. This article seeks to elucidate the factors underlying these divergent positions and proposes a solution to this puzzle by introducing the conceptualisation of Member States' 'differential support' for RoL enforcement. Furthermore, it develops a theoretical framework to explain various factors influencing these positions. By analysing Member States' stances on five RoL instruments designed for the promotion and protection of the RoL in the Union, this article demonstrates that the positions of new Member States on RoL enforcement are more stable than often perceived. Additionally, an in-depth qualitative analysis of Member States' arguments reveals that strategic calculations largely influence their positions on RoL enforcement within the Council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the European Union's enforcement of democracy and rule-of-law standards influence the domestic public's attitudes toward backsliding governments? On the one hand, enforcement actions by international organisations may increase the costs of supporting backsliding governments and provide informational cues about non-compliance with international norms. On the other hand, scholars and practitioners worry that enforcement actions create 'rally-around-the-flag' effects that inadvertently increase support for backsliding regimes. We report descriptive, experimental, and quasi-experimental results from a survey designed to assess the public-opinion effects of EU action in response to rule-of-law backsliding in Poland. The survey results suggest both that Polish citizens perceive the EU as a main critic of measures undermining judicial independence and that these perceptions are correlated with opposing the targeted measures. We find no evidence that additional information about EU actions turns public opinion against the targeted measures but there is also no evidence of any rally-around-the-flag effect. In diagnosing the null findings from our experimental and quasi-experimental designs, we also highlight important challenges associated with using survey-experimental methods to assess the effectiveness of EU interventions in ongoing and salient public debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The autocratization of Hungary and Poland prompted a revolution in the European Court of Justice (ECJ)'s caselaw. Brick by brick, the ECJ imposed novel obligations on EU member states to safeguard the rule of law while expanding the legal bases for the EU to sanction governments breaching the Union's fundamental values. In this article, we ask whether the ECJ pioneered this rule of law revolution or, conversely, whether the Court responded to an entrepreneurial European Commission acting as 'guardian of the Treaties'. While supranationalist theories depict the Commission as a proactive agenda-setter guiding the Court's innovations, studies of the EU's rule of law crisis argue that the Commission dragged its feet or only recently seized the reins of leadership. Which perspective is closer to the mark? Deploying a new theoretical framework to study judicial innovation and agenda-setting on an original dataset of all rule of law cases adjudicated by the ECJ from 2010 through 2023, we demonstrate that the Commission has been an inconsistent and often indifferent agenda-setter. Besides several proactive interventions limited to the latter years of the Juncker Commission, the Court's innovative rulings prompted the Commission to act more than the reverse, belying a fundamental shift in leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Parliament (EP) has repeatedly been criticised for its slow, insufficient response to democratic backsliding in several member states. At the same time, it is the arena where we find some of the most vigorous defences of the EU's fundamental values and appeals to safeguard the rule of law across the Union. Leveraging an original dataset of MEP statements from plenary debates over the last two EP terms (2009–2019), this article examines the dynamics of norm contestation in the EP's responses to democratic backsliding. We observe a discursive polarisation primarily along ideological lines, with a notable slippage among European People's Party legislators who shift from scepticism towards EU intervention in rule of law matters to overt support. We show how Eurosceptic MEPs and those from backsliding countries seek to appeal to domestic voters by invoking negative partisanship and anti-Western resentment to discredit EU criticism. In contrast, pro-intervention MEPs situate their discourse at the supranational level and focus on defending European unity and the rule of law as shared identity. Overall, the growing contestation over the nature of fundamental values by Eurosceptics has crystallized a more vocal and differentiated engagement of Europhile MEPs in democratic backsliding debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2021, the European Union (EU) started to use material sanctions to punish democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland. This policy change presents a puzzle for the existing literatures on international responses to backsliding. We theorise two distinctive processes that can account for why EU policy changed from inaction to enforcement. First, once the issue of backsliding in a member state has attained public salience across the other member states, their mainstream parties face domestic electoral incentives to support sanctions against illiberal governments abroad. Second, once backsliding governments also disrupt intergovernmental policy cooperation and threaten common policies at the EU level, even those actors who had been reluctant to defend EU values become more inclined to use sanctions. We demonstrate the plausibility of our explanation with evidence, first, of the increasing public and electoral salience of backsliding in other EU member states, and second, of the occurrence of a negative intergovernmental spillover through increasing attacks by backsliding member state governments against common policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland has inspired a growing literature on EU actions to enforce the rule of law at the member state level. Some researchers have warned against possible unintended consequences of EU interference, but systematic research on the domestic politics of EU rule of law protection in target countries is largely absent. We develop a set of theoretical expectations regarding the positions of domestic political actors towards backsliding governments and EU actions. We test our hypotheses with original data from news articles in Hungary and Poland. We find that governing parties, rather than blaming 'Brussels' for illegitimate interventions in domestic affairs, spend considerable effort defending their own actions. Similarly, opposition parties and civil society actors focus on criticising their country's governments instead of supporting EU actions. EU actions thus provide domestic actors opportunities to discuss democratic backsliding, but EU actions receive little support in public (newspaper) debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examination of the second and subsequent editions of T. Robert Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population shows that the author created a more expansive examination of his political economy of population than that of the simple model in the Essay's first edition. In subsequent editions, the simple, ecological model gives way to a sophisticated general model of a commercial society with property rights, the rule of law, marriage laws similar to those of the British Christian tradition, and expanded markets. The result was not the "dismal" prognostication that Malthus is often identified with. Rather, he was reasonably optimistic that steady growth in per capita income could be accomplished along with a rising population. Biology could never be conquered, but within the right institutional context, reason might interrupt its career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractCan legal remedies act as a line of defence against dispossession? Although the legal system in Indonesia very rarely yields the outcomes that scholars and activists seem to prefer, “The Perils of Legal Formalism,” in addressing widespread conflicts caused by the expansion of oil palm plantations, argues that it can. Yet, the political economy of Indonesia’s “extractive regime” has long relied on violent and legal dispossession. A Poulantzian Marxist analysis of law provides firmer ground for understanding the ineffectiveness of law by itself in reforming society. Peterson, Bedner, and Berenschot’s (2025) puzzlement at the formalistic decisions of Indonesian judges and incompetence of plaintiff lawyers representing displaced communities reveals their individualist, law-centric approach and a reluctance to abandon the liberal myths of rule of law and autonomy of the legal system from “the rest” of society. Optimistic reformist efforts may offer the veneer of legitimacy in rule of law while actually strengthening the extractive regime and the power of dominant actors who benefit from it. Against such wishful thinking, a rare case of effective mobilisation in West Sumatra illustrates how legal action can only be impactful if deployed in combination with power built over time by collective actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article advances the concept of ‘soft’ hostage-taking and examines its effectiveness in EU policymaking. Hostage-taking relates to situations where an individual member state (the hostage-taker) combines its veto-power in intergovernmental domains with a strategy of tactical issue-linkage to extract concessions in a not functionally related negotiating context. Soft hostage-taking does so whilst simultaneously denying issue-linkage in public communications. We argue that the effectiveness of (soft) hostage-taking depends on the credibility of a hostage-taker’s veto-threat, the cost of complying with hostage-taking demands by the other side, as well as the latter’s mitigating capacity. Empirically, we explore the relevance of our theoretical claims for the role of Hungary’s Populist Radical Right government in EU policymaking, which has increasingly relied on veto-threats on key EU foreign policy decisions to gain concessions in its rule of law conflict with EU institutions. We show that whilst Hungary’s soft hostage-taking strategy initially benefited from favourable conditions, its effectiveness has become more circumscribed in line with an altered context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Council’s enforcement inaction regarding the rule of law crisis has been endlessly criticised by scholars and commentators. However, there is currently no theoretically parsimonious explanation of why some national governments oppose enforcement whilst others are more inclined to support it. We address this question by considering structural (time of accession), semi-structural (contributions to, or receipts from, the EU budget and democratic quality) and circumstantial (partisanship, ideology, EU integration stance) conditions. We use Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to test the impact of these conditions on governments’ positions from 2016 to 2021. Findings show relatively stable preferences on enforcement within Member States, despite changes in the ideology of the ruling party. Time of accession, having a high quality of democracy and being a net contributor to the budget emerges as the most robust combination of conditions to explain strong pro-enforcement preferences. In contrast, governments of newer Member States that are net recipients of funds tend to be more reluctant to enforce the rule of law. While ideology lacks sufficient parsimonious explanatory power, it is particularly relevant for explaining extreme anti-enforcement reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to increased numbers of refugee claimants in 2015, the Norwegian government introduced restrictive measures aimed, in part, at deterring future arrivals. These included the mandatory cessation of refugee status when conditions underpinning the grant of asylum have changed. Unlike in Denmark, however, group-based cessation practices have not remained a distinct priority for immigration authorities. Instead, protection reviews are entangled with efforts to combat fraud in the immigration system, and stricter conditions for settlement. The interaction of these measures prolongs temporary residence status and intensifies the possibility of deportation for previously secure immigrant groups. In this article I analyze how precarious status is consolidated through three mechanisms collectively referred to as ‘revocation’ in national law and practice: cessation assessments, the revocation of residence permits, and denaturalization. I then outline two dilemmas that revocation practice poses from a rule of law perspective. I conclude that legal certainty, a core rule of law value, can only be secured by introducing an ‘end date’ to uncertainty. This could be achieved by lifting the threat of cessation after a limited period of time and by introducing a statute of limitations for revocation based on fraud. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the nexus between corruption and the rule of law, focusing on the role of international actors in upholding the latter. Special emphasis is placed on asset recovery, including the seizure of property derived from corrupt activities both abroad and within Member States of the Council of Europe and the European Union. The paper focuses on the actions of Member States of the Council of Europe, especially the jurisprudence of the ECtHR and the corresponding international legal framework. The paper concludes with recommendations for fighting corruption while upholding the rule of law for countries in transition and those on their way to European Union accession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National parliaments, alongside the European Parliament, form a constituent part of the democratic legitimacy chain of the Union and play an integral role in promoting EU values in decision-making. This paper aims to assess the role of national parliaments, supranationally within the governance of the EU, but also the democratic standards that national parliaments must meet when acting internally, outside the scope of EU law. These findings will then be put into practice to assess the Cypriot Parliament as a guardian of European values nationally, which provides for valuable insights due to its unique constitutional setting. The assessment is specifically conducted in relation to: (a) the internal organisation and composition of the national Parliament and preparatory procedures and (b) the proposal, drafting and implementation of national laws. The paper then assesses the role of the EP in further supporting national parliaments in their role as guardians of European values nationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic backsliding in member states, such as Hungary and Poland, poses a significant challenge to the European Union (EU), undermining its core values of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. This paper addresses the fundamental normative question of how the EU should address such backsliding, by assessing the democratic justifiability of different EU responses. Drawing on the concept of multilateral democracy, the paper argues for the legitimacy and mandate of the EU to influence the domestic political institutions of its member states. It examines the normative implications of different tools, particularly the suspension of voting rights in the Council and the expulsion of backsliding states. By employing the framework of multilateral democracy, the paper offers a novel assessment of these tools, contending that this multilevel understanding reveals the suspension of voting rights as democratically preferable to the expulsion of member states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Igor Shoikhedbrod's stimulating monograph, Revisiting Marx's Critique of Liberalism: Rethinking Justice, Legality and Rights, provides a timely occasion to reflect on how legal procedures might be conceptualized against the background of a radical progressive project, and how justice, in all its forms, might be achieved in an ideal socialist society. The book's mission is to defend Karl Marx against critics who contend that the concept of justice is either rejected or seriously compromised by Marx's historical materialist commitments and communist ideals. Shoikhedbrod's book is both scholarly and insightful, but his aim of vindicating Marx limits his capacity to appreciate fully the need for law to mediate conflict in even the most ideal egalitarian communities and, at the same time, to ward off the preoccupation with the juridical to engage fully with the socialist commitment to equal human flourishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rule of law is the fundamental approach to governance in modern states. The ethical issues arising from deceased organ donation activities have attracted high social attention. In order to ensure that deceased organ donation is in line with the interests and moral standards of the public, it is not enough to provide ethical guidance for the development of the organ donation cause through reflection alone. It is necessary to apply the concept of the rule of law, legal rules and procedural norms to the ethical governance of deceased organ donation. The newly revised "Regulations on Human Organ Donation and Transplantation" have established ethical guidelines that organ donation must follow, such as "benefit, do no harm, respect for life, fairness and justice, and compliance with laws and public order", as well as five major principles that must be adhered to in conducting ethical reviews of organ procurement, such as "voluntary and unpaid, informed consent, risk control, fairness and justice, and privacy protection". Faced with the increasing number of deceased organ donation cases and the ethical challenges they pose, it is recommended to establish a "National Human Organ Donation Ethics Committee," clarify the definition and judgment criteria of death from a legal perspective as soon as possible, and create an effective ethical risk monitoring and supervision mechanism. Continuously promote the progress of the organ donation within the legal framework, and effectively safeguard the public interest and basic rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a dearth of theoretical and empirical work examining street-level land administration officials (SLAOs) in post-conflict peri-urban communities in sub-Saharan Africa. This article investigates how SLAOs deliver land administration services under a hybrid governance regime in a localised post-conflict environment, and how they balance strict adherence to the rule of law and a flexible application of rules and regulations. The study is based on a case study in Mombasa. The theory argues that, in Waitiki, SLAOs evaluate their situation and formulate a range of strategies to deliver services and deal with poor governance challenges like corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Estudios de Filosofía is the property of Universidad de Antioquia, Instituto de Filosofia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of College of Languages is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines how the value of rule of law is negotiated through public prosecutors' attitudinal positioning of themselves and defendants in courtroom discourse. A corpus-based analysis of 120 recent Chinese digital indictments revealed that the evaluative stances of public prosecutors toward themselves invariably imply positive judgment of capacity and legal propriety in their legal investigation, thus constructing a stable and authoritative image of law enforcers. Their attitudes toward defendants are mainly negative judgments of both moral and legal propriety through various criminal actions, creating a predominantly evil image of law violators with different personae. It is through these sharply different patterns of discourse representation that public prosecutors tactically construct and negotiate attitudes toward crime and justice, thus establishing mainstream judicial values during legal proceedings. This study may shed new light on the research of legal argumentation for negotiating judicial values under the civil law system in this digital era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Law can only be understood in relation to society, on whose very existence and structure depends the very existence of the legal field. The rule of law is not addressed to the individual, but to inter-human relations, which it protects and optimizes. The elements that shape the content of law have been categorized into factors belonging to the natural framework, factors belonging to the social-political framework and the human factor. Of these, the social-political framework mainly comprises the economic sphere, but also the political system, which includes both social movements within the state and inter-state relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most scholarly literature explores the relationship between regime type and terrorism, while little attention has been paid to the influence of regime on terrorist groups' decision to engage in civil war. This paper argues that the onset of civil war involving terrorist organizations is conditioned by regime type. Democratic regimes create conditions that prevent the onset of civil war involving terrorist organizations, although similar regimes might provide the opportunities for such groups to emerge in the first place. The pacifying effect of democracy on terrorist organizations' decision-making calculus is, however, mediated through a set of democratic institutions. Empirical tests on a global dataset of terrorist organizations show that democratic institutions such as political rights, repression (lack of), rule of law, civil liberties and high state capacity indeed mediate the effects of a democratic regime in lowering the likelihood of civil war onset involving terrorist organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study strives to identify the major factors influencing the non-performing assets (NPAs) of public sector banks (PSBs) in India using a panel dataset comprising of 26 PSBs over the period 1999-2000 to 2015-16. The results reveal that business per employee, operating inefficiency, priority sector lending, inflation and real interest rate have a significant positive influence on increasing NPAs of banks while credit orientation, higher capital adequacy, net interest margin, non-interest income, GDP growth, and financial intermediation are found to exert a significant favourable effect of lowering NPAs of banks. Most interestingly, the study also shows that the level of corruption and the rule of law significantly impacted the NPAs of Indian banks during the period under study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Igor Shoikhedbrod's stimulating monograph, Revisiting Marx's Critique of Liberalism: Rethinking Justice, Legality and Rights, provides a timely occasion to reflect on how legal procedures might be conceptualized against the background of a radical progressive project, and how justice, in all its forms, might be achieved in an ideal socialist society. The book's mission is to defend Karl Marx against critics who contend that the concept of justice is either rejected or seriously compromised by Marx's historical materialist commitments and communist ideals. Shoikhedbrod's book is both scholarly and insightful, but his aim of vindicating Marx limits his capacity to appreciate fully the need for law to mediate conflict in even the most ideal egalitarian communities and, at the same time, to ward off the preoccupation with the juridical to engage fully with the socialist commitment to equal human flourishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This article highlights the influence of the implementation of Artificial intelligence (AI) based- systems in democratic governance and their potential threats to the rights to participation. The use of those AI tools has become widespread over the last decades and tend to be widely utilized by governments to make decisions. There is then a concern that the use of AI may threaten the trinitarian view of global governance: the rule of law, democracy, and human rights. This paper describes the mitigated impacts of AI by positing the advantages and the risks that may hamper the rights to political participation. It argues that a responsible use of AI that does not hamper technological advancement is needed, to protect the rights to participation. By examining the connection between governance, human rights, and AI, the paper suggests a particular attention to the Low- and Medium-Income Countries (LMICs) where the use of AI and related tools jeopardize democracy. It urges for the strengthening of laws and regulations to ensure responsible use of AI that does not impede technological advancement.

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2024 9(3), 1148-1179 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. – II. The use of conditionality instruments in EU law – III. Varieties of conditionality instruments. – IV. The governance of conditionality under the RRF. – IV.1. Thematic conditions and the implementation of EU policy goals. – IV.2. Macroeconomic conditions as the leverage of reforms. – IV.3. The rule of law conditionality at the test bench. – V. Final remarks. | (Abstract) The adoption of Next Generation EU (NGEU) has revamped the use of conditionality tools in the EU. Although conditionality is not a new instrument under EU law, before the NGEU, and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) in particular, we had never witnessed the interplay and intertwinement of so many conditionality regimes at the same time. Such a development triggers significant questions as to the constitutional implications of the rise of conditionality in the EU internal governance. This Article aims at understanding the nature and the legal effects of conditionality, which so far remain unsettled. It first reviews the use of conditionality regimes in the EU and the types of conditionality mechanisms deployed. It then focuses on the multiple conditionality regimes in the NGEU and in particular in the RRF and analyses the design and the initial functioning of the thematic, the macroeconomic and the rule of law conditionality regimes. Finally, the reach and the limits of the effects of conditionality post-NGEU are assessed with a view to the EU budget and the European economic constitution.

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2024 9(3), 1096-1112 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. – II. Starting from the end: the Rule of Law conditionality mechanism. – III. Rule of law, mutual trust, and the macroeconomic dimension. – IV. The EU Rule of Law as an instrument of political dominance. – V. Some provisional conclusions. | (Abstract) This Article examines the significance of the Rule of Law as a common value in the European Union, focusing especially on the decisions of the European Court of Justice concerning the EU Conditionality Regulation. It considers the role of mutual trust among Member States in fostering an ever-closer union and investigates the so-called “macroeconomic dimension” of the EU Rule of Law. The Article concludes that the EU Rule of Law should not be understood as a tool for asserting political dominance by EU institutions or for expanding Union-conferred legal competencies beyond the limits established by the Treaties.

This paper critically reviews The Politics of International Law by Martti Koskenniemi, a seminal work that examines the liberal concept of the Rule of Law through a critical lens. Koskenniemi highlights the inherent tensions between normativity and concreteness in international law, as well as the interplay between rule-based and policy-based approaches. While his analysis offers significant insights into the political nature of international law and its dependence on state sovereignty, his arguments are marked by ambiguity and a lack of definitive conclusions. This paper summarises Koskenniemi’s key arguments, including his critique of liberalism, the indeterminacy of international legal argumentation, and the role of international lawyers in navigating the relationship between law and politics. The discussion evaluates these ideas from multiple perspectives, incorporating views from critical legal theory and legal realism. Although Koskenniemi raises important questions about sovereignty, sources of law, and the objectivity of international legal norms, his work is critiqued for its circular reasoning and lack of clarity. This review concludes that Koskenniemi’s contribution lies in his nuanced critique of the liberal foundations of international law, even as his failure to resolve key dilemmas leaves room for further scholarly debate. The aim of this paper is to review The Politics of International Law by outlining a straightforward framework, without engaging in a deep academic discussion.

Confronted with a plague of criminal violence, the Mexican state has denied responsibility and taken to blaming the victims, claiming that a breakdown in morality is the cause of a ruptured social fabric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]