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Being Realistic About Law
Legal philosophers are often criticised for being out of touch with legal practice. At best, their theories provide a highly abstract but dated understanding of what law is. In a recent prize-winning book entitled A Realistic Theory of Law legal philosopher Brian Tamanaha argues that this often heard critique is true. Many legal philosophers fail to adequately…
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Truth Commissions and Social Justice: Modesty is in Order
From Peru to Canada to East Timor, following periods of serious conflict or gross human rights violations, societies often look to address the past in order to bring about greater accountability (trials), reparation (victim compensation), and truth (truth commissions). To date, more than 40 truth commissions have been established around the world, with the South…
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Transformative Reparations for Victims under International Law: Changing the Game or More of the Same?
Reparations are an old concept in both domestic and international law. Victims have long been repaired in some way for the harms they suffered themselves, to their families or property. Following World War II, victims received some type of reparation, usually paid by the State, for their profound losses, and just last year the Dutch…
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Milieudefensie summons Shell: Similar obligations for States and companies when it comes to CO2 reduction?
Claire Loven In October 2019, The Hague Court of Appeal rendered an important judgment in the Urgenda case. Urgenda is a Dutch foundation fighting for a sustainable society, which started a legal case to force the Dutch government to adopt more stringent climate policies. In that case, The Hague Court of Appeal found a violation…
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Collection of bodies in Mosul: An act of revenge, humanity – or both?
Katharine Fortin Last week, I listened to a podcast in NPR’s Rough Translation series that wason collecting the dead in Mosul, Iraq in 2018. The podcast is about Sroor Al-Hosayni, a 23 year old Iraqi woman who heads a team of volunteers who remove dead bodies from the rubble of Mosul, eight months after the…
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Artificial intelligence in courts: A (legal) introduction to the Robot Judge
Stefan Philipsen & Erlis Themeli The exercise of government power is increasingly automated. Modern technology makes it possible to reduce the direct human involvement in a great variety of government domains. Human involvement in domains like tax and social security is already limited to the most complex cases. One of the questions this development raises is…
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The Two-Way Street Between Law and Social Psychology
Kees van den Bos Insight into social psychology is relevant for…
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Egenberger and Bauer: The EU Charter as a source of rights and obligations for individuals
The Egenberger and Bauer judgments concern what has been described as probably the most important development in EU fundamental rights law in a long time (Sarmiento): establishing the horizontal direct effect of some of the provisions of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (Charter). The Bauer judgment also established the duty of consistent interpretation in…
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Protecting the rule of law by European Courts – which way to go?
Janneke Gerards The rule of law is under pressure in many States. In recent times, for example, Hungary and Poland have been severely criticised for changes they have made to their systems that undermine judicial impartiality and independence. Moreover, in several States, the pluriformity of the media is under pressure, the role of civil society is threatened, and the…
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Independence and autonomy: the parallel worlds of courts and public agencies
Courts and public agencies are developing in their own way under different pressures, but their paths seem to converge. For the judiciary the key issue is independence; in public agencies it is all about autonomy. These two concepts derive from different perspectives, but are very similar in their consequences for governance. This was one of…
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