Many thanks to Boris Awa (Kigali Independent University ULK, Kigali, Rwanda) for the tip-off 

The birth of a new academic journal is always good news, especially when its stated aim is “to become one of the leading scientific publications on international law” and when it is “primarily intended as a forum for African international lawyers’ reflection and research on issues of interest to Africa.” This is precisely the ambition pursued by the newly launched African Review of International Law (ARIL) / Revue africaine de droit international (RADI), published by the African Society of International Law (AfSIL).

The inaugural issue features several very interesting contributions, not only on the practice of international law in Africa and Africa’s contribution to international law, but also on private international law. Notable contributions include:

• Giuditta Cordero-Moss, “The Legal Framework for Arbitration in Africa: Issues of Applicable Law”;
• Yuko Nishitani, “Private International Law and Child Protection from the Perspective of Africa”;
• Grégoire Jiogue, “La réception des règles de droit international privé français en Afrique noire francophone”.

Another contribution of particular relevance from a private international law perspective is by August Reinisch and Maria José Escobar Gil, “The Wealth of Regional Courts in Africa: An Outsider’s Perspective”. This piece is especially timely in light of ongoing discussions concerning the recognition and enforcement of decisions rendered by regional and international courts in Africa, and the adaptability of domestic regimes on foreign judgments to such decisions.

The full table of contents also includes contributions by Maurice Kamto, Makane Moïse Mbengue, Yves Daudet, Bing Bing Jia, Mario J. A. Oyarzábal, Namira Negm, Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Nilüfer Oral, Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos, and Dire Tladi, covering a wide range of themes in contemporary international law.

The inaugural issue concludes with a call for papers inviting submissions, in both English and French, in the fields of public international law, private international law, and comparative law.

These contributions are intended for publication in the first regular issue, scheduled for release in the second half of 2026.

Proposed articles, case notes, and book reviews must be submitted by September 2026 via the Review’s email address: aril.info25@gmail.com.

The full table of contents, detailed information on the call for contributions (in English and French), as well as the Review’s stylistic guide (in English and French), are available in the inaugural issue.

Needless to say, African private international law scholars, as well as scholars interested in African private international law, are very warmly encouraged to take advantage of this new forum and to contribute to making it a successful one, for the benefit of all.

The seminar is organised on the occasion of the publication of European Civil Procedure, edited by Xandra Kramer, Stefaan Voet and Adriani Dori, and published by de Gruyter in 2026. The book offers a comprehensive overview of the main developments shaping civil justice, including EU instruments on jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement, service of documents, taking of evidence, and collective redress.

The seminar will be held at KU Leuven, Faculty of Law and Criminology, Tiensestraat 41, Leuven, Facultaire Raadzaal. Participation is free. Registration for in-person attendance is available by email at anne-marie.cuypers@kuleuven.be. Registration to attend online is available via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-european-civil-procedure-seminar-tickets-1991345046640

The seminar will bring together a number of the book’s authors to reflect on and discuss various topics within the field of European civil procedure.

Programme

Thursday 25 June 2026

12.45
Welcome
Xandra Kramer, Stefaan Voet, Adriani Dori

13.00
Innovations in EU Civil Procedure: Novel Concepts, Regulatory Mechanisms and Technology
Anna Nylund [online]

13.40
Mariana after Magnitsky: How Global Sanctions and Litigation Funding Politicize Private International Law
Eduardo Silva de Freitas

14.20
Three to Tango: Lawyers Ethics in Collective Litigation with Third Party Funding
Jos Hoevenaars

15.00
Coffee break

15.30
“No Mini-Trials at the Jurisdictional Stage”: Brussels Ia and Engagement with the Merits
Geert Van Calster

16.10
CJEU Case Law on Delineating the Scope of Application Between the Insolvency and Brussels Ibis Regulations: Challenges of Uniform Interpretation
Vesna Lazic

17.00
Taking of Evidence: Cross-Border Aspects and EU Influence
Wannes Vandenbussche and Jachin Van Doninck

17.40
End of day one

Friday 26 June 2026

9.00
Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication
Willem Visser

9.40
Judicial Cooperation in Civil Enforcement
Patrick Gielen

10.20
The Revision of the ADR Directive 2013/11 and the Amendments in the ADR Directive 2025/2647: The use of Evidence
Emma van Gelder

11.00
Coffee break

11.20
EU law and National Civil Procedure: A Slightly Larger Area Than It First Appears.
Bart Krans

12.00
Elusive DigitalJustice@2030: Can the Promise Be Fulfilled?
Alan Uzelac [online]

12.30
Closing
Xandra Kramer, Stefaan Voet, Adriani Dori

End of day two

For further information, please contact kramer@law.eur.nl and stefaan.voet@kuleuven.be.

The Corvus Journal of Classics and Ancient History
ISSN: 2369-9086 (Print)
ISSN: 2369-9094 (Online)

Corvus, now in its twelfth year of publication, is an undergraduate level journal that allows students to come together to produce a highly professional undergraduate journal.  Being completely student run, funded, edited, and overseen, the journal of the Carleton University Classics Society strives to improve with each passing year, while continuing to offer new insight into the realm of the Classics.

The hard work of our students pays offs each year with our annual publication of Corvus and its quality continues to be challenged and improved.

The journal is produced annually, and is managed completely by undergraduate student

• Corvus 2024-2025 Edition

  Corvus 2023-2024 Edition

  Corvus 2022-2023 Edition

  Corvus 2021-2022 Edition

  Corvus 2020-2021 Edition

  Corvus 2019-2020 Edition

  Corvus 2018-2019 Edition

  Corvus 2017-2018 Edition

  Corvus 2016-2017 Edition

  Corvus 2015-2016 Edition

  Corvus 2014-2015 Edition

  Corvus 2013-2014 Edition

Impact of Empire, Volume: 52

The Roman Empire was shaped and consolidated by pro-Roman and imperialistic discourses, but also by the words and actions of its enemies and critics. Discourses and actions of opposition to Rome had an impact on how Rome was conceived and forced the Empire to react. Repressing them was one response, but other reactions were also possible. In that sense, the very enunciation of Rome and its Empire as 'enemy', or the selection of certain features of the empire against which opposition was exercised, can be interpreted as a way of shaping or consolidating the empire.

Copyright Year:

2026

E-Book (PDF)

Availability:

Published

ISBN:

978-90-04-53748-4

Publication:

27 May 2026

Hardback

Availability:

Published

ISBN:

978-90-04-53747-7

Publication:

18 Jun 2026

 

Front Matter

Preliminary Material

Editors:

Juan Manuel Cortés Copete

,

Rocío Gordillo Hervás

, and

Olivier Hekster

Pages:

i–1

• Download PDF

Copyright Page

Editors:

Juan Manuel Cortés Copete

,

Rocío Gordillo Hervás

, and

Olivier Hekster

Part 1 Introduction: Origins, Destiny & Power

1 Opposition to Empire

Anti-Imperial Arguments and Actions in the Shaping of the Roman Empire

Authors:

J.M. Cortés Copete

,

R. Gordillo Hervás

, and

O. Hekster

Pages:

3–16

• Download PDF

2 Greek Debates about Roman Origins, Destiny, and Power

From Mithridatic Wars to the Severi

Author:

S. Benoist

Pages:

17–33

• Download PDF

3 An Ancient Precedent for Contemporary Critiques of Rome

Mettius Fufetius on Rome’s origins in Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Author:

B.A. Jerue

Pages:

34–49

• Download PDF

Part 2 Historiography and Opposition to Rome

4 “Tiberium in Tiberim”: Tiberius’ Opponents in Suetonius’ De vita Caesarum

Author:

M. Russo

Pages:

53–69

• Download PDF

5 Les discours des adversaires de Rome dans les récits de guerre du I ^er siècle de notre ère: l’exemple de civilis

Author:

P. Cosme

Pages:

70–81

• Download PDF

6 Falsi Neronis ludibrio: The False Neros and the Idea Of Empire

Author:

G. Mitropoulos

Pages:

82–96

• Download PDF

7 Josephus and the Legitimate Expression of Opposition against the Roman Empire

Author:

L. Lizarzategui Elu

Pages:

97–109

• Download PDF

8 Alexandrian Opposition to Roman Emperors

Author:

L. Capponi

Pages:

110–127

• Download PDF

9 How to Construct a Discourse of Opposition to Rome—Hadrian in the Oracula Sibyllina

Author:

J.M. Cortés Copete

Pages:

128–146

• Download PDF

10 Stratégies cyniques dans l'Histoire Auguste

Author:

J.R. Ballesteros

Pages:

147–165

• Download PDF

11 Opposing Rome’s Empire—Herodian’s Parthian World

Authors:

O. Hekster

and

T. Kaizer

Pages:

166–176

• Download PDF

Part 3 Oppositional Discourses in Action

12 Opposing Rome: Looking for Resistance in Baeturia Turdulorum

Author:

G. Schörner

Pages:

179–198

• Download PDF

13 Banditry and Rebellion: Pastoral Opposition to Rome in the Thyrrenian Region

Author:

A. Llamazares Martín

Pages:

199–213

• Download PDF

14 A Revolt of the “Professional Class” in Rome under Commodus?

Author:

C. Bruun

Pages:

214–229

• Download PDF

Part 4 Opposition in Late Antiquity

15 Opposing Jupiter’s Reign: Lactantius’ Anti-Imperial Stance in His Critique of the Roman State

Author:

N. Hächler

Pages:

233–248

• Download PDF

16 Reacting to the Enemy: Justinian and the Pragmatic Sanction of 554

Author:

F. Bono

Pages:

249–263

• Download PDF

Back Matter

Indexes

Editors:

Juan Manuel Cortés Copete

,

Rocío Gordillo Hervás

, and

Olivier Hekster

In this week’s episode, we take a step back and do some introspection. Here to discuss whether you should trust Yale, and other elite universities, more than Jalen Brunson in the fourth quarter is friend and colleague Sarath Sanga, Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Co-Director of the Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law. Sanga joins us to discuss both his new article, A Theory of Trust in Institutions, co-authored by Yehonatan Givati, and the recent Report by the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education, of which Sanga was a member.

Sanga kicks off the episode by explaining his view of why higher education is hemorrhaging public trust. Sanga argues that universities, and other institutions, pre-commit to doing specific things, and they lose trust whenever they stray from this initial commitment. Sam questions whether universities are now, and always have been, finishing schools for elites and, if so, whether it makes sense to talk about institutions like Yale having a mandate. And David brings up a variety of counterexamples that call into question whether an institution going against its mandate, such as when a university fields varsity sports teams, actually decreases trust in the real world. We hope you enjoy!

Referenced Readings

• A Theory of Trust in Institutions, by Sarath Sanga and Yehonatan Givati

• Report of the Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education, by Yale University

• "Shut Up and Dribble", by Ian Ayres

A Running List of Nominations for the Canon of American Legal Thought (1975-2025)

• A Matter of Interpretation, by Antonin Scalia [Grove]

• “A Neo-Federalist View of Article III”, by Akhil Reed Amar [Grove]

• “The Anticanon”, by Jamal Greene [Grove]

• The Economic Structure of Corporate Law, by Frank Easterbrook and Daniel Fischel [Macey]

• “The Costs of Employment Segregation: Evidence from the Federal Government Under Woodrow Wilson”, by Abhay Aneja and Guo Xu [Sanga]

This episode is all about how Yale, and other elite institutions, are losing public trust. As Yale Law School insiders, what’s your best solution for making YLS more trustworthy? 

Sam: I’m very suspicious of law schools, especially ours-why shouldn’t everyone else be?
David:  I’m not sure that there is one quick trick in a polarized country, unless we can ensure that none of our graduates ever have an opinion that anyone of any political party ever disagrees with. That said, the best plan is to focus on what we’re good at, teaching brilliant students (like Daniel Browning, our out-going EP and all-around superstar!) and producing a broad range of excellent and rigorous scholarship.

Funktionsmechanismus von Anti-Suit Injunctions

Die Anti-Suit Injunction, kurz ASI, ist keine Anordnung an ein ausländisches Gericht. Sie richtet sich also nicht an den russischen Richter oder den russischen Staat, sondern an die Partei, die ein Verfahren vor russischen Gerichten betreibt. Ihr wird aufgegeben, ein solches Verfahren nicht einzuleiten, nicht fortzuführen oder zurückzunehmen. Die ASI wirkt damit nicht unmittelbar auf die fremde Gerichtsbarkeit, sondern mittelbar über die Disziplinierung der prozessführenden Partei.

Zuständigkeitskonflikte werden insoweit nicht über Anerkennungs-, Rechtshängigkeits- oder Vollstreckungsregeln gelöst, sondern durch ein in personam wirkendes gerichtliches Verbot, sich eines bestimmten Forums zu bedienen.

Art. 11ca der Russland-Sanktionsverordnung übernimmt diesen Mechanismus nun ausdrücklich in das Unionsrecht. Hat eine russische Partei vor einem russischen Gericht ein Verfahren im Zusammenhang mit einem von EU-Sanktionen betroffenen Vertrag angestrengt, obwohl eine ausschließliche Gerichtsstands- oder Schiedsklausel ein anderes Forum vorsieht, kann die betroffene EU-Partei vor einem Gericht eines Mitgliedstaats eine entsprechende Anordnung beantragen. Diese Anordnung soll die vereinbarte Gerichtsstands- oder Schiedsklausel absichern und die russische Partei verpflichten, das russische Verfahren nicht einzuleiten bzw. fortzuführen oder die hierfür erforderlichen Prozesshandlungen vorzunehmen. Wird die Anordnung missachtet, sieht Art. 11ca finanzielle Sanktionen vor, die zugunsten der betroffenen EU-Partei zu zahlen sind.

Anlass für die Einführung der unionsrechtlichen ASI ist die russische Prozessgesetzgebung. Art. 248.1 und 248.2 des russischen Arbitration Procedure Code ermöglichen russischen Gerichten, trotz entgegenstehender Schieds- oder Gerichtsstandsklauseln die Zuständigkeit für sanktionsbezogene Streitigkeiten zu beanspruchen und gegen EU-Unternehmen erhebliche Geldbußen zu verhängen, wenn diese die russische Zuständigkeit nicht akzeptieren. Art. 11ca ist insoweit eine gezielte Antwort auf russisches Prozess-Lawfare: Wo russische Gerichte vertraglich vereinbarte Streitbeilegungsmechanismen neutralisieren, sollen mitgliedstaatliche Gerichte diese nun aktiv schützen können.

Anti-Suit Injunctions als unionsrechtliches Novum

Art. 11ca ist deshalb bemerkenswert, weil die Anti-Suit Injunction dem europäischen Zivilverfahrensrecht lange fremd, ja systemwidrig erschien. Innerhalb des europäischen Justizraums beruht die Zuständigkeitsordnung auf gegenseitigem Vertrauen: Jedes angerufene Gericht prüft seine Zuständigkeit selbst; Fehlentscheidungen werden über Rechtsmittel, Anerkennungs- und Vollstreckungsregeln aufgefangen. In den Rs. Turner v Grovit und West Tankers stand die Anti-Suit Injunction deshalb für ein Misstrauen, das der Binnenjustizraum gerade institutionell vermeiden sollte.

Art. 11ca operiert jedoch nicht innerhalb dieses Vertrauensraums. Die Norm richtet sich gegen ein russisches Prozessregime, das sanktionsbezogene Streitigkeiten trotz entgegenstehender Gerichtsstands- oder Schiedsklauseln an sich zieht und damit privatautonome Streitbeilegungsmechanismen entwertet. Die unionsrechtliche ASI ist deshalb weniger ein allgemeiner Kurswechsel des europäischen Prozessrechts als eine gezielte außenpolitische Ausnahme: Wo gegenseitiges Vertrauen nicht vorausgesetzt werden kann, setzt das Unionsrecht auf kontrolliertes Misstrauen.

Gerade darin liegt aber die Ambivalenz der Norm. Art. 11ca übernimmt ein machtvolles Instrument aus dem Arsenal prozessualer Gegenwehr, ohne dessen Durchsetzungs- und Kontrollbedingungen vollständig zu europäisieren. Die Vorschrift wirft daher zwei Fragen auf: Erstens, ob eine ASI ohne sicheren Zugriff auf Vermögenswerte praktisch Druck entfalten kann. Zweitens, ob der Schutz von Schiedsvereinbarungen kohärent ist, wenn die unionsrechtliche Akzeptanz privater Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit zugleich von wirksamer Kontrolle am Maßstab des EU-Rechts abhängt.

Vollstreckungsdefizit: finanzielle Sanktionen ohne sicheren Zugriff

Art. 11ca übernimmt zwar die Logik einer ASI, nicht aber zwingend ihre Durchsetzungsarchitektur. Im common-law-Kontext beruht die Wirksamkeit einer Anti-Suit Injunction regelmäßig auch auf dem Risiko, wegen contempt of court sanktioniert zu werden. Contempt of Court meint die Missachtung des Gerichts, wenn eine Partei trotz eines gerichtlichen Verbots ein ausländisches Verfahren einleitet oder fortsetzt. Diese Missachtung kann mit empfindlichen Zwangsmitteln geahndet werden, etwa Ordnungsgeld, Vermögensbeschlagnahmen oder sogar Haftstrafen. Art. 11ca wählt einen anderen Weg: Die Missachtung der Anordnung führt lediglich zu finanziellen Sanktionen, die nicht an die Staatskasse, sondern an die gegnerische EU-Partei zu zahlen sind.

Die ASI erzeugt aber nur dann praktischen Druck, wenn die gegnerische EU-Partei die finanzielle Sanktion auch realisieren kann. Dafür braucht es Vermögenswerte, auf die ein mitgliedstaatliches Gericht oder ein vollstreckungsbereiter Drittstaat tatsächlich zugreifen kann. Hat die russische Partei keine greifbaren Vermögenswerte in der EU und lässt sich die Sanktion auch in Drittstaaten nicht vollstrecken, droht die unionsrechtliche ASI zu einem bloßen paper remedy zu werden. Ihre Effektivität hängt daher nicht nur von der gerichtlichen Anordnung ab, sondern von der geographischen Belegenheit und rechtlichen Zugänglichkeit des Schuldnervermögens.

Diese Schwäche wird durch das Sanktionsrecht selbst noch verschärft. Gerade in den Fällen, in denen Art. 11ca besonders relevant ist, kann der Adressat der finanziellen Sanktion eine gelistete Person oder ein gelistetes Unternehmen sein. Dann sind etwaige Vermögenswerte in der EU regelmäßig eingefroren. Damit ist der Zugriff auf diese Vermögenswerte sanktionsrechtlich blockiert, solange keine einschlägige Ausnahme oder behördliche Genehmigung greift.

Darin liegt ein erster Konstruktionswiderspruch: Der Unionsgesetzgeber schafft ein monetäres Druckmittel, dessen naheliegende Vollstreckungsmasse zugleich durch das eigene Asset-Freeze-Regime blockiert sein kann. Zwar hat das 20. Sanktionspaket punktuelle Freigabemechanismen geschaffen; so können eingefrorene Gelder unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen zur Deckung von Schiedsverfahrenskosten freigegeben werden. Für die Befriedigung finanzieller Sanktionen nach Art. 11ca eröffnet die Verordnung aber kein ebenso klares Vollstreckungsfenster. Die EU bewaffnet ihre Gerichte daher mit einer ASI, stattet diese aber nicht durchgehend mit einem funktionsfähigen Vollstreckungsarm aus.

Kohärenzdefizit: Schiedsvereinbarungen schützen, Schiedsgerichte kontrollieren?

Damit ist das Vollstreckungsproblem nur die erste Schwäche von Art. 11ca. Die zweite offene Flanke ist die Kohärenz der Anti-Suit Injunction: Art. 11ca schützt nicht nur Gerichtsstandsklauseln zugunsten mitgliedstaatlicher Gerichte, sondern auch Schiedsklauseln. Für Gerichtsstandsklauseln ist die unionsrechtliche Logik vergleichsweise klar: Russische Gerichte sollen in sanktionsbezogenen Streitigkeiten nicht an die Stelle eines vereinbarten mitgliedstaatlichen Gerichts treten, das EU-Sanktionsrecht achtet. Bei Schiedsklauseln liegt die Sache anders. Denn das Unionsrecht behandelt Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit gerade nicht als vorbehaltlos gleichwertiges Ersatzforum. Vielmehr akzeptiert es Schiedsverfahren nur insoweit, als die Autonomie des Unionsrechts gewahrt bleibt.

Diese unionsrechtliche Vorbehaltsposition hat der EuGH im Investitionsschiedskontext in Achmea und Komstroy deutlich formuliert. Die Entscheidungen betreffen nicht die gewöhnliche Handelsschiedsgerichtsbarkeit, sondern intra-EU-investitionsschiedsrechtliche Konstellationen. In Achmea erklärte der EuGH eine Schiedsklausel in einem intra-EU-Investitionsschutzabkommen für unionsrechtswidrig. Entscheidend war, dass ein EU-Investor und ein Mitgliedstaat Streitigkeiten mit möglichem EU-Rechtsbezug vor ein Schiedsgericht bringen konnten, das nicht Teil des Gerichtssystems der Union ist und dem EuGH keine Fragen nach Art. 267 AEUV vorlegen kann. Dadurch sah der EuGH die einheitliche Auslegung des Unionsrechts und sein Letztentscheidungsmonopol gefährdet. In Komstroy übertrug er diese Logik auf intra-EU-Schiedsverfahren auf Grundlage des Energiecharta-Vertrags. Zwar sind Achmea und Komstroy nicht ohne Weiteres auf die Handelsschiedsgerichtsbarkeit übertragbar, die Entscheidungen lassen aber auf einen allgemeinen Grundsatz schließen: Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit wird unionsrechtlich problematisch, wenn Streitigkeiten mit möglichem EU-Rechtsbezug einem Spruchkörper übertragen werden, der nicht in das Gerichtssystem der Union eingebunden ist, dem EuGH keine Fragen nach Art. 267 AEUV vorlegen kann und dessen Entscheidungen keiner hinreichenden gerichtlichen Kontrolle am Maßstab des Unionsrechts unterliegen. Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit wird unionsrechtlich dort verdächtig, wo sie den Letztzugriff des EuGH auf die Auslegung des Unionsrechts leerlaufen lässt.

Genau an diese Kontrollfrage knüpft nun auch im Sanktionsrecht die laufende Rs. Reibel an. Dort geht es um die Frage, ob Streitigkeiten aus sanktionsbetroffenen Verträgen überhaupt vor Schiedsgerichte gebracht werden dürfen. Der zentrale Punkt ist die No-Claims-Clause des Art. 11 der Russland-Sanktionsverordnung. Sie verhindert vereinfacht gesagt, dass bestimmte russische oder mit Russland verbundene Parteien Ansprüche daraus herleiten können, dass ein Vertrag wegen EU-Sanktionen nicht erfüllt wurde.

Entscheidet ein Schiedsgericht über solche Ansprüche, stellt sich die Frage, wie gewährleistet bleibt, dass das Schiedsgericht die No-Claims-Clause und damit EU-Sanktionsrecht beachtet. Die Schlussanträge des Generalanwalts in Reibel beantworten dies nicht mit einem Verbot der Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit, sondern setzen auf nachgelagerte Kontrolle: Schiedsverfahren können zulässig sein, solange staatliche Gerichte später prüfen können, ob der Schiedsspruch mit EU-Sanktionsrecht und dem unionsrechtlichen ordre public vereinbar ist.

Diese Kontrolle funktioniert bei gewöhnlicher Handelsschiedsgerichtsbarkeit über die nationalen Schiedsverfahrensrechte. In Deutschland kann ein inländischer Schiedsspruch etwa nach § 1059 Abs. 2 Nr. 2 lit. b ZPO aufgehoben werden, wenn seine Anerkennung oder Vollstreckung dem ordre public widerspricht. Bei ausländischen Schiedssprüchen läuft die Kontrolle über § 1061 ZPO in Verbindung mit Art. V Abs. 2 lit. b des New Yorker Übereinkommens. Auch dort kann Anerkennung und Vollstreckung versagt werden, wenn der Schiedsspruch mit dem ordre public des Vollstreckungsstaats unvereinbar ist.

Genau hier zeigt sich das Kohärenzproblem von Art. 11ca. Die Norm schützt Schiedsklauseln pauschal gegen russische Gerichte. Die unionsrechtliche Akzeptanz von Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit reicht jedoch allenfalls so weit, wie  Schiedssprüche letztlich mitgliedstaatlicher Kontrolle zugänglich bleiben. Art. 11ca sichert das vereinbarte Forum, sagt aber nichts darüber, ob diese Kontrollvoraussetzungen für das konkrete Schiedsregime erfüllt sind.

Diese Lücke tritt besonders deutlich bei Schiedsregimen hervor, die nationaler Kontrolle nur eingeschränkt zugänglich sind. Bei ICSID-Schiedssprüchen greifen die normalen nationalen Aufhebungs- und Anerkennungsmechanismen gerade nicht. Die Kontrolle erfolgt grundsätzlich nur innerhalb des ICSID-Systems als sog. self-contained regime. Je schwächer der Zugriff mitgliedstaatlicher Gerichte auf den Schiedsspruch ausfällt, desto schwieriger wird es, die Beachtung zwingenden EU-Sanktionsrechts durch nachgelagerte Kontrolle abzusichern.

Noch schärfer träte das Kohärenzproblem hervor, wenn der EuGH in der Rechtssache Reibel den Schlussanträgen des Generalanwalts nicht folgt und Schiedsverfahren für sanktionsbezogene Streitigkeiten unionsrechtlich enger begrenzt oder sogar ausschließt. Art. 11ca geriete dann in eine paradoxe Lage: Die Norm würde Schiedsklauseln gegen russische Eingriffe schützen und damit ein Forum absichern, das unionsrechtlich selbst nicht oder nur eingeschränkt zulässig wäre.

Art. 11ca knüpft daher nicht lückenlos an die unionsrechtliche Kontrollprämisse an. Zwar schützt die Norm vereinbarte Streitbeilegungsmechanismen gegen russische Eingriffe. Sie klärt aber nicht, ob das geschützte Forum seinerseits hinreichend an das Unionsrecht rückgebunden ist und ob der spätere Schiedsspruch zumindest einer wirksamen mitgliedstaatlichen Kontrolle unterliegt. Art. 11ca verteidigt also die Eingangstür zur Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit, ohne den Ausgang vollständig zu kontrollieren.

Fazit: Strategisches Misstrauen ohne vollständige Architektur

Art. 11ca markiert keinen einfachen Kurswechsel des Unionsrechts zur Anti-Suit Injunction. Die Norm zeigt vielmehr, wie sich europäisches Prozessrecht unter geopolitischem Druck verändert: weg vom reinen Vertrauen in koordinierte Zuständigkeitsregeln, hin zu prozessualer Gegenwehr gegen fremdstaatliches Lawfare. Diese Gegenwehr bleibt jedoch unvollständig. Die neue ASI ist nur so stark wie ihre Vollstreckbarkeit und nur so kohärent wie die unionsrechtliche Kontrolle des Forums, das sie schützt. Ihre finanziellen Sanktionen setzen tatsächlich und rechtlich zugängliche Vermögenswerte voraus; ihr Schutz von Schiedsklauseln setzt voraus, dass die geschützte Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit nicht zugleich den unionsrechtlichen Kontrollmechanismen entzogen ist. Solange beides nicht durchgehend gesichert ist, bleibt Art. 11ca ein Instrument strategischen Misstrauens ohne vollständige Durchsetzungs- und Kohärenzarchitektur. Nicht die Partei selbst, sondern das Gericht stellt ja das Verfahren ein, deshalb dieser Zusatz.

The post Politisiertes Prozessrecht appeared first on Verfassungsblog.

In den politökonomischen Verhältnissen des modernen Geldwesens ist der Digitale Euro allerdings weniger eine Frage des Ob, sondern vor allem eine Frage des Wie. Baut der Gesetzgeber den Digitalen Euro bewusst „unspektakulär stabil“, ohne die Potenziale eines digitalen öffentlichen Geldmediums auszuschöpfen, wird er kaum Transformation bewirken. Um die Souveränität der Währungsunion nachhaltig zu stützen, muss der Digitale Euro mutig und innovativ konstruiert werden.

Die gegenwärtige Funktion des Euro

In der traditionellen ökonomischen Geldtheorie erfüllt Geld drei grundlegende Funktionen: als Zahlungsmittel, Wertaufbewahrungsmittel und Rechnungseinheit (dazu grundlegend Aaron Sahr). Im Wirkungsbereich des Euro werden alle drei Funktionen bereits lückenlos verwirklicht: Im alltäglichen Geschehen des Marktes bildet der Euro als Rechnungseinheit einen allgemeingültigen Wertmaßstab, der Preise auszeichnet – von der Supermarktkasse bis zum Onlineshopping. Egal ob in Form von Bargeld, auf dem Konto einer Geschäftsbank oder in anderen Anlagemöglichkeiten, auf Euro lautende Geldmedien können uneingeschränkt als Wertaufbewahrungsmittel genutzt werden. Auch im Zahlungsverkehr bestehen für den Euro keinerlei Funktionseinschränkungen. Im digitalen Raum ermöglichen Zahlungsdienstleister wie PayPal und Apple Pay oder Kreditkartenanbieter wie Visa und Mastercard jederzeit die Zahlung in Euro. Analog lassen sich diese Mittel über moderne Near Field Communication (NFC) nutzen, die den kontaktlosen Datenaustausch ermöglicht, während das herkömmliche Bargeld als konventionelles Zahlungsmittel hinzutritt. Der Euro funktioniert – sowohl analog als auch digital. Wozu also ein Digitaler Euro?

Eine Abhängigkeit von privaten Finanzunternehmen

Reduziert man das Wesen des Geldes allein auf diese ökonomischen Funktionen, hätte ein Digitaler Euro tatsächlich wenig Mehrwert. Diese Reduktion blendet allerdings die politökonomischen Machtstrukturen aus, die dem derzeitigen Geldsystem zugrunde liegen. Zwar zeichnet sich die EU für die Währung des Euro als abstrakt bestimmte Rechnungseinheit hoheitlich verantwortlich. Doch im Zahlungsverkehr besteht eine direkte Rückbindung an die EZB – und damit eine Verpflichtung zu rechtsstaatlichen Grundsätzen – allein beim Bargeld. Bargeld ist derzeit die einzige Form öffentlichen Geldes, die für Bürgerinnen und Bürger als Endnutzer des Geldsystems zur Verfügung steht.

Alle anderen nutzbaren Formen des Geldes beruhen auf einer Gewähr privater Unternehmen und sind somit privates Geld. Bereits die Geldschöpfung liegt nicht bei der EZB, sondern bei privaten Geschäftsbanken, die durch ihre autonomen Kreditvergaben über den Umfang der umlaufenden Geldmenge bestimmen. Seit der Finanzkrise gelten besonders große Banken aufgrund ihrer weitreichenden Verflechtungen am Markt als „too big to fail“. Neben die Geschäftsbanken treten die Anbieter von Zahlungsdienstleistungen wie PayPal, Apple Pay, Visa, Mastercard usw. Formal wickeln diese Unternehmen lediglich Zahlungsvorgänge ab und verschieben privates Geld von A nach B. Doch wer Zahlungsvorgänge technisch abwickelt, kontrolliert auch den zentralen Zugang zu einer wirtschaftlichen Teilhabe am Markt. Und so haben diese Unternehmen die Macht, Transaktionen zu sperren, Nutzerinnen und Nutzer auszuschließen, Gebührenstrukturen zu bestimmen und Daten über das Zahlungsverhalten ihrer Nutzerinnen und Nutzer zu sammeln. Zahlungsanbieter diktieren die Regeln und Bedingungen der monetären Teilhabe am Markt.

Erschwerend kommt hinzu, dass die im Euroraum dominanten Anbieter dieser Zahlungsdienstleistungen eine geschlossene Gruppe US-amerikanischer Großunternehmen bilden. Im Rahmen der US-Sanktionen gegen die Richterinnen und Richter des ICC sperrten etwa PayPal, Visa und Mastercard ihre Zugänge (dazu Kai Ambos). Das Oligopol der US-amerikanischen Zahlungsanbieter kann in dieser Form jedoch nicht nur Einzelpersonen, sondern auch Unternehmen, Staaten oder die gesamte EU sanktionieren. Global agierende Finanzkonzerne sind so zu politischen Machtinstrumenten herangewachsen (dazu kürzlich Carola Westermeier und David Hengsbach). Im digitalen Raum besteht für Bürgerinnen und Bürger gegenwärtig keine Möglichkeit, auf eine öffentliche Alternative der EU zurückzugreifen. Bargeld ist im digitalen Raum nicht nutzbar.

Der Digitale Euro

Hier knüpft der Digitale Euro an. Er soll als öffentliche Form digitalen Geldes unmittelbar von der EZB bereitgestellt und im rechtsstaatlichen System der Währungsunion hoheitlich verantwortet werden. Wie beim Bargeld sollen rechtliche Strukturen seine Funktion als universelles Zahlungsmittel gewährleisten. Genau diesen Anspruch begründet ein Digitaler Euro gegenüber der emittierenden Zentralbank. Als rechtssichere Alternative zu den etablierten Finanzinstrumenten hat der Digitale Euro so das Potenzial, die bestehenden Machtstrukturen innerhalb des Geldsystems zu verschieben und die selbstverwaltete Funktionsfähigkeit der Währungsunion im digitalen Zeitalter zu erneuern. Auch gegenüber den zunehmend auf den Markt drängenden Krypto-Assets (dezentral auf einer Blockchain abgebildete Vermögenswerte wie der Bitcoin) und Stablecoins (Krypto-Assets, deren Wert an Referenzen wie den US-Dollar oder Gold rückgebunden ist), kann ein Digitaler Euro eine nachhaltige Alternative darstellen (zur Einordnung von Krypto-Assets und Stablecoins durch die Bundesbank).

Der Digitale Euro hat also erhebliches Innovationspotenzial. Um dieses auszuschöpfen, sollte ein Digitaler Euro insbesondere vier Eigenschaften aufweisen:

Erstens ist ein Digitaler Euro als gesetzliches Zahlungsmittel zu etablieren. Wie beim Bargeld schafft dieser Status einen rechtlichen Annahmezwang: Ein Digitaler Euro muss dann grundsätzlich zur rechtlichen Tilgung von Geldschulden akzeptiert werden – sowohl von privaten als auch von staatlichen Akteuren.

Zweitens erfordert ein Digitaler Euro hohe Datenschutz- und Privatsphärenstandards. Bei der Nutzung digitalen Geldes entstehen zwangsläufig Daten. Während die Geschäftsmodelle der privaten Zahlungsanbieter von der Weiterverwendung dieser Daten getrieben sind, eröffnet ein Digitaler Euro die Möglichkeit, ein Geldmedium mit bargeldäquivalentem Datenschutz und rechtsstaatlicher Grundrechtsbindung zu erschaffen (zu Datenschutzfragen weitergehend Andreas Kerkemeyer). In seiner online-Funktion sind dazu möglichst wenige personenbezogene Daten zu verarbeiten, sodass keine Zahlungsprofile erstellt werden können; in seiner offline-Funktion ist die Datenübermittlung auf die Gültigkeit des genutzten Geldes sowie den eingesetzten Zahlungsbetrag zu reduzieren.

Drittens sollte ein Digitaler Euro kostenlos nutzbar sein, um eine echte Alternative zu kostenlosen Zahlungslösungen wie PayPal zu bilden.

Viertens sollte es für einen Digitalen Euro kein gesetzlich fixiertes Haltelimit geben. Ein solches wird insbesondere diskutiert, um die Geschäftsbanken vor Einlagenabflüssen zu schützen. So besteht die Sorge, dass kurzfristig größere Summen von Giro- oder Sparkonten auf den Digitalen Euro übertragen werden. Um dieser Entwicklung vorzubeugen, soll Bürgerinnen und Bürgern nur ein begrenzter Betrag an Digitalen Euro zur Verfügung stehen. Doch die gesetzliche Fixierung eines solchen Haltelimits würde zugleich dauerhaft – trotz etwaiger waterfall und reverse waterfall functionality (Art. 13 Abs. 3 Verordnungsentwurf), die durch die Verknüpfung mit einem Bankkonto eine Geldübertragung über das Haltelimit hinaus ermöglichen – die Funktion eines Digitalen Euro als vollwertiges Geldmedium begrenzen und damit seine allgemeine Akzeptanz im Zahlungsverkehr verringern. Insoweit wäre es sinnvoll, die Festlegung eines Haltelimits einer flexiblen Ausgestaltung der EZB zu überlassen, ohne diese gesetzlich zu binden.

Eine Verantwortung des Gesetzgebers der Währungsunion

Per Definition ist ein Digitaler Euro unmittelbar von der EZB als Organ der EU auszugeben. Ohne eine rechtliche Ermächtigung kann die EZB indessen keine genuin neue Form des Geldes emittieren. Der Gesetzgeber der Währungsunion muss also die rechtlichen Voraussetzungen dieser neuen, nämlich digitalen Zentralbankwährung des Euroraums schaffen.

Für die Währungspolitik der Euro-Mitgliedstaaten ist die EU gemäß Art. 3 Abs. 1 c) AEUV ausschließlich zuständig. Zwar definieren die Unionsverträge den Begriff der Währungspolitik nicht weiter. Nach der Rechtsprechung des EuGH beschränkt sich die Währungspolitik jedoch

„nicht auf die operative Ausführung dieser Politik, […] sondern beinhaltet auch eine normative Dimension, die darauf abzielt, den Status des Euro als einheitliche Währung zu gewährleisten“ (EuGH, Rs. C-422/19 und C-423/19, Rn. 38).

Die Union ist also auch dazu verpflichtet, rechtlich für den Funktionserhalt des Euro zu sorgen. Aufgrund der ausschließlichen Zuständigkeit der EU sind die Mitgliedstaaten des Euroraums dabei nur in der von den Verträgen vorgesehenen Form zu beteiligen.

Das Primärrecht der EU ermächtigt die EZB nicht zur Ausgabe eines Digitalen Euro. Insbesondere Art. 128 AEUV, der die Emission von analogem Bargeld reguliert und damit zugleich seine Abschaffung verhindert, enthält für diese neuartige digitale Form des Geldes keine kompetenzrechtlichen Vorgaben. Die Rechtsgrundlage erfordert daher einen Sekundärrechtsakt. Die Europäische Kommission stützt ihren Verordnungsentwurf zum Digitalen Euro zu Recht auf Art. 133 AEUV. Danach erlassen – unbeschadet der Befugnisse der EZB – das Europäische Parlament und der Rat gemäß dem ordentlichen Gesetzgebungsverfahren die Maßnahmen, die für die Verwendung des Euro als einheitliche Währung erforderlich sind. Nach dem Verfahren des Art. 294 AEUV können die beiden Organe demnach die rechtliche Grundlage eines Digitalen Euro schaffen.

Fortschritt vertagt oder Fortschritt verweigert?

Bereits im Juni 2023 hatte die Europäische Kommission den Entwurf einer Verordnung zur Einführung des Digitalen Euro unterbreitet. Nach den Neuwahlen des Europäischen Parlaments im Juni 2024 sowie einer langen politischen Blockade durch die parlamentarischen Berichterstatter scheint sich im Gesetzgebungsprozess nun etwas zu bewegen. Der Rat hat seine Position im vergangenen Dezember in einem umfangreichen Mandat für Verhandlungen mit dem Europäischen Parlament festgelegt. Demnach stehen die Mitgliedstaaten politisch grundsätzlich hinter dem Projekt. Im Europäischen Parlament liegt die Situation komplizierter: In der Vergangenheit wurde insbesondere konservativen Kräften mit engen Verbindungen zur Finanzwirtschaft nachgesagt, den Gesetzgebungsprozess zu verschleppen (dazu im Juli 2024) – vordergründig wegen Sorgen vor dem „gläsernen Bürger“ sowie der Verdrängung vermeintlich bewährter Banken- und Zahlungssysteme. Es bleibt zu hoffen, dass die geplante Abstimmung im Ausschuss für Wirtschaft und Währung (ECON) am 23. Juni tatsächlich stattfindet. Erst nach der Abstimmung des Parlaments folgt die informelle Trilog-Verhandlung zwischen Parlament, Rat und Kommission, um sich vorläufig über den Verordnungsentwurf zu einigen. Trotz politischer Fortschritte droht das Gesetzgebungsverfahren damit noch immer zu einer Hängepartie über unzählige Detailfragen zu werden.

Innovatives Geld braucht innovatives Recht

Das laufende Gesetzgebungsverfahren zum Digitalen Euro unterscheidet ihn bereits von anderen digitalen Geldformen. So bestimmt nicht einseitig ein privates Unternehmen, sondern ein demokratischer Rechtssetzungsprozess über seine Gestalt und Funktion und bindet ihn unmittelbar im rechtsstaatlichen System der Währungsunion ein.

Die Gesetzgebungsorgane der EU sollten nun entschlossen wichtige politische Eckpunkte festsetzen. Dabei stehen sie an einem Scheideweg: Soll der Digitale Euro die bestehenden Machtstrukturen des Geldsystems nachhaltig transformieren, sind die privaten Akteure des Geldsystems notwendig zu entmachten. Wird der Digitale Euro dagegen so zahm ausgestaltet, dass er bloß kein privates Geschäftsmodell gefährdet, kann man sich seine Einführung auch direkt sparen. Um die Souveränität und Stabilität des Euro zu erhalten, muss ein Digitaler Euro den bestehenden privaten Bezahlsysteme mindestens ebenbürtig sein – und darüber hinaus die besonderen Merkmale eines öffentlichen Geldmediums ausweisen, mit denen er sich von privaten Geldmedien abgrenzt: als gesetzliches Zahlungsmittel mit Annahmezwang, mit hohen und bargeldäquivalenten Datenschutz- und Privatsphärenstandards, kostenlos nutzbar sowie ohne ein gesetzlich fixiertes Haltelimit. Die technischen Detailfragen kann der Unionsgesetzgeber einer Ausgestaltung der EZB überlassen. Nach Art. 127 Abs. 1 AEUV ist die EZB ohnehin dem vorrangigen geldpolitischen Ziel der Preisstabilität verpflichtet – wirtschaftsfeindliche Entscheidungen sind von ihr nicht zu erwarten.

Der Digitale Euro ist ein Projekt demokratischer Selbstbehauptung. Seine Rechtsgrundlage muss jeder Bürgerin und jedem Bürger eine freie, gleiche und rechtssichere Teilhabe am Zahlungsverkehr des Euroraums ermöglichen – unabhängig davon, welches Unternehmen gerade die technische Infrastruktur betreibt oder welche politischen Interessen dahinter stehen. Letztlich stellt der Digitale Euro eine politische Grundsatzfrage: Soll die Zahlungsinfrastruktur der Zukunft ein öffentliches Gut werden – oder der Macht privater Finanzinstitutionen überlassen bleiben?

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Schließlich erreichte der Fall auch das Verwaltungsgericht Schwerin – mit insgesamt 19 Eilanträgen. Dort ging es jedoch letztlich nicht um die Frage, ob Timmy hätte gerettet werden können, dürfen oder müssen. Die Verfahren scheiterten allesamt bereits an einer vorgelagerten Frage: Wer darf tierliche Interessen gerichtlich geltend machen?

Timmy als Angehöriger einer streng geschützten Art

Materiell-rechtlich genießt der Buckelwal im Vergleich zu anderen Tieren einen sehr hohen Schutzstatus – und das nach internationalem, unionsrechtlichem und nationalem Recht. Als Säugetierart der Ordnung Cetacea fällt der Buckelwal unter Anhang IV lit. a der europäischen FFH-Richtlinie (Fauna-Flora-Habitat-Richtlinie); Art. 12 FFH-RL verlangt für diese Arten die Einführung eines strengen Schutzsystems. Im nationalen Recht gestaltet das Bundesnaturschutzgesetz diesen Schutz aus: Arten des Anhangs IV der FFH-Richtlinie sind „streng geschützte Arten“ im Sinne von § 7 Abs. 2 Nr. 14 lit. b BNatSchG; für sie gelten damit insbesondere die Zugriffsverbote des § 44 Abs. 1 BNatSchG, d. h. etwa, dass Tiere dieser Arten nicht verletzt oder gar getötet werden dürfen (Nr. 1) – während besonders sensibler Lebensphasen wie etwa Wanderungszeiten dürfen Menschen sie darüber hinaus nicht (erheblich) stören (Nr. 2). Daneben gelten für sie die Besitzverbote des § 44 Abs. 2 Nr. 1 BNatSchG.

Somit berührten die im Fall Timmy diskutierten oder durchgeführten Maßnahmen dem Anschein nach mehrere artenschutzrechtliche Verbote des § 44 BNatSchG. Dies gilt insbesondere für körperliche Beeinträchtigungen, ein mögliches „In-Besitz-Nehmen“ sowie für Störungen während einer grundsätzlich sensiblen Lebensphase: Buckelwale wandern im Frühsommer typischerweise aus ihren warmen Fortpflanzungsgebieten in die nahrungsreichen Gewässer der Arktis. Unter eine Störung fallen Handlungen, die das psychische Wohlbefinden eines Tieres beeinträchtigen und etwa Angstreaktionen hervorrufen können – ob darüber hinaus negative Auswirkungen auf den Erhaltungszustand der lokalen Population einer Art erforderlich sind, ist umstritten.

Gerade im Fall eines gestrandeten Buckelwals ist jedoch zu beachten, dass die artenschutzrechtlichen Verbote schutzzweckbezogen auszulegen sind. Das Störungsverbot des § 44 Abs. 1 Nr. 2 BNatSchG soll streng geschützte Arten während sensibler Lebensphasen vor Beeinträchtigungen schützen, die ihre Fortpflanzung, Aufzucht, Mauser, Überwinterung oder Wanderung beeinträchtigen können. Timmy konnte seine Wanderung jedoch gerade nicht fortsetzen, weil er auf einer Sandbank festhing. Maßnahmen, die auf seine Befreiung und damit auf die Wiederherstellung der Möglichkeit zur Fortsetzung der Wanderung gerichtet waren, dürften daher jedenfalls nicht ohne Weiteres vom Schutzzweck des Störungsverbots erfasst sein. Andernfalls würde das Artenschutzrecht in sein Gegenteil verkehrt: Hilfe für ein streng geschütztes Tier würde gerade deshalb erschwert, weil dieses streng geschützt ist. Auch eine an § 44 BNatSchG anknüpfende Strafbarkeit nach § 71 Abs. 1 BNatSchG lag daher jedenfalls nicht nahe.

Soweit man einen Verstoß gegen § 44 BNatSchG annähme, käme der Ausnahmegrund aus § 45 Abs. 5 BNatSchG in Betracht. Danach ist es zulässig, verletzte, hilflose oder kranke Tiere aufzunehmen, um sie gesund zu pflegen. Doch bereits eine „Aufnahme“ im Sinne des § 45 Abs. 5 BNatSchG erscheint bei einem gestrandeten Buckelwal nicht ohne Weiteres einschlägig. Hinzu kommt, dass die fachlichen Einschätzungen zu seinem Gesundheitszustand nahelegten, dass der Wal kaum eine realistische Chance auf ein Überleben gehabt hätte (siehe etwa Einschätzungen der British Divers Marine Life Rescue, des International Whaling Commission Strandings Expert Panel, des Deutschen Meeresmuseums und des Instituts für Terrestrische und Aquatische Wildtierforschung). Die jeweiligen Gutachten bzw. Stellungnahmen legen den Schluss nahe, dass die Stimulations-, Bergungs- und Wiederaussetzungsbemühungen absehbar nur zu einer (erheblichen) zusätzlichen Belastung für den Wal führen und sein Leid verlängern würden.

Timmy als leidensfähiges Lebewesen

Gerade vor diesem Hintergrund ist auch an mögliche Verstöße gegen das Tierschutzgesetz zu denken. Dessen Schutzbereich erfasst grundsätzlich auch wildlebende Tiere, unabhängig von ihrer naturschutzrechtlichen Einordnung. Nach § 1 S. 2 TierSchG darf niemand einem Tier ohne vernünftigen Grund Schmerzen, Leiden oder Schäden zufügen. Materiell wäre dabei zu prüfen gewesen, ob die vorgenommenen oder unterlassenen Maßnahmen dem Wal Schmerzen, Leiden oder Schäden zufügten oder solche jedenfalls verlängerten. Schmerzen erfassen dabei unangenehme sensorische und gefühlsmäßige Erfahrungen, die mit einer tatsächlichen oder potenziellen Gewebeschädigung einhergehen oder einer solchen Erfahrung ähneln (s. Gerhold, in: Caspar/Gerhold, HK-TierSchG, § 1 Rn. 73). Leiden setzen Einwirkungen voraus, die der Wesensart des Tieres zuwiderlaufen, instinktwidrig sind und von dem Tier als lebensfeindlich empfunden werden, weil sie seinem Selbst- oder Arterhaltungstrieb entgegenstehen (s. Gerhold, in: Caspar/Gerhold, HK-TierSchG, § 1 Rn. 77). Auch Angst infolge ungewohnten und gegebenenfalls als lebensgefährdend wahrgenommenen Menschenkontakts kann Leiden begründen.

Strafrechtlich wird dieser Schutz durch § 17 TierSchG flankiert, der unter anderem das Zufügen länger anhaltender oder sich wiederholender erheblicher Schmerzen oder Leiden (Nr. 2 lit. b) unter Strafe stellt. Jedenfalls wären die Rettungsmaßnahmen nicht isoliert als belastende Einwirkungen zu betrachten. Wo ein Tier ohne Hilfe voraussichtlich über längere Zeit qualvoll verendet, kann die Chance, sein Leben zu erhalten oder sein Leiden zu verkürzen, vorübergehende Belastungen rechtfertigen. Strafrechtlich ließe sich dies über den rechtfertigenden Notstand nach § 34 StGB erfassen; zudem besteht grundsätzlich auch eine Pflicht zur Hilfeleistung nach § 323c StGB. Für die verwaltungsrechtliche Bewertung spricht derselbe Grundgedanke dafür, belastende Rettungsmaßnahmen nicht schon deshalb als tierschutzwidrig einzuordnen, weil sie kurzfristig Stress, Angst oder Schmerzen auslösen. Entscheidend wäre vielmehr eine fachlich fundierte Abwägung zwischen der Belastungsintensität der Maßnahme, der realistischen Überlebens- oder Befreiungschance und dem ohne Eingreifen zu erwartenden Leiden des Tieres.

Beschluss des VG Schwerin

Zu (derartigen) materiell-rechtlichen Überlegungen kam das VG Schwerin nicht, da die Anträge sämtlich bereits auf Ebene der Zulässigkeit scheiterten. Die Anträge richteten sich teils auf die Einleitung von Rettungsmaßnahmen, teils auf die Überprüfung der behördlichen Entscheidungen und teils auf das Unterlassen von Rettungsmaßnahmen. Sämtliche Anträge blieben jedoch mangels Antragsbefugnis erfolglos oder wurden zurückgenommen. Die Antragsteller konnten nach Auffassung des Gerichts nicht darlegen, warum sie durch die jeweiligen Maßnahmen oder deren Unterlassen in eigenen Rechten verletzt sein sollten. Die Normen des Tierschutzgesetzes seien nicht drittschützend; eine Tierschutzverbandsklage existiert in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern nicht. Auch die Normen des Bundesnaturschutzgesetzes seien nicht drittschützend.

Da die gerichtliche Argumentation in den 19 Verfahren im Wesentlichen gleich verlief, betrachten wir hier exemplarisch ein Verfahren näher (3 B 1168/26 SN).

Die Antragstellerin begehrte im Eilverfahren, das Land Mecklenburg-Vorpommern per einstweiliger Anordnung gemäß § 123 Abs. 1 VwGO zu verpflichten, sämtliche derzeit durchgeführten oder veranlassten Maßnahmen im Zusammenhang mit der Rettung bzw. Refloatierung (also dem Wiederaufschwimmen und Abschleppen des Körpers) des in der Kirchsee (Wismarer Bucht) befindlichen Buckelwals unverzüglich einzustellen, soweit diese mit erheblichem Stress, Schmerzen oder Leiden für das Tier verbunden sind. Hilfsweise sollte der Antragsgegner verpflichtet werden, die laufenden Maßnahmen bis zur Einholung eines unabhängigen, auf Meeressäuger spezialisierten tierschutzfachlichen Sachverständigengutachtens auszusetzen und nur solche Handlungen zuzulassen, die nachweislich auf die Reduktion von Schmerzen, Leiden und Stress des Tieres gerichtet sind.

Das VG Schwerin lehnte den Antrag unter Hinweis auf § 42 Abs. 2 VwGO analog als unzulässig ab: Auch im Verfahren nach § 123 Abs. 1 VwGO müsse der Antragsteller plausibel darlegen, dass ihm der geltend gemachte Anspruch zustehen könne. Daran fehle es.  Der Antragstellerin stehe offensichtlich kein Anspruch gegenüber dem Antragsgegner auf das begehrte Unterlassen oder Handeln zu.

Ein Anspruch der Antragstellerin könne sich dabei insbesondere nicht aus §§ 1, 2 oder 17 TierSchG ergeben. Die Normen des Tierschutzgesetzes seien nicht drittschützend – eine Beurteilung, die auch anders hätte ausfallen können. So entschied etwa das VG Freiburg, dass § 16a Abs. 1 S. 1, S. 2 Nr. 1 TierSchG in Verbindung mit § 2 Abs. 2 BadWürttPolG drittschützende Wirkung zu Gunsten der Antragsteller entfalten könne.

Weiter stellte das Gericht fest, dass in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern keine tierschutzrechtliche Verbandsklage vorgesehen sei. Ohnehin handle es sich bei der Antragstellerin um keinen anerkannten Tierschutzverband – eine Einordnung, die wohl auch für die Antragsteller in den 18 anderen Verfahren zutreffend ist. Die gegenwärtige Landesregierung beabsichtige nicht, eine tierschutzrechtliche Verbandsklage einzuführen (s. Landtags-Drucksache 8/3813, S. 6).

Auch die Normen des Bundesnaturschutzgesetzes seien nach Auffassung des Gerichts nicht dazu bestimmt, private Belange zu schützen.

Ebenso wenig ergebe sich ein Anspruch aus Vorschriften des Gefahrenabwehrrechts, wie etwa dem Sicherheits- und Ordnungsgesetz Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (SOG M-V), da auch insoweit ein individualschützender Anspruch auf ein bestimmtes behördliches Einschreiten nicht ersichtlich sei. Ein Anspruch ergebe sich auch nicht aus Art. 20a GG oder aus dem Unionsrecht. Weitere Anspruchsgrundlagen, aus denen sich ein gerichtlich durchsetzbares subjektives Recht der Antragstellerin herleiten ließe, seien nicht ersichtlich. Die Antragstellerin werde durch die vorgetragenen Zustände und den von ihr geschilderten Überlebenskampf des Wals nicht in erkennbarer Weise in ihren Rechten verletzt.

Verfassungsrechtlicher Tierschutz ohne prozessuale Übersetzung

Seit 2002 schützt Art. 20a GG ausdrücklich auch die Tiere. Der Tierschutz ist bei der Auslegung einfachen Rechts, bei Ermessensentscheidungen und in Abwägungssituationen zu berücksichtigen. Und doch: Obwohl der Tierschutz verfassungsrechtlich anerkannt ist, bleibt auf Bundesebene ungeklärt, wer diesen Schutz im Konfliktfall durchsetzen darf.

Besonders augenfällig wird dies an der fehlenden tierschutzrechtlichen Verbandsklage in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Das führt zu einer schwer erklärbaren föderalen Zufälligkeit: Ob ein Tierinteresse gerichtlich vertreten werden kann, hängt insofern nicht von der Intensität des Leidens des Tieres ab, sondern vor allem davon, ob das jeweilige Bundesland ein Verbandsklagerecht geschaffen hat und wie weit dieses reicht. Wäre der Wal im benachbarten Schleswig-Holstein gestrandet (seine erste Strandung trug sich am Timmendorfer Strand in Schleswig-Holstein zu), hätte sich die prozessuale Ausgangslage anders dargestellt. Das schleswig-holsteinische Gesetz zum Tierschutz-Verbandsklagerecht eröffnet anerkannten Tierschutzvereinen Rechtsbehelfe, ohne dass sie eigene Rechte geltend machen müssen. Besonders relevant ist, dass das Gesetz auch Anordnungen oder die Unterlassung von Anordnungen nach § 16a TierSchG erfasst. Ein anerkannter Verband hätte daher etwa versuchen können, die unterbliebene tierschutzrechtliche Steuerung der Rettungsmaßnahmen als Unterlassen einer gebotenen § 16a-Anordnung gerichtlich überprüfen zu lassen. Wenn Art. 20a GG den Tierschutz als gesamtstaatliches Verfassungsziel anerkennt, erscheint es durchaus inkonsequent, seine gerichtliche Durchsetzung derart zu fragmentieren.

Naturschutz ist nicht gleich Tierschutz

Der Fall zeigt zudem, dass auch Ausweichüberlegungen oftmals nicht weiterführen: Wo ein tierschutzrechtlicher Zugang fehlt, liegt es nahe, tierliche Interessen naturschutzrechtlich zu rahmen. Zwar schützen auch die Zugriffsverbote des § 44 Abs. 1 BNatSchG den Buckelwal grundsätzlich als Individuum vor Beeinträchtigungen – seine Leidensfähigkeit und sein Schmerzempfinden spielen jedoch keine dem Tierschutzrecht vergleichbare Rolle. Das Naturschutzrecht versteht das Tier in erster Linie als Bestandteil von Ökosystemen, nicht als empfindungsfähiges Wesen. Das ist unbefriedigend. Der Schutz tierlicher Interessen darf nicht davon abhängen, ob diese in umweltrechtliche Interessen übersetzbar sind. Dies gilt umso mehr, da die betroffenen Umweltinteressen prozessual ebenfalls nicht durchsetzbar waren: Weder § 64 BNatSchG noch § 1 UmwRG begründeten ein Verbandsklagerecht, mit dem ein behördliches Einschreiten hätte geltend gemacht werden können. Beide Regelungsregime knüpfen beim Anwendungsbereich der Verbandsklage an einen abschließenden Katalog von Entscheidungen beziehungsweise deren Unterlassen an. Damit kann gerade nicht jede umweltrechtlich relevante behördliche Maßnahme oder deren Unterlassen gerichtlich geltend gemacht werden. Das ist auch mit Blick auf die Aarhus-Konvention problematisch. Die Konvention soll den Zugang zu Informationen, Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung und gerichtlichem Rechtsschutz in Umweltangelegenheiten stärken. Art. 9 Abs. 3 verpflichtet die Vertragsstaaten, der Öffentlichkeit Zugang zu gerichtlichen oder verwaltungsbehördlichen Verfahren zu eröffnen, um umweltrechtswidrige Handlungen und Unterlassungen von Behörden oder Privaten überprüfen zu lassen.  Vor diesem Hintergrund wird zu Recht darauf hingewiesen, dass das UmwRG hinter den Anforderungen des Art. 9 Abs. 3 Aarhus-Konvention zurückbleibt, soweit es den Zugang zu Gericht auf einen abschließenden Katalog gesetzlich benannter Klagegegenstände beschränkt.

Der Fall Timmy macht einmal mehr deutlich, dass materieller Natur- und Tierschutz allein nicht genügen. Obwohl der Buckelwal artenschutzrechtlich streng geschützt ist und dem Schutz des Tierschutzgesetzes unterliegt, konnte dessen Einhaltung gerichtlich nicht überprüft werden. Denn es fehlt weiterhin an bundesweit verankerten Instrumenten, um tierliche Interessen im Einzelfall gerichtlich geltend zu machen. Solange dies so bleibt, bleibt der Rechtsschutz für Tiere fragmentiert: Er hängt vom jeweiligen Landesrecht und von naturschutzrechtlichen „Übersetzungen“ tierlichen Leidens ab. Warum gerade ausgewählte einzelne Tiere öffentliche Empathie und private Hilfsbereitschaft in besonderem Maße mobilisieren, während das Leiden unzähliger anderer Tiere weitgehend unsichtbar bleibt, ist wiederum eine eigene soziologische und ethische Frage.

The post Der Buckelwal Timmy vor dem Verwaltungsgericht Schwerin appeared first on Verfassungsblog.

Forcing U.S. servicemembers to police American streets isn’t just dangerous for the rule of law, it also harms the military itself. The negative and counterproductive consequences of placing military personnel on the frontlines of domestic law enforcement are well-established and remarkably consistent. Drawing on incidents from American history and contemporary examples from around the world, we detail these risks in a new report, “The Dangers of Military Intervention in Civilian Law Enforcement.”

The topline findings are clear:

When these civil-military lines blur, even well-intentioned domestic military operations can produce unintended consequences that are difficult to reverse…. These dangers — escalation, disillusionment, and politicization — are the predictable outcomes of military intervention in civilian law enforcement.

Police are trained to enforce the law and de-escalate violence, militaries, however, are tasked with deploying overwhelming force. The mismatch of tool to task that sending troops to enforce the law entails puts civilians (and troops themselves) in the crosshairs, jeopardizes military morale and readiness, and injects politics into the armed forces. Escalation, disillusionment in the ranks, and politicization are virtually inevitable when this line in the civil-military boundary is blurred. All Americans should be deeply concerned about the increased deployments of federal military personnel for domestic policing purposes. 

Lessons from U.S. History

The first American century witnessed numerous domestic uprisings that challenged the legitimacy of the new government, including a civil war that posed an existential threat. Wary of concentrated central political power, the federal government for much of the nineteenth century relied on a patchwork of state militias and Regular U.S. Army troops for managing internal security — a fundamentally different reality from the modern era of robust and well-funded state and local police forces. The evolving responses to these early domestic crises shaped how federal force is understood, organized, and authorized for use.

Shays’ Rebellion in 1786 first convinced early leaders of the inadequacy of the federal government’s capacity to respond to civil unrest under the Articles of Confederation, and informed the U.S. Constitution that would replace it. Later, both Presidents George Washington and John Adams utilized statutory authorities to deploy federal military force against anti-tax uprisings — during the Whiskey and Fries Rebellions, respectively — only to later learn that these deployments cost far more than the issue originally at stake. 

Former Vice President Aaron Burr’s botched plot to seize western territory prompted the passage of the Insurrection Act in 1807, which expanded the president’s authority to deploy federal military personnel in “all cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws … for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly executed.” The Insurrection Act remains intact today, though invocations of its authority have remained exceedingly rare since its enactment. 

Even when legally authorized and fully budgeted, domestic troops deployments take a toll, especially when the military’s involvement is colored by politics. President Andrew Jackson’s 1834 deployment of federal military force to quash labor unrest along the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal, for instance, called into question whether the military was used as a tool to shore up the fortunes of the canal company’s president, John Eaton, who served as Jackson’s former secretary of war and was also a close friend of the president. 

Domestic deployments to the former Confederate states during Reconstruction following the Civil War prompted widespread backlash from white Southerners amid accusations of military intrusion in civilian life. Though federal troops largely worked to protect the rights and safety of newly freed Black citizens, this backlash ultimately precipitated the enactment of the Posse Comitatus Act in 1878, which generally prohibited the use of federal troops for civilian law enforcement unless expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. Though the Act had its roots in white Southern lawmakers’ desire to end Reconstruction, it codified the boundaries that have since separated the duties of the U.S. armed forces from those of civilian law enforcement — a foundation of U.S. civil-military relations.

Over the next century, episodes of civil strife, labor protests, campus unrest, and the struggle for civil rights continued to shape debates on how, whether, and why to deploy federal military force domestically. Some interventions, like the Army’s heavy-handed ambush of World War I veterans during the Bonus Army March in 1932, clearly illustrate how hasty and politically charged deployments degrade the chain of command and harm the military’s reputation. Others, including the use of the military to enforce constitutional rights in the South during the Civil Rights era, alternatively demonstrate how the judicious deployment of military personnel can help uphold the rule of law under the most extraordinary of circumstances.

Across generations, the distinct roles of the U.S. military and domestic law enforcement have been acknowledged and respected — and, in most cases, consensus emerged as to the need to reinforce this cornerstone of civil-military relations when missions strayed from this north star. The pattern has been consistent over time: escalations of unrest, disillusionment in the ranks, and politicization of the armed forces are the regrettable outcomes of most military interventions in civilian law enforcement. 

These dynamics conspire to undermine military readiness and, as a result, national security. “By diverting focus and resources away from core national security competencies, domestic military operations frequently result in a degraded security environment,” we write in the report. “Given their vulnerability to autocratic abuse, domestic military interventions in civilian law enforcement necessitate a high degree of skepticism — especially when troop deployments are driven by political considerations rather than as a genuine measure of last resort.” 

Contemporary Examples from Abroad

Skepticism of military policing was deeply ingrained in the Founding Fathers’ generation, born of experience under the heel of British military occupation. This instinct has since informed policymakers and leaders around the world, as other democracies sought to establish similar boundaries between national security and the responsibilities of civilian law enforcement. Aspiring autocrats worldwide have, unsurprisingly, repeatedly tried to collapse this distinction to consolidate power and suppress opposition. 

Even in established democracies, though, political leaders have succumbed to the temptation of deploying military personnel in response to domestic security crises. Although military intervention might be warranted in extraordinary cases when unrest truly overwhelms civilian authorities, escalation, disillusionment, and politicization are the most likely outcomes of domestic deployments that exceed measures of last resort. Once a military is pulled into domestic affairs, its readiness to manage foreign threats is degraded while simultaneously elevating the potential for violence and lawlessness at home.

While these trends can be observed all over the world, a few illustrative examples make the point.

Mexico

Recent Mexican history demonstrates the clear escalatory risks that accompany using the armed forces for civilian law enforcement. In 2006, President Felipe Calderón launched a “war on drugs” to address cartel violence that eventually sent military units across most of Mexico’s states. By the end of his term in 2012, the cartels were by all measures more robust and the public was no safer. But the pattern of escalation continued as Calderón’s successors moved forward with increased domestic troop deployments, peaking under former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Following the military’s domestic interventions, homicides increased along with human rights abuses committed by federal security forces. As we explain in the report, 

These spikes in violence were most pronounced in areas with the highest troop concentrations, where domestic military operations more often resulted in excessive force against civilians — reflecting the fundamental mismatch between the military’s combat training and the de-escalation skills required for civilian policing. Arbitrary arrests, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings rose alongside the military’s expanded policing role.

The reputation of the Mexican armed forces for neutrality and professionalism cratered after its foray into domestic law enforcement, and the country continues to endure significant security challenges from entrenched criminal organizations. 

France

In the aftermath of the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack, France launched Operation Sentinelle which, following a subsequent terror attack in Paris later that year, deployed 10,000 soldiers domestically with the aim of providing a visual deterrence. Military patrols around tourist sites became commonplace –– drawing critics from inside and beyond the military who deemed the operation ineffective and, counterproductively, exposed troops to heightened risk. Though the serious threat of domestic terror at the time warranted a strong response from the state security apparatus, the operation stoked disillusionment and morale problems in the ranks, exacerbated by the mismatch between the military’s combat mission and the responsibilities of internal security. 

Seven years into the still-ongoing operation, 

a government audit concluded that the operation prioritized optics over military utility, echoing concerns that what began as a temporary mission has become a seemingly indefinite fixture of France’s security architecture — compromising operational readiness, force retention, and the military’s external defense responsibilities. 

Brazil

For decades, Brazilian presidents have used troops to combat violent crime in Rio de Janeiro – fostering additional violence in some instances while achieving few long-term security gains. Ordering troops into the nation’s biggest city to appear “tough on crime” is a distinctly political mission, one that by its nature is bound to divide the citizenry against its own armed forces.

President Jair Bolsonaro oversaw the most sweeping expansion of the military’s domestic role since the end of Brazil’s military dictatorship, repeatedly raising the spectre of using the armed forces to resolve political disputes, including with Brazil’s Supreme Court. Bolsonaro’s renewed militarization and side-stepping of norms foreshadowed the near-total breakdown of the civil-military divide at the end of his presidency, when a doomed coup plot to overturn his 2022 presidential election defeat culminated in the January 2023 storming of Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace by a mob of his supporters.

“Although the plot failed due to a lack of institutional support from the heads of the army and air force, it exposed the corrosive effects of the military’s years-long intervention in civilian affairs,” we write in the report. “By the time Bolsonaro left office, the military’s expanded internal role politicized the armed forces, while also contributing to steep democratic backsliding and persistent threats to the rule of law.”

The Trump Administration

The abrupt deployment of federalized National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles. Attempted federalization of National Guard in Portland and Chicago. Hybrid deployments in Memphis and New Orleans. Threats to deploy troops to other cities governed by the president’s political opponents. Massive expansion of National Defense Areas to facilitate military assistance with immigration enforcement along the border. The Trump administration’s efforts to deploy the military domestically over the objection of local and state leaders, and for questionable law enforcement purposes, threaten to erode the critical line between the military and domestic policing. 

Thousands of National Guard troops remain deployed in Washington, D.C., where the unique status of the District complicates the rules governing use of the Guard. Plus, the administration has announced plans to deploy thousands more Guardsmen from around the country to D.C. this summer. Yet, independent research confirms the same dynamic commonly observed in other domestic policing missions: the effort has had “no measurable effect on violent crime.” Not only are domestic deployments expensive, but they carry heavy costs for our national interest: an escalated threat of violence and bodily harm to civilians and troops alike, disillusionment in the ranks, and the politicization of the armed forces and accompanying degradation of its capacity to fulfill its primary mission – protecting the national security of the United States.

To their credit, federal courts have taken these issues seriously, affirming a clear and substantial role for judicial review of domestic deployments. In December, the Supreme Court foreclosed the administration from using the novel legal theory it advanced to justify the orders to deploy in Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago. Indeed, timely judicial orders ensured that no troops were actually deployed in Portland and Chicago. The Supreme Court’s ruling went out of its way to emphasize the Posse Comitatus Act’s general prohibition on military policing. And in Los Angeles, a federal judge ruled that many of the actions taken by deployed troops were, in fact, violations of that long-standing protection. 

A federal judge in D.C. likewise concluded that the D.C. deployment was unlawful, and the government’s appeal of that ruling remains pending before the D.C. Circuit. It’s unclear whether courts elsewhere around the country will be scrutinizing domestic military activity in the coming months, with the administration promising a standing National Guard force ready for “rapid nationwide deployment,” and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth refusing to disavow the possibility of troop deployments during the fall elections. What we do know is that those of us concerned with protecting public safety and upholding national security should remain skeptical of any effort to normalize and expand the military’s domestic footprint, which is doomed to degrade security and threaten the longstanding boundaries governing healthy civil-military relations.

The post A Year Later: The Stakes of Ordering Military Personnel to Police American Streets appeared first on Just Security.

The Meters of Greek Drama database compiles metrical information (scansion) about Ancient Greek plays, so that students, scholars, dramaturgs, and performers can easily see the metrical patterns within each play, in addition to discovering statistical patterns in the use of meter throughout the corpus of Greek drama.

The most straightforward way to learn how to use the database is to begin exploring it - start with one of the plays, then tinker with the statistics. Keep the meter chart handy for quick reference.

For a more structured approach, learn more about the specific features of the website.

Meters of Greek Drama is ongoing at Washington University in St. Louis. If you have any questions or suggestions for improvement, please reach out to us here: tmoore26@wustl.edu.

Copyright © 2026 Timothy J. Moore

Contributors: Washington University in St. Louis – Jacqueline Baik, Ariadne Bazigos, Emma Bunde, Zixing Chen, Max Coady, Jordan Coley, Will Corbin, Shangwei Deng, Shawn Duan, Lucas Dube, Emelyn Hatch, Irene Herrmann, Bayla Kamens, Douglas Knox, Petey Kraemer, Rebecca Levin, Lydia McKelvie, Jennifer McLish, Ian McNeely, Zakery Oglesby, Stephen Pentecost, Gregory Porter, Henry Schott, Elena Steiert, Tumaini Ussiri, Di Wang, Rebecca Weingart, and Tom Van Denburgh. University of Cincinnati – Anna Conser.

No claim is made to copyright to third-party texts, translations or public domain works.

This database is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ This license does not extend to previous publications that may still be subject to copyright protection.

 

Josiah M. Daniel III has posted The Affinity of Lawyers and History: The Dallas Bar Association's Legal History Discussion Group as a Case in Point, which appears in the Journal of Texas Supreme Court History:

Legal history may be conceived as the story of the evolution of legal doctrines and rules or as the analysis of the effects of law on society and vice versa. In all events, the irreducible elements of the subject matter of the field of legal history are not only the law but also the lawyer and the judge. 

To begin, the lawyer is the quintessential element because what lawyers "do" is to invoke and apply the processes of the law, either in resolving disputes or in effectuating transactions, on behalf of a client. Lawyers are the ones who know or learn what the law is in order to be able to seek to accomplish—ideally with highest ethics, not merely as an agent—the objectives of a client. Such work is known as “lawyering.”

But not only have lawyers always been key actors within the activities and events that are comprehended within the ambit of legal history but today quite a number of them are researchers and authors—legal history scholars—knowledgeable of the literature and interested in learning and creating more in publications and oral presentations. As undergraduates, many attorneys and judges majored or minored in history, but even those who studied business administration or accounting in university are often found reading and discussing legal-historical books and articles. Some even write them. 

The scholarly discipline of history has been called "the art of reconstructing the past."  The endeavor to do so, known as the historical method, requires, first, finding the sources. Lawyers are experienced in fact finding and determining causation, and engaging in historical research is a natural extension.

This essay argues that the multiple affinities of lawyers and judges for history are demonstrated in the legal history activates of Dallas and Texas lawyers.

--Dan Ernst 

Legal scholarship presents itself as an exercise in reason: the scholar elucidates, weighs the sources, follows the argument, emotions left at the door. This Article argues that the pose is false, and consequentially so. Emotions shape not only the margins of scholarship-the topics we choose, the tone of our debates, the schools we form-but they also reach all the way into what we take to be legally valid and true. Building on Pierre Schlag's account of the aesthetics of law and on work in psychology and the philosophy of mind on the role of emotion in cognition, the Article reframes the validation of juristic truth as the product of two emotionally laden processes: epistemic decision-making, the "acts of truth" by which a proposition is accepted as valid, and epistemic negotiation, the agreements through which a community settles what counts as known. It then identifies emotions likely at work in each-beauty, the fear of death, the fear of exclusion, the needs for recognition and for toil; and, in negotiation, appreciation, affiliation, autonomy, status, and role-arguing that they carry ontological weight, helping to constitute law itself as an object of knowledge and argument. Why, then, do scholars so insistently deny them? The answer lies in a "normative alexithymia," a trained inability to read one's own emotions that leaves a community poorly equipped to see the lens through which it apprehends its object. The Article proceeds by suggestion rather than proof, aiming less to demonstrate these emotions than to make their workings visible. Its claim is that emotion has always accompanied reason in the making of legal knowledge-and that recognizing this is itself a condition of thinking well.

But this story misses the important ways that the executive order marks a continuation of the Trump administration’s preferred mode of governing. Trumpian regulation is premised on broad executive discretion, bypassing ordinary rulemaking procedures and, as far as possible, judicial accountability. Where the coercive power of the federal government is insufficient, Trumpian regulation works by building strategic alliances with self-interested private sector elites. And it is premised on control over the circulation of goods, funds, and information.

These all-too-common regulatory techniques have roots far deeper than the current presidency, but they are particular hallmarks of the second Trump administration’s approach to executive power. And they are all on display in the new AI order. Viewed in this way, the order is not a “pivot” for the Trump administration, but just the latest page in the same playbook.

Coordinated, Voluntary Self-Regulation

The president’s June 2026 order on AI purports to avoid burdensome “top-down” regulation, and instead to work “hand-in-hand with American industry to strike the right balance between innovation and national security.” 

The order accomplishes this goal by adopting a paradigm of voluntary and coordinated industry self-regulation. The word “voluntary” appears twice in the order, both times in its key operative provisions. First, the order establishes an “AI security clearinghouse,” which is meant to foster “voluntary collaboration with the AI industry and operators of critical infrastructure” on software vulnerabilities and their remediation. Second, the order contemplates a “voluntary framework” for the review and sharing of so-called “frontier models”—a bit of tech jargon with its own sketchy origin story.

The order makes clear that it does not create any kind of mandatory licensing or preclearance framework. But the administration could not have lawfully done such a thing without either invoking some existing statutory authority (which the order does not do) or getting Congress to pass a new law. Any attempt to implement such a permitting process, without plausible statutory backing, would be immediately frustrated by the courts. Even a Trump-aligned Supreme Court majority—struggling with its own legitimacy crisis—would not rush to bless a new regulatory process governing a massive and growing industry, if that process lacked even an arguable statutory basis.

But the fact that regulation is “voluntary” does not make it meaningless. Industry frequently commits to voluntary regulations, usually for a range of self-interested reasons. The key, then, is understanding why industry might be drawn into signing up. And, in the second Trump administration, experience tells us to look not at how industry will be restricted, but how both industry and the White House, together, will be empowered by the new order.

The New Security Framework

Perhaps the most important provisions of the order concern the regulatory process for new technology under section 3, framed by the order as “Secure Frontier Model Deployment.” Key elements in this process are undefined or inscrutable, and, as always, it is dangerous to act as if a Trump order makes any kind of clear sense. But an ambitious application of the order would empower the White House, in cooperation with federal agencies and a small set of AI developers, to restructure and control the market for emerging technologies.

The actual contours of the review procedure contemplated by the order are as follows. At an initial stage, the National Security Agency (NSA), in consultation with other agencies, will conduct an “assessment” of “the advanced cyber capabilities” of an AI model under development. On the basis of this assessment, the NSA will “determine” whether the model qualifies as a “covered frontier model.” This assessment and designation will be conducted according to a “benchmarking process.” The details of the process will be “classified,” though the assessments themselves may be shared “with AI developers and researchers as appropriate.” AI developers are also expected to “engage the Federal Government to determine whether model(s) under development” meet the criteria for designation.

The consequences of designation appear to follow a two-step sequence. First, the “Federal Government” will be given access to the model for a 30-day period. The purpose of this 30-day access period is not expressly stated in the order, but press coverage suggests it is “to give officials time to identify and address potential vulnerabilities before they are released publicly.” In the public reporting, the length of this period was said to be a major sticking point, and cutting the time from an originally planned 90 down to 30 days was said to be critical for mollifying industry skepticism.

Second, something happens at the end of that 30-day period, but what happens is not entirely clear. The order expects that AI developers will give designated models to the government 30 days “before they plan to release such models to other trusted partners.” The term “trusted partner” is never defined; the order simply says that developers will “collaborate” with the government to “select trusted partners that will have early access to covered frontier models.” The order also never says how long this “early” access will last, nor does it provide parameters for when and under what terms anyone who is not a “trusted partner” can access the model. Nor is it clear what happens to the government’s access at the end of this 30-day period: presumably, government access could cease, or the developer might agree with the government to extend its access beyond that period. And it is at least possible that the government and a developer might never decide to release a model broadly to the public, keeping the model instead under the control of the government and a few “trusted partners.”

The implications here are stark. The NSA, acting according to a secret procedure, can designate any emerging AI technology as “covered frontier models.” Once designated, the Executive Branch can collaborate with AI developers to keep that model controlled within a circle of “trusted partners,” who may enjoy privileged access for an indefinite period. Suggestions in the press that the order simply provides for a 30-day review period before models are released “to the public” are either mistaken, or they have an idiosyncratic understanding of what the “public” means.

If industry signs up to this procedure, then it provides a mechanism for potentially indefinite control of the market. But that means all this depends on the willing cooperation of industry. So, what’s in it for them? 

Coordinated Regulation in the Chokepoint State

In forthcoming work, I argue that the second Trump administration has consolidated a mode of governing I call the “Chokepoint State.” Political scientists Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, in their landmark study of networked power, describe the “chokepoint effect” as the ability of privileged states to control third parties’ access to crucial nodes in economic or information networks. In the Chokepoint State, I argue, administrative capacity is increasingly arranged around controlling these nodes in order to reward allies, punish enemies, and set rules.

The techniques of the Chokepoint State are not new, but their uptake and proliferation have accelerated under Trump. The AI executive order itself, for example, resembles both Trump and Biden-era chokepoint policies in some ways. By attempting to ring-fence the market for emerging technology, the new executive order reflects the “small yard, high fence” strategy of using export controls to structure the global market for semiconductors. And by offering “early access” to “trusted partners,” the order mimics the Compact for Higher Education’s offer of privileged “access” to federal funding in exchange for accepting new quasi-legal obligations on a wide range of issues. 

The difference, of course, lies in the AI order’s explicitly voluntary nature. U.S. export controls rely on a web of regulations, statutes, and (for a large part of their history) emergency powers that enable the Executive Branch to control foreign commerce under the threat of civil and criminal penalties. The Compact for Higher Education, though formally voluntary, relied on explicit and implicit threats that leveraged the Executive’s power over spending, grantmaking, and visa approvals. Here, the new executive order invokes no statute and disclaims any pretension to impose a “mandatory” regime. 

The order thus shows how voluntary and coordinated self-regulation might work in the Chokepoint State. The leading tech firms, having leveraged billions of dollars on AI, would naturally seek U.S. government protection from forces that would erode their dominant position. Under these conditions, it makes sense for these firms to seek a partnership with the White House. Under the framework of this order, or a similar regulation, the leading firms can establish joint public/private control over advanced AI technology, rebranding industry leaders as “trusted partners,” and entrenching their market and political power.

This perhaps accounts for the muted reaction from AI moguls. OpenAI founder Sam Altman posted a brief positive endorsement on X. And, the same day as the executive order, his company released a nine-page policy paper on the governance of “frontier AI.” The paper diverges from the executive order in many of its details, indicating that Altman & co. view the final shape of the administration’s regulatory process as open to negotiation. 

But the continuities are more striking than the differences. OpenAI’s proposals also imply the existence of a network of U.S.-approved trusted partners. One executive told Politico that OpenAI “plans to push policymakers in Washington to create mandatory evaluation processes for AI companies that develop advanced systems,” adding, “[w]e don’t think any specific lab should be making that decision unilaterally.” As these statements suggest, cooperative, voluntary regulation allows the major players to borrow the legitimacy of the state, positioning themselves as the adults in the room while guarding the door to keep out potential competitors.

In this political-economic context, a process built on ad hoc executive discretion may suit insiders just fine. Regulation by executive order, discretion, and “dealmaking”—often just a euphemism for corruption—is the preferred mode of this administration. And, so long as they are confident of their access and influence, large private-sector players stand to gain more from shaping executive discretion than they might get from comprehensive federal regulation. Converting this process into a mandatory regime would only further lock in these dynamics, leading to what one firm has warned could be “a tiered system” in the market for emerging technology.

Meanwhile, smaller players will struggle to catch up. One of the more insightful analyses produced in the first twenty-four hours after the order came from the law firm A&O Shearman. The authors note the complete absence of criteria for identifying “trusted partners.” And they urge companies to engage “proactively” with relevant agencies to position themselves favorably “for trusted-partner designation.” Although it may be coincidence, it is not shocking that the lawyers at A&O Shearman—one of the firms that capitulated to White House bullying in 2025—know a patronage relationship when they see one.

Beyond rewarding allies and punishing adversaries, the group that controls a chokepoint can also set lasting rules of the road. This is a self-evident purpose of the new executive order. In addition to the secret rules for making “frontier model” designations, the order also expects that the government-review and trusted-partner procedures will be part of a “voluntary framework” that is designed by Treasury and other agencies “with AI developers.” No other group is mentioned. 

The result is that the rules for deciding who gets “early” (likely meaning “privileged and indefinite”) access to state-of-the-art technology will be devised by, and for the benefit of, a small group of self-interested firms and their partners in the administration. And these rules may develop largely outside the procedures required of legislation or administrative rulemaking. 

Beyond State versus Market

These important dynamics are missed and obscured by framing the new order as a step toward “regulation” of AI. And this framing is pervasive. Politico trumpeted the new order with the headline “Trump’s AI order is a blow against laissez-faire,” and quoting such “AI safety hardliners” as Steve Bannon. This framing poses a stark alternative between government “intervention” and a free market in which innovation occurs spontaneously.

But we have never been laissez-faire. The relevant question is not whether regulation takes place, but how a regulatory scheme shapes the distribution of public and private power. By placing significant discretion in the hands of an increasingly unaccountable executive, the Chokepoint State obviously enhances the power of the White House. At the same time, executive leverage over chokepoints can enhance the power of private actors who enjoy privileged access to the Oval Office. 

The latest AI executive order may come to nothing. If anything can be said with certainty about this administration, it’s that a great many Trump initiatives start with a big media splash before dying a quiet and unceremonious death. But by providing a platform for close cooperation between the White House and industry insiders to control access to emerging technology, the order shows off this administration’s predilection for the techniques of the Chokepoint State.

The post AI ‘Regulation’ in the Chokepoint State appeared first on Just Security.

The link between the NBA and the Sudanese people runs through the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a key partner of the NBA and the most influential external actor in Sudan’s war, a conflict that has generated the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. Through its commercial branding deal, the NBA essentially has been coopted onto the UAE’s side in that conflict: The UAE’s state-owned airline, Emirates, is flying high during the playoffs, its branding displayed on top of the backboard, digitally overlaid on the court or surrounding areas, and sewn onto the jerseys of all referees — part of the league’s commercial partnership with the UAE that generates hundreds of millions of dollars per year for the NBA and the airline.

This year’s NBA Championship gives the UAE a bonus boost, as it features the New York Knicks, whose jerseys sport patches reading “Experience Abu Dhabi” (referring to the largest of the UAE emirates). The Knicks rake in $30 million annually from this deal.

These displays feed into the UAE’s economic and diplomatic strategy aimed at creating a national brand of “a visionary, futuristic and forward-looking state.” Its reputation is a source of both significant soft power and economic strength.

Yet the UAE is forward-looking only if dystopia awaits. For it is the chief arms supplier of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group battling the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for control of Sudan and its resources. (The UAE denies that it has armed the RSF, despite reams of evidence, including from human rights organizations, U.S. lawmakers, the U.S. intelligence community, the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, and reporting by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Middle East Eye. It cynically touts its humanitarian aid to Sudan, even as it seeks to disguise military assistance to the UAE as humanitarian aid.) The UAE is also a hub for RSF-owned businesses and a safe haven for RSF leaders’ wealth through their real estate investments, as documented in an investigation by the policy organization The Sentry (co-founded by one of us, John).

Both the RSF and the SAF are responsible for mass atrocities, and Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been key supporters of the SAF. The RSF, though, is also responsible for the most intense period of ethnically motivated murder since the Rwandan genocide more than 30 years ago, killing an estimated 30,000 to 100,000 people in and around El Fasher last year in a matter of weeks, as families were massacred and women raped. “We want to eliminate anything black from Darfur,” RSF fighters declared, according to witnesses interviewed by a U.N. independent fact-finding mission. “If we find Zaghawa [a non-Arab ethnic group in Darfur], we will kill them all.” Far from the RSF’s only series of atrocities, which the United States determined in January 2025 amounted to genocide, this was part of a pattern that began only weeks into the war, which erupted on April 15, 2023, with RSF attacks targeting ethnic Massalit residents of El Geneina, in Darfur, killing 10,000-15,000 people by the end of 2023, according to U.N. expert panel estimates.

Laundering a Reputation Amid Racial and Ethnic Killing

The NBA is thus profiting handsomely and laundering the reputation of a regime that is underwriting a militia responsible for killing people based on their race and ethnicity. And even worse, it is part of an ecosystem of elite global brands that persist with their UAE-reputation-boosting brand partnerships more than three years into the UAE-backed genocide in Sudan. Other brands include the Premier League (UK football/soccer), Formula One (car racing), UCI (bicycle racing), the Ultimate Fighting Championship (mixed martial arts, coming soon to a White House lawn near you, unless a new lawsuit stops it), ATP Tour and Grand Slam tournaments (tennis), DP World Tour (golf), Disney, Warner Brothers, and the Guggenheim. They are promoting the image of the UAE that its regime wants the world to see, deflecting the reputational — and real economic and strategic costs this would impose — that the UAE might otherwise experience.

The NBA cannot say it did not know. For nearly two years, at least, human rights organizations have been raising these concerns with NBA leadership. The response is always a variation on a theme: We are following U.S. State Department guidance. (The State Department under both the Biden and current Trump administrations have determined that the RSF is committing genocide but has not publicly identified the UAE for its role in arming the RSF, nor advised against doing business with the UAE.) In effect, the NBA has chosen to delegate its ethical judgments to the U.S. government.

Yet this is not a league known for blindly following government policy. Silence was not an option for the NBA after George Floyd was murdered. After federal immigration agents killed Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota earlier this year, the NBA Players Association left no doubt where it stood: with the protesters opposed to an inhumane policy. And the NBA Social Justice Coalition — encompassing NBA executives, players, and coaches — has advocated for changes in law at both national and state levels. Nationally, it has supported the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, the Freedom to Vote Act, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and the EQUAL Act (to end the disparity in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine). At the state level, it has advocated for legislation to help reintegrate people with criminal records into their communities and to restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated individuals. And in 2017, the NBA moved its All-Star game out of Charlotte after North Carolina passed legislation that removed protections against discrimination for LGBTQ+ individuals.

Time and again, the NBA, with players in the lead, has chosen to speak out and to act against injustices. Silence and inaction should not be an option now, not when the NBA is encouraging its fans to use their hard-earned dollars to fly Emirates and experience Abu Dhabi — and in so doing, to fund a regime that is sending weapons it buys to a genocidal militia.

Yet now, though genocide is underway and the NBA is bound up with its supporters, the League has abdicated any moral responsibility regarding the atrocities unfolding in Sudan. It needs to change course. Human rights is not a U.S. government priority in the Middle East, where oil has long been the central consideration. Moreover, U.S. policy on the UAE is now wrapped up in President Donald Trump’s family’s business dealings, most notably a UAE-backed firm’s 49 percent stake in their cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial, along with a $2 billion investment in the company’s stablecoin. U.S. State Department guidance in this case will not be driven by human rights concerns.

The NBA’s Own Moral Compass

As an ethical organization, the NBA needs to follow its own moral compass, guided by principles rooted in social justice and its own history of championing human rights and racial justice.

The NBA and the Knicks should immediately suspend their partnerships with the UAE, expressly link those decisions to the UAE’s military support for the RSF, and keep the door open to resuming the partnership if the UAE immediately and verifiably ends this support.

On Oct. 27, 2025, at El-Fasher University, one RSF commander encountered a pregnant woman. How far into her pregnancy was she, he asked, according to two survivors. “Seven months,” she responded. He proceeded to kill her — with seven shots into her abdomen, as if it were one for every month toward a life that would never be. The U.S. government may be content to maintain business as usual with the regime in Abu Dhabi that has done so much to make such inhumanity possible. As it has for decades on other issues of racial and social justice, the NBA can listen to its better angels and make a different choice.

The post The NBA’s Genocide Problem appeared first on Just Security.

A curated guide to major news and developments over the weekend. Here’s today’s news:

IRAN WAR – CEASEFIRE 

Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs yesterday, in retaliation for a Hezbollah missile attack on northern Israel, Israeli officials said, adding that the strike targeted a Hezbollah command center in Dahieh. The strike killed at least two people and wounded several others, according to Lebanon’s state news agency. Ebrahim Reazaei, a member of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, wrote on social media that Iran “will give a decisive and painful response to the Zionist regime’s attack on Dahieh.” Barak Ravid reports for Axios.  

Israel said overnight that Iran launched waves of missiles at Israel in the first such bombardment since the ceasefire took effect in April. Iran’s state broadcaster confirmed the missile launches, citing the Iranian armed forces as saying that “if Israel responds to Iranian attacks or does not stop its attacks on Lebanon, Iranian attacks will continue.” Yemeni Houthis also claimed a missile attack on Israel, saying that Israel-affiliated vessels in the Red Sea are now a target again. Kareem Chehayeb, Samy Magdy, Melanie Lidman, and Cara Anna report for AP News. 

President Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last night not to retaliate against Iran’s missile attack because “we are close to doing something good in terms of a deal,” according to a senior U.S. official and an Israeli source. Trump also told The Financial Times yesterday that Netanyahu “won’t have any choice” but to accept any deal the U.S. secures from negotiations with Iran. “I call the shots. I call the shots. He doesn’t call the shots,” Trump said. Barak Ravid reports for Axios; Edward Luce reports; Parisa Hafezi, Nayera Abdallah, and Steven Scheer report for Reuters.

The Israeli military said this morning that it struck a petrochemical complex in Mahshahr, in southwestern Iran. Iran has closed the airspace around Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport following waves of Israeli attacks. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps threatened to expand its retaliation after Israel struck the petrochemical facilities and said it had fired on a similar Israeli industrial site in the coastal city of Haifa. AP News reports; Sanam Mahoozi reports for the New York Times. 

Trump called for Iran and Israel to immediately stop shooting in a post on social media today. Leo Sands reports for the New York Times. 

IRAN WAR – LEBANON OPERATIONS 

An Israeli strike in southern Lebanon on Saturday killed three Lebanese soldiers, the Lebanese army said. Euan Ward reports for the New York Times. 

The Israeli military has deployed White Phosphorus over populated areas in Lebanon in its battle against Hezbollah, according to experts, aid groups, and visual evidence collected by the New York Times. Distinctive smoke trails from this type of munition were seen as recently as May 30 in Nabatieh, a city of roughly 40,000, in social media footage verified by The Times. Sanjana Varghese reports. 

IRAN WAR – OTHER DEVELOPMENTS 

Recent U.S. intelligence reports say the Pentagon has raised Israel’s counterintelligence threat level to “critical” after concerns that Israeli agencies intensified efforts to spy on U.S. officials and eavesdrop on U.S. negotiations with Iran, including targeting senior figures involved in policy and diplomacy, according to some U.S. officials. Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt report for the New York Times. 

“I didn’t guarantee no war,” Trump said in an interview with NBC recorded on Friday. “Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?” he added. Speaking about the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, he continued: “So when you say I promised, I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war. We’ve been doing this for three months.” Katie Rogers reports for the New York Times. 

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR 

Israeli strikes yesterday on a police station and a vehicle in Gaza killed at least nine people and wounded 20 others, health officials said. One strike hit a police post adjacent to a large tent encampment of displaced families in Khan Younis, killing five people and wounding 16 others. Another Israeli airstrike killed four people and wounded four others when it hit a vehicle driving through the middle of Gaza City. Nidal Al-Mughrabi reports for Reuters.  

WEST BANK VIOLENCE 

Israeli forces on Friday killed a Palestinian infant in the occupied West Bank when they opened fire on a car in which the boy and several relatives were traveling, according to members of his family and local health officials. The Israeli military said that an Israeli soldier had opened fire on the car in Hebron after troops “perceived a vehicle accelerating toward them.” Aaron Boxerman reports for the New York Times.  

A Palestinian man with Israeli citizenship yesterday shot and killed a reservist and wounded five other people in central Israel after opening fire in multiple locations, the Israeli police said. Hamas praised the shooting as “heroic,” though it did not claim responsibility. Melanie Lidman reports for AP News; Isabel Kershner reports for the New York Times. 

RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR 

Ukraine on Saturday hit a Russian military base and other targets near St. Petersburg using long-range drones. The Russian authorities called the attack “unprecedented”, with Gov. Aleksandr Drozdenko of the Leningrad region announcing that more than 140 drones had been shot down. The Ukrainian drone strike on St. Petersburg was the second such attack in four days. Neil MacFarquhar reports for the New York Times.  

The leaders of the United Kingdom, Ukraine, France, and Germany yesterday discussed the urgent need to increase production of weapons to combat Russia’s powerful hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile during a meeting in London. They issued a joint statement, underlining “the urgent need to scale up the production of interceptors and co-develop anti-ballistic missiles and deep strike capabilities.” No details, financial or otherwise, on how this would be done were provided. Pan Pylas reports for AP News.  

A French fighter jet on a NATO mission shot down a drone that entered Latvia’s airspace from Russia today. Andrius Sytas and Janis Laizans report for Reuters

A Ukrainian drone crossed into Moldova early this morning, with fragments of it showing traces of an explosion that were found in a field near the eastern village of Lopatna. “Regardless of the drone’s origin, Russia – which launched an illegal war in the neighbouring country – bears ​responsibility for any unmanned aerial vehicle that enters Moldovan territory,” ​the Moldovan foreign ministry said. Reuters reports.  

OTHER GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS 

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan today declared victory in the parliamentary election, overcoming a pressure campaign by Moscow. Ahead of the election, researchers and officials said Russia-linked groups conducted an unusually intense disinformation campaign aimed at undermining Pashinyan. Paul Sonne reports for the New York Times; Steven Lee Myers reports for the New York Times.  

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan yesterday expressed concern over the arrest and detention of women in Herat for allegedly failing to comply with dress requirements. The reported detentions follow a Taliban directive issued last week prohibiting women from appearing in public without what authorities described as a “proper hijab,” according to local media. Reuters reports.  

U.S. FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Vice President JD Vance on Friday blamed the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak in the United Kingdom on civilizational decline and the failure to stop the “mass invasion of migrants.” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office responded that Nowak’s family did not want his death to be used to create further division or hatred. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said he spoke to Vance on Saturday to clarify that Nowak’s death had nothing to do with mass migration. Kate Holton and Andrew Macaskill report for Reuters; Pan Pylas reports for AP News.  

The White House is considering a plan to buy the Chagos Islands from Mauritius, sources told the Telegraph. According to the report, U.S. officials have drawn up a proposal to bypass the United Kingdom and make their own deal to take control of Diego Garcia. Reuters reports; Connor Stringer and Tony Diver report. 

U.S. DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS 

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) on Friday halted new state tax incentive agreements for data centers after lawmakers failed to approve a legislative pause. Shia Kapos reports for POLITICO. 

The Los Angeles U.S. attorney’s office said on Friday it has opened “multiple election fraud investigations,” claiming the California election system has “serious structural vulnerabilities.” The announcement followed Trump’s criticism on Thursday of the state’s lengthy ballot-counting system. Jeremy Roebuck and Arelis R. Hernandez report for the Washington Post.  

“There was a thumb on the scale for the president’s version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News,” Scott Pelley said yesterday in his first sit-down interview since he was fired last week. Pelley alleged that CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss intervened in a 60 Minutes report about the deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, pushing for protesters to be portrayed as more violent and for details about Good’s actions toward an officer to be emphasized. Adeel Hassan reports for the New York Times.  

David Rush, a CIA employee who was recently found with $40 million of gold bars in his house, had created a secret intelligence program to funnel millions of dollars from the federal government to himself, according to two U.S. officials. Julian E. Barnes and Edward Wong report for the New York Times. 

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS

Sriram Krishnan has informed administration officials that he plans to leave his post as the White House senior policy adviser for AI to start an outside institution focused on technology policy, according to a source. Cat Zakrzewski reports for the Washington Post.  

Trump said on Friday that he believes the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is too bloated, and has tasked acting Director Bill Pulte with overseeing staffing cuts. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump suggested prioritizing firing staff who served under the Biden and Obama administrations. Aaron Pellish reports for POLITICO; Brian Schwartz reports. 

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LITIGATION  

A federal judge on Friday invalidated policies the Trump administration enacted last year that halted asylum grants and the processing of immigration benefits for people from 39 countries. Zach Montague and Madeleine Ngo report for the New York Times. 

A political activist and Vietnam veteran filed a lawsuit on Saturday challenging Trump’s planned “night of cage fights” at the White House as part of the celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary. The lawsuit argues that Trump unlawfully authorized the use of federal property for a private, profit-making spectacle that benefits U.F.C. executives and himself as an investor in the company’s parent organization. Zach Montague reports for the New York Times.

Did you miss this? Stay up-to-date with our Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions.

If you enjoy listening, Just Security’s analytic articles are also available in audio form on the justsecurity.org website.

ICYMI: Last Week on Just Security

The post Early Edition: June 8, 2026 appeared first on Just Security.

Abstracts von ca. 300 Wörtern können bis zum 31.07.26 bei Stefan Herrmann (stefan.herrman(at)fernuni-hagen.de) und Sergej Seitz (sergej.seitz(at)univie.ac.at) eingereicht werden. Die Beiträge sollen überdies in einem Special Issue einer einschlägigen Zeitschrift veröffentlicht werden. Einen detaillierten Call und weitere Informationen gibt es hier.

In an investigation opened by the EPPO in 2021 against Mr. Mincu Pătrașcu Brâncuși, the EPPO ordered that he be brought to trial before the competent Romanian court in proceedings relating to alleged participation in a criminal organisation and fraud affecting the financial interests of the EU. The applicant sought to have this decision annulled before the General Court of the European Union, arguing that it infringed his fundamental rights and should be subject to direct review at EU level. However, the General Court dismissed the action as inadmissible for lack of jurisdiction (Case T-385/23). The matter was subsequently appealed before the CJEU.

In its judgment of 16 April 2026, the CJEU upheld the General Court’s conclusion and dismissed the appeal in its entirety. The Court held that, under EU law, jurisdiction to review procedural acts of the EPPO with legal effects vis-à-vis third parties lies, as a rule, with the national courts rather than the courts of the EU. The CJEU emphasised that EPPO investigations are closely integrated into national criminal proceedings and that the final determination of criminal liability rests with the competent national courts. Accordingly, challenges to EPPO procedural measures must ordinarily be brought before national courts, which retain the ability to refer questions of EU law to the CJEU under the preliminary ruling procedure where necessary. At the same time, the CJEU confirmed that the EU legislature was entitled to establish such a system of judicial review in light of the institutional design and mandate of the EPPO, and that this framework does not infringe the right to an effective judicial remedy or to a fair trial.

Under the title “The evolving threat landscape: how encryption, proxies and artificial intelligence are expanding cybercrime”, the 2026 Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment provides a detailed analysis of significant developments, changes, and emerging threats in cybercrime in 2025. The report contains four chapters looking at cybercrime enablers, the criminal infrastructure behind online fraud schemes, cyber-attacks, and online child sexual exploitation.

Regarding cybercrime enablers, the report highlights how cybercriminals are adopting more resilient, anonymous, and sophisticated methods to evade detection and maintain their operations despite law enforcement efforts. Key developments include:

• Dark web marketplaces are increasingly fragmented, with many platforms specializing in specific criminal activities rather than offering a broad range of illicit services.
• Criminal marketplaces remain highly resilient, as new platforms quickly emerge and online forums enable the migration of users and vendors after disruptions.
• Cryptocurrencies remain the preferred payment method for ransomware attacks.
• The growing use of privacy-focused digital currencies and transaction-mixing services makes financial investigations more difficult.
• The distinction between the surface web and the dark web is becoming less clear as encrypted communication platforms and anonymous services increasingly connect both environments.
• Criminals exploit weaknesses in the domain name registration process by using newly registered domains before law enforcement agencies can detect and disrupt them.
• Cybercriminals are deploying increasingly complex technical infrastructures, including multilayered hosting arrangements, anonymous routing techniques, and residential proxy networks.

In the area of criminal infrastructure behind online fraud schemes, the report warns that online fraud is becoming more sophisticated, scalable, and difficult to detect, driven by evolving criminal infrastructures and the growing use of advanced technologies.

• Online fraud schemes continue to expand.
• Phishing remains one of the most common fraud methods
• The misuse of subscriber identity module box devices enables criminals to conduct large-scale attacks through mass communication and identity spoofing.
• Some criminal groups are moving away from commercial hosting providers and building their own infrastructure to avoid identity verification requirements.
• The theft of digital assets has evolved into a crime-as-a-service model,
• Generative artificial intelligence is helping fraudsters create more convincing and personalized scams.
• Autonomous artificial intelligence systems are expected to automate parts of the criminal process and significantly increase the scale and effectiveness of online fraud.

Regarding cyber-attacks, the report highlights a ransomware ecosystem that is becoming more fragmented, competitive, and adaptable, with criminal groups continuously evolving their methods and services.

• The ransomware landscape remains highly volatile, with new ransomware brands emerging due to competition among criminal groups, law enforcement disruptions, and access to new technologies.
• Ransomware attacks continue to increase, with more than 120 active ransomware brands observed during 2025.
• Ransomware-as-a-service groups are expanding their offerings to attract affiliates, including the integration of artificial intelligence tools and more customizable services.
• Significant overlaps exist between different ransomware operations, as affiliates and administrators often work across multiple brands and campaigns.
• Affiliates and administrators play a central role in sustaining and expanding the ransomware ecosystem, contributing to its resilience despite enforcement actions.
• Hybrid threat actors increasingly use cybercriminal networks as proxies to conduct distributed denial-of-service attacks, ransomware operations, data theft campaigns, and attacks against strategically important targets.

Finally, the report highlights an increasingly complex and harmful landscape of online child sexual exploitation, driven by financial incentives, new technologies, and secure communication platforms.

• Extortion remains a major component of child sexual exploitation, with victims coerced into sending money, producing additional sexual material, or engaging in harmful and abusive acts under threat.
• The trade in child sexual abuse material for financial gain is increasing, alongside a persistent threat from live-distant child abuse and a growing number of scam platforms involved in selling or distributing such material.
• The emergence of artificially generated child sexual abuse material is creating additional challenges for detection, victim identification, and law enforcement investigations.
• End-to-end encrypted messaging applications are widely used by offenders for grooming, sharing illegal material, and coordinating activities due to the difficulty authorities face in accessing communications.
• Criminal networks are exploiting both financial incentives and technological tools to expand the scale, reach, and concealment of child sexual exploitation activities.

Looking ahead, the report warns of a future in which cybercrime becomes increasingly automated through advanced artificial intelligence systems capable of carrying out criminal activities with minimal human involvement. Cybercriminal groups are expected to become more resilient and harder to identify, while collaborations between state-linked actors and criminal networks may intensify cyber threats against governments, businesses, and critical infrastructure. Online fraud is likely to grow in scale and sophistication as artificial intelligence enables highly convincing scams and automates criminal operations. The spread of synthetic child sexual abuse material, combined with the wider use of end-to-end encryption and decentralized platforms, is expected to create significant challenges for law enforcement. Criminals are also likely to continue exploiting cryptocurrencies, offshore financial services, and fintech platforms to move and conceal illicit funds.

In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in public law. “Developments” may include a selection of links to news, high court decisions, new or recent scholarly books and articles, and blog posts from around the public law blogosphere.

To submit relevant developments for our weekly feature on “What’s New in Public Law,” please email iconnecteditors@gmail.com

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1.  South Africa’s Constitutional Court overturned a Supreme Court of Appeal decision, holding that foreign nationals are not entitled to reapply for asylum after an initial rejection, in a petition filed by two nationals from Burundi.
2. The Supreme Court of South Korea upheld a lower court’s conviction for animal abuse and property damage, clarifying the elements that constituted acts violating the relevant law, and laying down the conditions under which a defense of justification can be raised.
3. The US Supreme Court permitted the State of Alabama to use a congressional map for 2026 elections, despite findings from lower courts that the map discriminates on grounds of race and violated the Voting Rights Act.
4. The Inter-American Court delivered a preliminary judgment on preliminary in Revilla Soto v Venezuela, unanimously dismissing objections to their exercise of jurisdiction, which were raised in relation to Venezuela’s withdrawal from the American Convention on Human Rights. The judgment reinforces the Court’s oversight on political rights, due process, and civil liberties.
5. The ECHR in Tožičková v. the Czech Republic, held that there had been a violation of the right to freedom of expression, and that domestic courts had failed to provide sufficient reasons to justify the applicant’s arrest. The Court found that the arrest, aimed at preventing the applicant from fulfilling her duties as a journalist, did not meet a pressing social need and could not be justified as necessary in a democratic society.
6. The ECHR held inadmissible an application for international protection from a person claiming that Belgium failed to provide accommodation or material assistance as required by law. The Court found that the applicant’s claims were false and amounted to abuse of the right to individual applications.

In the News

1. The US Supreme Court will issue over twenty opinions in the final month of their current term, deciding several cases that may redefine the scope of executive authority amid uncertainty about the President’s responses to their holdings, as well as questions concerning civil liberties and election laws. Significant cases concerns the President’s power to fire executive officials in independent agencies without showing cause, and the rights of transgender athletes.
2. The Council of Europe has released a declaration on how the European Convention on Human Rights applies to cases concerning migration, in response to populist objections as well as some threats to withdraw from the Convention over concerns on migration. The declaration includes agreements that the bar for ‘degrading or inhuman treatment’ under article 3 of the Convention should be applied at a high level, and that a balance should be struck between individual rights and the interests of the public.
3. Brazil’s Senate has rejected one the President’s nomination of Jorge Messias, Brazil’s solicitor-general, to the Supreme Court. This is the first such rejection in 130 years, and marks some political opposition as President Lula prepares to seek re-election for another term.

New Scholarship

1. Mark Juergensmeyer, Religion and Violence: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press 2027) (examining questions concerning the relationship between religion and violence, drawing from case studies with militias and extremist groups of different religious to provide an evidence-based introduction to the topic).
2. Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman, ‘Barth, Barmen, and Belhar: The Politics of Reformed Confession‘ 20(1-2) Journal of Reformed Theology 45–70 (2026) (arguing that Christian faith provides a prototype of civic freedom and a pattern for the rule of law, drawing from the Barmen Declaration and Belhar Confession as expressions of Reformed theology, in alignment with Karl Barth’s democratic paradigm).
3. Chris Joseph and Tara Marsden, ‘Gitanyow Climate Test: Intersection of Major Projects, Climate, and Indigenous Reconciliation‘ Climate Law (Advance Articles, 2026) (evaluating the impact of a a climate test formulated by the indigenous Gitanyow people of British Columbia on Canada’s impact assessment law, and arguing that it demonstrates the evolving legal Canadian spheres in which indigenous nations participate to address gaps in colonial lawmaking as well as influence the development of projects).
4. Jan-Melissa Schramm, ‘Human Rights, World Literature, and World Citizenship: From Charles Dickens to Alexis Wright‘ 11(2) Journal of World Literature 149–171 (2026) (arguing that imaginative literature creates a space in which the conflict between national sovereignty and universal human rights can be explored in ways that permit reframing personhood beyond restrictive legal definitions, through a discussion of the works of Charles Dickens, Peter Carey, and Alexis Wright).
5.  Muhammad Asad Latif, ‘Classifying Muslims in Contemporary Europe: Their Identity, Religion and Race in Germany and United Kingdom‘ 33(1) International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 75–103 (2025) (comparing the classification of Muslims as a minority in the UK and Germany, and examining what it means to be Muslim between state classification and self-identification).
6. Adom Getachew, ‘International Interdependence beyond the Family of Nations: Afterword to the Foreword by Susan Marks‘ 36 European Journal of International Law 807–814 (2025) (taking up Susan Marks’ argument that the family in international law in a metaphorical sense contributes to understanding global interconnections, and using anti-colonial and post-colonial perspectives to re-imagine families as associated with dependence, care, and inheritance, shaped by slavery and colonialism).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. Florida State University College of Law and Loyola University Chicago School of Law invite abstracts for the Seventeenth Annual Constitutional Law Colloquium at the Florida State University College of Law Campus, USA. Deadline: 19 June 2026.
2. The Legal Aid Society of Lucknow University, India, invites proposals for book chapters for an edited volume titled ‘Justice Beyond Courts – ADR in an Age of Legal Innovation’. Submissions are due by June 20, 2026.
3. Jindal Global Law School, India, invites submissions for a special issue on ‘Artificial Intelligence and Law’ for their journal, the Jindal Global Law Review. Abstracts are due by 30 June 2026.
4. The Geneva Graduate Institute invites abstracts for the Postgraduate Research Conference on the International Law of the Sea, taking place on 30 September 2026. Abstracts are due by 10 June 2026.
5. Researchers and scholars interested in legal issues concerning cyberspace, such as digital constitutionalism and data privacy, are invited to participate on CyJurII.

Elsewhere Online

1. Michael John-Hopkins, Eurovision, Non-Recognition and Bangaranga?! EJIL Talk! (2 June 2026)
2. Julian Arato and Justina Uriburu, Treaty Interpretation in the ICJ’s Opinion on the Right to Strike.  EJIL Talk! (28 May 2026)
3. Oliver Hailes, Denial of Environmental Justice: Would a Bar on Climate Tort Litigation Be Inconsistent with New Zealand’s International Obligations? EJIL Talk! (27 May 2026)
4. Alexia Kapsampeli, Internet Access: Should it be a Human Right? CyJurII Insights (June 2026)

The post What’s New: Week of June 8 appeared first on www.iconnectblog.com.

Why the consultation on cohabitation rights is to be welcomed

In 2021, I published a book entitled Religion and Marriage Law: The Need for Reform. Most of that book focused on the need to modernise the law on how to get married but the penultimate chapter focused on cohabitation rights. That chapter might be seen as an afterthought. But, as I pointed out in the introduction to that chapter, ‘it was in many ways the most important’ of the reform proposals I was advocating. The new Government consultation, A Fairer End to Relationships, is to be welcomed, therefore, since it includes proposals to give cohabitation rights on separation and death alongside modernising the law on financial remedies on divorce.

Why cohabitation rights matter 

From a religious perspective, the cohabitation rights proposed in A Fairer End to Relationships may cause concern for some in terms of seemingly undermining the status of marriage. Such fears are ill-founded. Under these proposals, the rights afforded to cohabitants will still differ and be less than those enjoyed by married couples and civil partners. Moreover, giving cohabitating couples in England and Wales the kind of rights that they enjoy in many other jurisdictions would make a major difference to the issue of what have been called ‘unregistered religious marriages’, ‘religious only marriages’ or ‘non-qualifying ceremonies’. These exist where the couple undergo a wedding ceremony that does not comply with the Marriage Act 1949. Religious marriages are recognised under the Act but in relation to religious weddings other than Church of England, Quaker and Jewish ceremonies the ceremony must take place in a registered place of religious worship in order to be legally binding. It therefore excludes religions that do not have such buildings or do not have a tradition of getting married in such buildings. Though the couple are married in the eyes of their faith, they are not married in the eyes of the law.

There are all sorts of reasons why couples might have unregistered religious marriages: it may be the choice of the parties (in some communities, religious marriages effectively allow the couple to date, to be together without a chaperone), it may be because the parties are unsure of the law or it might be because it is difficult or impossible for a religious ceremony reflecting their beliefs to be held in a way that is compatible with marriage law requirements. What is clear is that couples who are in such relationships have no legal redress on relationship breakdown on the basis of their relationship (as opposed in relation to property or children) and this does lead to hardship, especially where one or both of the parties are unaware of this.

This is perhaps epitomised by the facts that led to the case of HM Attorney General v Akhter & Ors [2020] EWCA Civ 122. In 1998, Nasreen Akhter and Mohammed Shabaz Khan had a nikah ceremony. They intended to register the marriage under civil law but never got around to it and indeed as time went on Khan refused to register it. They had four children together and while they lived in Dubai between 2005 and 2011 they were considered by the authorities there to be validly married. After 18 years and back in the UK, the relationship broke down in 2016 and Akhter issued a petition for divorce from Khan. At first instance, Mr Justice Williams took a ‘holistic’ view to conclude that this should be treated as a void marriage and so entitled to legal redress. The Attorney General appealed and the Court of Appeal rejected such creativity holding that there was no ceremony under the Marriage Act. Such a ‘non-qualifying ceremony’ was outside the scope of marriage and divorce legislation. Akhter and Khan were cohabitants and denied any legal redress on grounds of relationship status.

This case highlighted the lack of redress for those who are in unregistered religious marriages either where this is unwitting on the part of one or both of the parties or where this is not agreed by one of the parties (such as in this case where the husband promised that they would comply with marriage registration laws at a later date). The fact that such couples have no redress under English law has often meant that they seek a remedy instead from religious courts, tribunals or councils. Numerous empirical studies have shown that a number of the marital status cases decided by such bodies concern couples who are not married under English law. And in such cases, these religious authorities are the only place that couples can turn to, which is problematic to say the least.

Providing some rights to cohabitants on relationship breakdown would provide some redress. It would not recognise their marriage – and that is why reform of the law on cohabitation is needed alongside reform of the law on getting married (a consultation on that is promised by the government before the summer recess). But it would mean that claimants like Akhter would receive some redress from English law – and that there would always be the option of such redress in addition to going to a religious court, tribunal or councils. Such bodies would then always be a form of alternative dispute resolution rather than the only option as they presently are.

What is being proposed? 

That penultimate chapter in Religion and Marriage Law: The Need for Reform surveyed the various approaches taken to cohabitation rights on separation neighbouring jurisdictions as well as the models proposed by the Law Commission and under private member Bills. It concluded that these various approaches actually had much in common. Three main characteristics of a scheme were distilled and these three characteristics can also be found in the proposals found in A Fairer End to Relationships.

The first characteristic is that the scheme would apply if the couple meet the definition of being cohabitants. Some proposals provided more details as to what would be considered as part of the definition of the term cohabitants than others but they tended to agree that having a child together or living together for a certain amount of time was required. This is reflected in the proposals in A Fairer End to Relationships. It is proposed that the new system would apply ‘where two people are living together as a couple in an enduring family relationship’. Courts would determine this using ‘a non-exhaustive checklist of factors’. Both of the parties would need to be over 18 and cannot be relatives or those who are married or in a civil partnership (who would have access to the separation rights available there). The system would be restricted to couples who have been living together for three years or have had a child together. Individuals would need to make an application within two years of separation for the claim to be considered by a court. These requirements largely follow the Law Commission’s 2007 recommendations.

The second characteristic is that the statutory scheme will apply to cohabitants on separation provided that they have not opted-out. The various proposals often prescribed what form that the opt out would need to take to be effective. This opt out rather than opt in requirement would ensure that cohabitation rights are afforded to couples who are choosing to cohabit thinking that they will accrue marriage-like legal rights as well as those where there is an intention to marry but the couple do not get around to it. The proposals in A Fairer End to Relationships follow such an opt-out approach, suggesting statutory safeguards based on the Law Commission’s recommendations in its 2014 Report, Matrimonial Property, Needs and Agreements, on pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements: in short, a valid contract, made by deed, agreed after each party has received disclosure of material information about the other party’s financial situation and after each party has received independent legal advice.

The third and final characteristic is that the scheme would allow a cohabitant to seek a remedy on separation if certain circumstances are met. Here, the various proposals differed with Lord Lester’s Cohabitation Bill simply stating that the court could make a financial order if ‘having regard to all the circumstances, the court considers that it is just and equitable to make an order’. The other proposals were not broad but instead provided slightly different lists of factors for the court to take into account. A Fairer End to Relationships states that the Government has decided against the ‘compensation-based’ approach proposed by the Law Commission and proposes instead a ‘needs-based’ approach that follows the proposals in respect of divorce but makes several modifications to underline the differences between marriage (and civil partnership) as opposed to cohabitation. Courts would not have the same discretion to meet needs as they have in divorce cases. In assessing needs in cohabitation cases, a two-stage approach would be taken: beginning with children’s needs and followed by the individual’s own financial needs. There would be no equivalent of the third stage proposed for divorce cases that would involve consideration of discretionary needs (that is, the consideration of ‘lifestyle luxuries’). A list of factors would be considered by the court when deciding what is a fair ‘needs-based’ assessment: earning capacity; financial resources of each individual; any physical or mental disability; age; and length of relationship. Where the qualifying criteria is met, it is proposed that courts would have access to a broad set of remedies ‘which reflect what is available on divorce, including property adjustment orders, lump sum orders and pension sharing orders’. The court would also have access to maintenance orders, ‘although the government proposes these would only be available in exceptional circumstances’.

Concluding thoughts

As with any consultation, there is a debate to be had in relation to the details and in particular to the similarities and differences between the frameworks that would apply to the end of cohabiting relationships compared to the end of marriages and civil partnerships. Yet, overall, the need for such reform is clear. Some carefully defined cohabitation rights on separation are needed not only because of the huge numbers of people in such relationships generally who currently lack redress (often unwittingly), but also because of the problem of unregistered religious marriages in particular. As I have argued in Religion and Marriage Law: The Need for Reform and subsequent publications, there is a need for reform of both of the law on getting married and of cohabitation rights. These two reforms would complement each other. Reform of the law on getting married will inevitably not recognise all forms of relationship and so without cohabitation rights on separation, some couples will be denied protection, including some parties who did not wittingly and voluntarily assent to this. The introduction of cohabitation rights alone would not recognise religious weddings that cannot meet the legal requirements as marriages (with all the rights that this would bring). Both are needed. Reform of the law on getting married would extend the types of weddings that are legally recognised, removing the discrimination found in the archaic legal framework, while cohabitation rights on separation would provide a back-stop protection for those whose marriages continue not to be recognised by the State. It is to be hoped that the promised consultation on reforming the law on getting married will shortly follow A Fairer End to Relationships and that both will quickly lead to legislation. Indeed, it would make sense for the changes to appear in the same bill, bringing the law on adult intimate relationships fully into the twenty-first century.

The consultation is open now and runs until 14 August.

Thanks to Professor Sharon Thompson for her comments on a draft of this post. All errors remain my own.

Russell Sandberg

Cite this article as: Russell Sandberg, “Consultation on cohabitation rights: a welcome development” in Law & Religion UK, 8 June 2026, https://lawandreligionuk.com/2026/06/08/consultation-on-cohabitation-rights-a-welcome-development/.

The majority’s approach to this issue is threefold. First, pronouncements of treaty supervisory bodies are not, in themselves, subsequent practice under VCLT Article 31(3)(b). Article 31(3)(b) requires the agreement of the parties, and a body of independent experts (or a tripartite supervisory architecture) cannot, by its own pronouncement, supply that agreement (para. 83).

Second, supervisory body pronouncements may operate under Article 31(3)(b) derivatively, where they give rise to or refer to State practice that itself establishes agreement (para. 83). The position seems to align with Conclusion 13(3) of the ILC’s 2018 Draft Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice (as per Nolte, Special Rapporteur). Pronouncement and practice are two different things. What engages Article 31(3)(b) is the practice generated by States based on pronouncements, not the pronouncements themselves.

Third, the Court admits supervisory body output as supplementary means under Article 32, treating them as falling within an open-ended reading of that provision. In doing so it extends the “great weight” formula from Ahmadou Sadio Diallo – originally developed for the UN Human Rights Committee – to the ILO supervisory design (paras. 116–119). The Court preserves its Diallo stipulation – that it is not legally required to follow such output. The present comment suggests that the third move is the most interesting of the three.

Diallo concerned the Human Rights Committee, an independent expert body whose composition (all members are in practice lawyers) suggested ascribing weight to its output. The ILO supervisory system – the output of which is dealt with by the Court in this Opinion –is structurally different. The Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR) is to some degree comparable to the HRC. The Committee on Freedom of Association (CFA) is tripartite – composed of representatives of governments, employers, and workers, whose interests are opposed in many of the cases before it. The International Labour Conference is a political organ. Commissions of Inquiry are constituted ad hoc.

The Court seems to justify the extension by reference to convergence (the bodies have, over time, reached substantially the same position, see para. 119) but also function (each performs a monitoring role analogous to that of the HRC under the ICCPR Optional Protocol). The mutatis mutandis qualification (para. 117) is however notable and should inform the transposition of the Court’s statement to other supervisory bodies, whether in the realm of human rights or in other sectors. The Court’s approach is conservative.

The framework applies, with little modification, to other treaty supervisory bodies, in particular in the human rights sector of international law. The UN human rights treaty bodies – the HRC, CESCR, CEDAW, CERD, CRC, CAT, CRPD and the others – produce General Comments, Views in individual communications, Concluding Observations and Statements that the framework now accommodates. None is, in itself, Article 31(3)(b) practice. Each may operate derivatively under that provision where it generates of reflects State practice meeting the threshold of agreement. Each must be regarded as “supplementary means” under Article 32 and be ascribed “great weight” only insofar as there is merit to doing so. Where a treaty body has itself adopted an interpretive methodology that departs from the VCLT approach, the case for ascribing “great weight” to its output is correspondingly weaker  The majority does not address this directly (see, however, para. 118 of the opinion), but its framework does not avoid it either (for one illustration, see Emberland, 23(2) HRLR (2023), on the CRC’s Syrian Camps decisions).

Outside the UN human rights system, the framework may apply, mutatis mutandis, to compliance committees in other treaty regimes, such as the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee, the Advisory Committee under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, and The European Committee of Social Rights. Whether the framework applies in unmodified form to such bodies is, on the face of the Opinion, an open question – they differ in composition, mandate, and the form of their outputs – but the central methodological question is the same, and the analogical extension is available.

The European Court of Human Rights has since Demir and Baykara v. Turkey drawn extensively on UN and ILO supervisory body material in interpreting the ECHR. The Strasbourg Court should be expected to invoke the advisory opinion in defence of its existing practice, but with the methodological refinement of it.

The Opinion does not conclude the conversation. Some of the dissenters individually and forcefully disagree with the majority’s inclusion of treaty body output as VCLT Article 32 “supplementary means”, see in particular Dissenting opinion of Judge Tomka paras. 82–84, Dissenting opinion of Judge Abraham paras. 56–66), Dissenting opinion of Judge Hmoud paras. 46 et seq., and Dissenting opinion of Judge Xue para. 64. Even among the majority there are varying views on the methodological approach taken, see, especially Judge Nolte’s Separate opinion, and Judge Tladi’s Separate opinion. This enables further debate. The next phase should, however, focus less on whether supervisory body output is admissible (it is in principle, but only under VCLT Article 32) and more on the criteria that determine how much weight, if any, particular categories of such output should carry. The ILC’s ongoing project on subsidiary means and the CAHDI work on non-legally binding instruments may supply resources for that phase.

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Hypothekai: Journal of the History of Ancient Pedagogical culture
ISSN: 2587- 7127

A journal on the history of ancient pedagogical culture is a peer-reviewed international academic journal established in September 2017. The “Hypothekai” journal publishes research materials on the study, preservation and popularization of ancient pedagogical culture in its historical dynamics. Throughout its pages, within the framework of the themes identified, a wide range of topical issues of the formation of ancient education and the development of ancient educational practices in different historical periods are considered. The journal is published yearly. The languages are Russian and English. The journal’s founder is its editor.

“Hypothekai” is an open access journal. All articles are made freely available to readers immediately upon publication. Our open access policy is in accordance with Chapter 70 “Copyright Law” of the Russian Civil Code and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition - it means that articles have free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. Full-text versions of articles are available for reading and non-commercial distribution under the international license "Attribution - Non-commercial use 4.0" (Creative Commons Attibution 4.0).

The information about all the articles published is archived in Russian Electronic Scientific Library and “CyberLeninka” Electronic Scientific Library. The direct URL to the journal issues and article metadata (title, author, keywords, abstracts, etc.). The articles’ full texts are stored on the journal’s server and can be accessed through this page.

The title of this collection is Hypothêkai – a polysemantic word (“instructions”, “advice”, “precepts”), which should not mislead the reader: they will not be taught by the ancient texts or tired by some clever advice. This title was suggested by Brett M. Rogers, a specialist in ancient pedagogy and lecturer at the University of Puget Sound, whose knowledge of ancient texts is leagues ahead of mine. I would like to express my deep gratitude to him for this idea as well as for our scientific discussions, during one of which he pointed to the fragments of the precepts of the centaur Kheiron “Hypothêkai of Kheiron” (“Precepts of Kheiron”) often ascribed to Hesiod. According to the legend, that lost poem of collected wisdom was passed to humans by the centaur Kheiron, the famous mentor of Achilles. The collection title just alludes to that lost work, inviting to a deep study of ancient texts. I wish to express a heartfelt gratitude to my colleague, Professor Vitaliy G. Bezrogov for his support and his inspirational insistence on the highest academic standards.

2024 Issue 8. Images of teachers and students in ancient tradition (*.pdf)

The theme of the eighth issue is “Images of the teacher and student in the ancient tradition”. The history of pedagogical culture is like a whimsical kaleidoscope of images of teachers and students: great and ordinary, divine and secular, similar and very different. Socrates, one of the most extraordinary figures of the ancient era, asserted that not everyone can be both a teacher and a student. This assertion continues to resonate in modern pedagogical discourse, where teachers and students have acquired new rights and responsibilities.

2026 Issue 10. The Upbringing and Education of the Hero: the Adult World and the World of Adolescence (*.pdf)

The theme of this issue is “The Upbringing and Education of the Hero: the Adult World and the World of Adolescence.” The issue emphasizes that the education and upbringing of the hero – understood in the broadest sense of the word – has always taken place in a space shaped by the encounter of two worlds: the world of adults and the world of the young who are coming of age. The former sought to instruct the latter, while the latter were not always willing to accept such guidance, often preferring to learn from their own mistakes. For centuries, this dynamic created a persistent tension between the two worlds –a tension without which new generations of heroes could hardly have emerged.

Preface (*.pdf)

Section 1. The formation of the hero: entering the adult world

Heroes educated and uneducated: spartan kings and αγωγη (Igor E. Surikov) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2026-10-10-15-48
The nursery of heroes: macedonian institute of "royal youths" in the age of Philip II and Alexander the Great (Alexander A. Kleymeonov) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2026-10-10-49-72

Section 2. The formation of the hero:entering the adult world
The world of adults and the world of adolescence: the education of the hero in Sophocles’ Philoctetes (Victoria K. Pichugina) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2026-10-10-73-109
Formation of a victorious athlete  (Tatiana B. Gvozdeva) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2026-10-10-110-131

Heroes of faith in the pre-constantinian christian church (Alexey V. Kargaltsev) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2026-10-10-132-149
Section 3. The heroic in the world of education: a dialogue of cultures
The Crisis – Kairos – Gnosis Triad as a Method for Reconstructing the Heroic in Education: Ancient and Biblical Contexts (Alexander G. Bermus) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2026-10-10-150-178
Section 4. Educational materials
Intellectual Traditions of Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Course Syllabus for the Master’s Degree Program in History, code 520800) (Maya S. Petrova)

2025 Issue 9. Ancient education as a worldview (*.pdf)

The theme of this issue is “Ancient education as a worldview.” The concept of the world as a space for lifelong learning and of humans as perpetual students allows us to view pedagogical culture in its broadest sense. A defining characteristic of ancient pedagogy was that education was regarded both as the foundation of knowledge and as a means of understanding the world. The educational journey of an ancient Greek, and later a Roman, was shaped by existing perceptions of the world and one’s place within it, as well as by pedagogical traditions seen as fundamental to cosmic order.

Preface (*.pdf)

Section 1. Representations of the world in ancient educational culture

The Shield in Sophocles' Tragedy "Ajax" and the Materiality of the Heroic World: To Instruct and Protect (Victoria K. Pichugina) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2025-9-9-14-50
The Foundations of Early Latin Christian Teachers’ Worldview
(Alexey V. Kargaltsev) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2025-9-9-51-60
The Hellenic World and the Barbarian World in the Ideology of Panhellenism (Vladimir A. Boldin) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2025-9-9-61-72
Section 2. Education through great texts: worldview as a dialogue of traditions
Concerning the Influence of the Iliad on the Worldview of Alexander the Great (Alexander A. Kleymenov) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 110.32880/2587-7127-2025-9-9-73-101
"The Myth of the Cave" in the Space and Time of the Exegetical Midrash (Alexander G. Bermus)(*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2025-9-9-102-130
Section 3. The world as a space of discipleship: concepts, teachings, and ideas
Calcidius on the Conformity of the Platonist Doctrine and Jewish Philosophy (in Tim. 256: 3-11) (Maya S. Petrova) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2025-9-9-131-144
Cassiodoreus, Augustine, and Macrobius on the Individual Soul
(on the “Consistency” between Pagan Philosophy and Christian Teaching) (Philipp V. Petrov) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2025-9-9-145-158
Christianization and Education in Late Antique Britain (6th–8th centuries) (Maxim M. Gorelov) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2025-9-9-159-177

 

2024 Issue 8. Images of teachers and students in ancient tradition (*.pdf)

The theme of the eighth issue is “Images of the teacher and student in the ancient tradition”. The history of pedagogical culture is like a whimsical kaleidoscope of images of teachers and students: great and ordinary, divine and secular, similar and very different. Socrates, one of the most extraordinary figures of the ancient era, asserted that not everyone can be both a teacher and a student. This assertion continues to resonate in modern pedagogical discourse, where teachers and students have acquired new rights and responsibilities.

Contents of the eighth issue (*.pdf)
Preface (*.pdf)

Section 1. Scholarly paths of great and ordinary

Likeness of an Athenian tyrannical son. Young Hipocrates in Plato's Protagoras (Àngel Pascual-Martin) (*.pdf) [In English] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2024-8-8-14-35 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
Ancient Greek theater as a school for the city: why Socrates was not a theatergoer (Victoria Pichugina) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2024-8-8-36-54 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
Galen as representative of Greek paideia of the second sophistic era
(Irina Prolygina) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2024-8-8-55-73 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

Section 2. Divine teachers and their students

The concept of the soul of Christian teachers of the Early Church (Alexey Kargaltsev) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2024-8-8-74-88 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
Christ as Teacher in classical European iconography (Zinaida A. Lurie) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2024-8-8-89-109 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

Section 3.Teacher's image in the context of historiography

Macrobius in english-language research (Maya Petrova) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2024-8-8-110-134 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
Augustine's Literary Legacy as Research Focus in Contemporary Scholarship  (Philipp Petrov) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2024-8-8-135-167 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
Breviarium rerum gestarum populi romani in Russian and foreign historiography: concerning  Festus' sources (Ekaterina Buzdalina) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2024-8-8-168-183 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

2023 Issue 7. Sophists and education (*.pdf)

The theme of the issue is “Sophists and Education”. The question of whether the sophists were unique mentors can be called eternal. The multitude of definitions of the sophists and their numerous typologies have opened and continue to open many paths for seeking answers.The issue focuses on the activities of representatives of the first and second sophistics, as well as the “sophistic echo” that rolled through the centuries and reflected on the scientific and educational tradition in the 21st century.

Contents of the seventh issue (*.pdf)
Preface (*.pdf)

Section 1. Sophists as teachers, and their students

Education in the city through laughter and tears: sophistic speeches in Euripides' “Medea” and Aristophanes' “Clouds” (Victoria Pichugina) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2023-7-7-16-44 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

Pepaideumenos, or What it means to be educated in the era of the Second Sophistic (Elena Alymova) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2023-7-7-45-58 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
A pagan sophist and Christian bishops: correspondence between Libanius and Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium, and Optimus,  Bishop of Antioch in Pisidia. Translation and Comments (Nikolai Winogradow) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]10.32880/2587-7127-2023-7-7-59-74 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

 Section 2. Sophistry and the rhetorical educational ideal

Apologist Arnobius, a Christian rhetorician from Sicca Veneria (Alexey Kargaltsev) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]10.32880/2587-7127-2023-7-7-75-89 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
Educating the sovereign: court teachers of the heirs of the roman emperors of the late 4th century – the first half of the 5th century (Michail Vedeshkin)(*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]10.32880/2587-7127-2023-7-7-90-146 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
On Galen's medical rhetoric (Irina Prolygina) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]10.32880/2587-7127-2023-7-7-147-158 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

Section 3. The multifaceted nature of sophistry: retrospective and prospective approaches

Sophists in humanistic and reformation propaganda (Zinaida Lurie) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]10.32880/2587-7127-2023-7-7-159-181 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
Sophistry in the writings of Miguel De Unamuno: between politics and pedagogy (Astine Ovsepyan) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]10.32880/2587-7127-2023-7-7-182-192 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
Midrash and sophism in the context of transformation scientific  and educational traditions in the 21st century (Alexander Bermous) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]10.32880/2587-7127-2023-7-7-193-218 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

2022 Issue 6. Medical Education in Antiquity(*.pdf)

The theme of the issue is "Medical Education in Antiquity." The issue consists of three parts and brings together articles on the ways of accumulating and transferring medical knowledge in the space of the ancient city. The following questions are covered in this issue: medical education and ancient mythological history, the pedagogical aspect of ancient body care, diseases and methods of educational therapy, the great teachers of medicine, their educational texts and/or the medical schools they founded, the theory and practice of studying medicine in the ancient world, features of the philosophical and pedagogical consideration of the medical landscape of Antiquity. This issue is conceptually linked to the first academic seminar on the history of pedagogical culture organized by the Department of Humanities of the Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University (November 8, 2021).

Contents of the sixth issue (*.pdf)
Preface (*.pdf)

Section 1. Accumulation and transfer of medical knowledge in Antiquity
On the Role of Research Travel in Medical Education in the 2nd – 3d Centuries AD (Irina V. Prolygina) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2022-6-6-17-39 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
On Medicine, Physicians, and Healers in Ancient Rome (Maya S. Petrova) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2022-6-6-40-77 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
Section 2. The great teachers of medicine
Cheiron as a Mentor in Medicine to Achilles and Asclepius: the Pedagogical Mission of an Urban Centaur (Victoria K. Pichugina) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2022-6-6-78-104 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
Iatrosophist Zeno and Medical Schools of Alexandria in the Fourth Century (Michail A. Vedeshkin) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2022-6-6-105-128 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
Section 3. Disesse in Antiouity from the perspective of archaeology, philology and history of pedagogy
“Plague” in Thucydides and its Impact on Paideia (Andrej Yu. Mozhajsky) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2022-6-6-129-144 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
Plague of Cyprian: Christians in the Urban Environment in the Era of Persecution and Epidemics (Alexey V. Kargaltsev) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2022-6-6-145-157 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)
Forms of Plague in Procopius of Caesarea (Procop. De bellis. IV.14) and Evagrius Scholasticus (Evagrius. Hist. ecc. IV.29): On the Development of Clinical Medicine in the Eastern Roman Empire in the Fourth Century (Anton V. Zibaev, Valentina F. Zhukova) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2022-6-6-158-186 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

2021 Issue 5. Educational Texts in Antiquity (*.pdf)

The theme of the fifth issue is "Educational Texts in Antiquity". This issue reveals what ancient Greeks and Romans as well as people living in the territory of entire ancient oecumene were reading and cramming up to the 6th century AD. 

The tourth issue is available in libraries receiving a compulsory copy through the Russian book chamber, the library of the Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University, the library of the Leo Tolstoy Tula State Pedagogical University, the library of the Higher School of Economics.

Contents of the fifth issue (*.pdf)
Preface (.pdf*)

Section 1. "Works of pedagogues". Educational texts and their authors

Ancient didactic astronomical texts (Andrew V. Fesenko) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2021-5-5-19-42 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

Refiguring Odysseus’ Apologue in Plato’s Protagoras (Àngel Pascual-Martin)(*.pdf) [In English] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2021-5-5-43-63 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

Unknown Ancient sources of Byzantine military treatises (Alexander K. Nefyodkin) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI: 10.32880/2587-7127-2021-5-5-64-82 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

On the translation of Donatus' Ars Grammatica (I.1-6) (Maya S. Petrova (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2021-5-5-83-99 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

 Section 2. "Works of students". Educational texts and their addresses.

Hippias’s “Collection” — a handbook for a man of wisdom (Roman V. Svetlov) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2021-5-5-100-112 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

The influence of Xenophon’s didactic writings on the military
leadership practice of Alexander the Great (Аlexander А. Kleymeonov) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2021-5-5-113-140 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

Galen. On bones for beginners (Irina V. Prolygina) (*.pdf) [In Russian] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2021-5-5-141-171 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

Section 3. "Works of the descendants". Educational texts from the perspective of archaeology, philology and history of pedagogy

Thebes, Amphiaraus and Alcmaeon in Pindar’s Pythian 8: instruction to the winner (Andrej Yu. Mozhajsky) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2021-5-5-172-190 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

Cicero’s writings as learning texts for humanities students: from Augustus Wilkins to Cicero Digitalis (Victoria Pichugina, Emiliano Mettini, Yana Volkova) (*.pdf) [In  English] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2021-5-5-191-213 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

Juan Luis Vives on the use of Ancient literature in education
(Nina V. Revyakina) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2021-5-5-214-235 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

Social upbringing and an example of Antiquity in the writings of J.J. Rousseau (Sergey V. Zanin) (*.pdf) [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2021-5-5-236-247 Abstract and keywords (*.pdf)

Reviews

Review of the Book “Adolf Trendelenburg. Outlines of Logic [Elementa Logices Aristoteleae]” (Alexander G. Bermus) (*.pdf) [In Russian] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2021-5-5-248-255

 List of contributors (*.pdf) 

 

 

 

 

2020 Issue 4. Education of a warrior in Greece and Rome(.*pdf)

2019 Issue 3.Education in Late Antiquity (.*pdf)

2018 Issue 2. Teaching through the theater and in the theater: ancient pedagogy of the stage(.*pdf)

2017 Issue 1. Mark Tullius Cicero’s concept of education through culture(.*pdf)

 

 

  

 

The theme of the third issue is "Education in Late Antiquity". The period of Late Antiquity was a time of rapid transformation of all spheres of social life, the emergence of new and the development of old cultural and religious traditions. In the era of the decline of the Roman Empire the traditions of ancient education experienced their last floutish, marked by activities of such outstanding mentors as Libanius and Choricius, Marius Victorinus and Themistius, Ausonius Hymerius, the functioning of such important educational centers as the schools Athens, Alexandria, Gaza, Burdigala, Beritus. We dedicate the third issue of "Hypothekai" to the studies of a wide range of factors that provided this socio-cultural phenomenon and the interaction of old and new elements of the education life of the Mediterranean world III - VII centuries. The third issue is available in libraries receiving a compulsory copy through the Russian book chamber, as well as in the library of Martin Luter University of Halle-Wittenberg (Collegienstraße, 62a, Lutherstadt Wittenberg), library of University of Lisbon, the library of University of Coimbra (General Library of the University of Coimbra, Largo da Porta Férrea, 3000-447 Coimbra), the library of University of Porto (Reitoria da U.Porto, Praça Gomes Teixeira, 4099-002 Porto, Portugal), the library of University of Warsaw (Dobra 56/66, 00-312 Warszawa), the library of Siedlce University of Natural Sciences and Humanities (ul. Konarskiego 2, 08-110 Siedlce), the library of the Pedagogical Institute of  Jagiellonian University in Krakow (Romana Ingardena 3, Kraków), the library of the Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University, The library of Moscow Pedagogical State University, the library of the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, the Volgograd Regional Universal Scientific Library named after Maxim Gorky.

Preface (*.pdf)

Contents of the third issue (*.pdf)

Section 1. Educational practices of Late Antiquity

Michael A. Vedeshkin. The missing link of the «Golden Chain»: Aedesius and the neoplatonic school of Pergamon [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-13-59
Maya S. Petrova. Donatus’ Ars grammatica and educational practices of Late Antiquity: Sergius — Cledonius — Pompeius [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-60-86
Viktoria K. Pichugina. Homo Ineptus or Homo Sapiens: Joannes Stobaeus and his “universal knowledge” in the educational space of Late Antiquity [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-87-103
Nikolay N. Bolgov, Anna M. Bolgova. Priscian grammarian and his heritage [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-104-120
Attachment. Priscian. Fragments [trans. from Latin into Russian and notes by Nikolay N. Bolgov and Anna M. Bolgova] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-121-145

Section 2. Time and space of education in Late Antiquity 

Ivan A. Mirolyubov. On the education of the sons of Constantine the Great [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-146-160
Alexey V. Kargaltsev. African hagiography in the mid-3d century as pedagogical text. [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-161-172
Evgenia S. Zaitseva. Education in a late roman senatorial family: classical canon and christian ideal [In Russian with English abstract]  DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-121-173-199
Nadezhda P. Volkova. Philosophical education according to Plato and Plotinus [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-200-222

Section 3. Mentor schools and school mentors in Late Antiquity from the perspective of archaeology,philology and history of pedagogy
Vitaly G. Bezrogov. From white class walls to wax on tablets: image of school in Late Antique educational texts [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-223-249
Andrej Yu. Mozhajsky. Reflection of the educational space of Early Christian Boiotian Thebes (4–6 AD) in the material culture [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-250-277
Tatyana L. Aleksandrova. Educational policy of Theodosius II and the fate of Auditorium of Constantinople [In Russian with English abstract] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-278-300

Translations of contemporary research papers
Michael A. Vedeshkin. Edward Watts and modern research in Late Antiquity education [Сomment in Russian] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-301-305
Edward Watts. Speaking, Thinking, and Socializing: Education in Late Antiquity [trans. into Russian and notes by M. Vedeshkin] DOI:10.32880/2587-7127-2018-3-3-306-338

List of contributors (*.pdf)

This book provides a comprehensive assessment of general international law and its normative relevance to the international legal order. The relevance of general international law to the international legal order is founded on a concept of the relational normativity of international law. The book demonstrates how relational normativity is an intrinsic feature of international law that characterises it as a legal order. It argues that this is of crucial importance for the sources of international law as well as for normative conflicts between its rules and principles. Making a strong case for positing general international law as the core of international law, the book argues this is a basis of normative unity, an effective remedy for fragmentation, and a useful guide to areas of normative conflicts of special legal regimes. Thus, it offers an analytical lens for understanding how unity and coherence can be maintained within an increasingly complex and specialised international legal landscape.

     

Miscellanees d'ancient arabe

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.I

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.II

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.III

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.IV

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.IX

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.V

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.VI

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.VII

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.VIII

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.X

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.XI

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.XII

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.XIII

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.XIV

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.XIX

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.XV

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.XVI

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.XVII

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.XVIII

 

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.XX

Miscellanées d'ancient arabe v.XXI

See AWOL's full List of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies

Anatolia Antiqua est publiée chaque année par l’Institut français d’études anatoliennes. Depuis 1988, la revue présente les travaux d’archéologie dans l’espace anatolien, de la Préhistoire à la période seljoukide. Les numéros antérieurs à 2013 sont présents sur Persée.

Senior U.S. officials have held preliminary discussions with major artificial intelligence companies about the potential for the federal government to acquire some shares in their firms, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has discussed the idea with senior Trump administration officials periodically since the president began his second term, said two of the sources, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private deliberations. Altman first pitched the concept directly to President Donald Trump in a conversation in early 2025, and has discussed it again with senior administration officials in recent weeks as a way to more broadly distribute the economic benefits of AI to the public, they said.

While planning is ongoing and details are in flux, discussions have centered on having the firms voluntarily cede the shares to the government, the people said. The returns on the investment could then be directed to public purposes, one of the people said, such as distributing a dividend payment to all American households.

In comments he made on Friday, Trump seemed open to this idea.

If this actually happens, it will be interesting to see what the final arrangement looks like, but regardless I think this policy is likely to generate the following international response: Foreign governments could decide to pour resources into developing their own domestic AI sector. There are a couple reasons for this.

First, if a person's use of services from OpenAI and other American AI companies means that money gets sent to Americans but not to non-Americans, non-Americans are going to have a disincentive to use the service. Such a financial outcome would feel totally unfair to non-American users, and they are likely to seek out alternative services.

Second, there will be added privacy concerns with the U.S. government being involved in these companies. There is already a good deal of distrust about the U.S. government getting access to data held by U.S. tech companies. U.S. government ownership of shares in these companies makes this an even bigger concern.

It seems to me, then, that in response to demands from their citizens (and nascent industries), many foreign governments are almost certain to move in the direction of developing their own AI industries to compete with American government-owned AI companies, kicking off an industrial policy competition in this sector.

How difficult will it be for a foreign government to do this successfully? That's hard to say. Building an industry that is as good as the American one could be tough. The American industry has both a head start and greater resources. On the other hand, it's much easier to follow than to lead, so I think a fair number of other countries could develop a sector that offers a pretty good service, even if not quite at the American level at first.

And if they follow the U.S. model that is being suggested, it will be easy to market the product domestically by telling people there is money in it for them if they use the domestic service, and also that by using the domestic service they can help it improve and catch up to the Americans.

At this point, let me just add a general comment that will not come as a surprise to this blog's readers: In my view, state capitalism of this sort would be a terrible policy for the U.S. government (and every other government) to adopt, and everyone should turn away from this approach immediately. It will lead to worse services, worse business practices, and worse government policies in this sector, and should be avoided. Whatever your views on AI in general (I'm more on the skeptic side, as I think of AI as probably useful for some things but a bit overhyped*), I don't think government ownership of this industry is the right road to go down. What we want instead is a competitive industry that gives companies an incentive to behave better, and is subject to regulation that will prevent the range of abuses and harms that have been widely reported and should be taken more seriously.

Finally, let me note that if the real reason for U.S. government ownership here is that the AI sector has no path to profitability and the government is effectively being asked to "socialize the losses," this whole thing makes even less sense.

* _{The caveat to this is that I don't use AI at all (except for when a Google search forces it on me), so it's possible I don't know what I'm talking about! But I've read enough about how it works, and also I ran this by some people who are actual users/experts, so I feel confident enough to post this. Feel free to tell me in the comments how I'm getting it all wrong though!}

2. Call for Papers: Workshop on Neutrality in Legal Scholarship. Ruhr University Bochum has announced a call for papers for a workshop on the impact of neutrality on research and knowledge production in legal scholarship. The workshop will take place in Bochum on 9 – 10 December 2026 and is designed for early career researchers from various disciplines (law, philosophy, sociology, politics, and science studies). Professor Jean D’Aspremont, Professor Stewart Manley, Professor Vasuki Nesiah, and Professor Mando Rachovitsa will serve as discussants. This workshop is funded by the Volkswagen Foundations, and all travel and accommodation expenses are expected to be covered. Participants are invited to send their abstract (max 500 words) and a 2-page CV to the co-chairs of the workshop, Sissy Katsoni (Spyridoula.Katsoni[at]ruhr-uni-bochum.de) and Julian Hettihewa (jhettih2[at]uni-bonn.de), mentioning ‘Call for Papers: The Impact of Neutrality on Research and Knowledge Production in Legal Scholarship’ in the subject line. For more information see here. 

3. Doctoral Workshop on Sustainability and Law. The Sustainability and Public Law PhDs of Radboud University in Nijmegen (the Netherlands), and the Law and Transformation Programme at the Joachim Herz Doctoral School of Law, Leuphana University of Lüneburg (Germany), are hosting the third round of their Doctoral Workshop on Sustainability and Law in Context on 9 December 2026. At the Workshop, PhD candidates researching one or more aspects of the intersection between sustainability and law will have the opportunity to present their research (around 10 minutes) in moderated thematic panels and engage in discussions with the other participants. Further information can be found here. Interested PhD candidates should submit their applications here by 1 August 2026.

4. Evidence in Human Rights Law: From Technicality to Core Substance? Conference. The Human Rights Law Centre, University of Nottingham is hosting its Annual Human Rights Conference, this year on the topic of ‘Evidence in Human Rights Law: From Technicality to Core Substance?’ Judge Ioannis Ktistakis, Judge of the European Court of Human Rights, will deliver a keynote speech. They will additionally be joined by a range of expert panellists from across academia and practice. Further details on speakers and the programme are available via the link below. This event will take place on 25 June from 15:00-18:30 (BST), with the option to attend in person or online. For more information and registration, see here. 

5. First International Congress on Human Rights: The Inter-American Human Rights System – Structural Challenges and the Way Forward. The Law Faculties of Universidad Panamericana (Guadalajara, Mexico), Ave Maria School of Law, and Abat Oliba CEU are hosting the first edition of the First International Congress on Human Rights, to be held on 17 – 18 September 2026 at Universidad Panamericana Campus Guadalajara, Mexico. The conference will address structural challenges facing the Inter-American Human Rights System across six panels covering: defense of cases and selection of judges and commissioners; control de convencionalidad, subsidiarity and margin of appreciation; the IACtHR and international standards; interpretation of the ACHR; substantive human rights issues; and proposals to strengthen the IAHRS. Four keynote addresses will be delivered by Judge Alberto Borea Odría (IACtHR), former ECtHR Judge Javier Borrego Borrego, former IACHR Commissioner Carlos Bernal Pulido, and IACHR President Edgar Stuardo Ralón Orellana. Sessions will be held in Spanish. Further information and registration are available here. Contact congresosidh {at} gmail(.)com.

For practitioners, the issue is not merely doctrinal. It concerns the enforceability of outcomes and, therefore, how disputes should be structured at the drafting stage.

Under Section 13 of the Civil Procedure Code 1908, Indian courts are formally empowered to refuse enforcement where a foreign judgment is not “on the merits.” Read literally, this suggests a willingness to reassess the correctness of the decision. In most jurisdictions today, that approach has been abandoned. Refusal of enforcement is typically confined to procedural defects: jurisdiction, fraud, natural justice, or public policy, not the substance of the decision.

In practice, Indian courts have taken a far more restrained approach. They do not reopen the correctness of the foreign judgment. Instead, they ask whether the decision reflects a genuine adjudication: was there evidence, was there a real opportunity to be heard, and is the decision reasoned? In effect, what appears to be révision au fond operates as a proxy for natural justice.

The difficulty lies in how this framework is perceived externally. Courts in jurisdictions that condition enforcement on reciprocity or substantially similar standards, such as Germany, Japan, South Korea, and, increasingly, China, do not necessarily engage with the nuances of Indian case law. The statutory text continues to signal that India permits merits review. That signal alone may be sufficient to deny enforcement of Indian judgments abroad.

This gap between doctrine and practice creates a set of risks that practitioners should factor into both litigation strategy and transactional drafting.

First, forum selection cannot be approached in isolation from enforcement.
Where assets are likely to be located outside India, the portability of an Indian judgment becomes a central concern. If enforcement is anticipated in reciprocity-based jurisdictions, the choice of an Indian court may introduce avoidable uncertainty.

Second, arbitration retains a structural advantage in this context.
India’s alignment with the New York Convention and the prohibition on merits review in the enforcement of arbitral awards offers a level of predictability that litigation currently does not. Where enforcement abroad is critical, arbitration may continue to be the safer route.

Third, dispute resolution clauses should be drafted with enforcement geography in mind.
This may involve:

• Selecting a forum whose judgments are more readily enforceable in the jurisdictions where assets are located
• Considering hybrid approaches, such as arbitration with carefully chosen seats
• Avoiding assumptions that a favourable judgment in one jurisdiction will translate into effective recovery elsewhere

Fourth, expectations around default and summary judgments should be managed carefully.
Indian courts place emphasis on whether the judgment reflects a substantive evaluation of the dispute. Orders that appear purely formal or insufficiently reasoned may face resistance in India, and this in turn feeds into how Indian judgments are assessed abroad.

The broader point is that India’s REFJ framework is not out of step in practice, but it appears to be so in form. Until that dissonance is addressed, whether through legislative clarification or greater international alignment, the enforceability of Indian judgments will continue to depend as much on perception as on doctrine. The article is available open-access here.

First, the switch from the old platform last September led to the loss of threading in comments that had been posted up to that point, which made it difficult to follow those conversations. I was recently able to salvage the original version of a good portion of those older comments and restore the threading, so things should look better now (although I think I've reached the limits of what can be accomplished and some comments from the old platform will remain jumbled).

Let me also note with respect to the comments that if there are multiple comments on a post, the current platform defaults to sorting them by "best." You can adjust this to "newest" or "oldest," but it starts out with "best." If I understand it correctly, "best" is judged by likes and dislikes on the comments. I don't find any of this very useful, but at least as of now there doesn't seem to be a way to disable it.

Second, just a reminder that if you are signed up for email notifications of new posts, they sometimes end up in the spam folder. So if you happen to be reading this post and are wondering why you aren't getting the email notifications you signed up for, please check your spam folder and tag the IELP blog emails as "not spam" or "not junk" (or however your email system describes these things).

The Government has accepted Lord Mann’s recommendations on tackling antisemitism in the NHS. In the wake of a series of attacks on the Jewish community, including intimidation and abuse within the NHS, in October 2025 the former Secretary of State and the Prime Minister commissioned Lord Mann to lead an urgent review into how the NHS and its regulatory system recognises, reports and tackles antisemitism and other forms of racism.

The results of the review have now been published, with a comprehensive set of recommendations to strengthen accountability, to improve reporting and investigation processes, and to embed an anti-racist culture across the health system, better to protect patients and staff from discrimination and abuse. Lord Mann:f

• sets out recommendations to tackle “routine ostracism” of Jewish people in the NHS, including stronger accountability and mandatory training;
• reemphasises the role of NHS employers as the first line of defence against racism and discrimination for patients and staff;
• recommends that NHS employers should be required to meet new staff standards and complete mandatory anti-racism training to tackle antisemitism; and
• calls upon the Government to make it clear that all racism in the NHS is abhorrent.

A specific recommendation is to prohibit staff from wearing “political symbols”.

The Government says that it is clear that all racism in the NHS is abhorrent, and NHS employers are the first line of defence and must take urgent action. With 16% of Muslim staff and 20% of Black and minority ethnic staff also reporting discrimination in the last year, and it believes that the reforms will benefit everyone who experiences hatred or abuse in the health service. Secretary of State for Health, James Murray, said:

“The NHS was built on the principle that everyone should be treated equally and with respect. Racism and discrimination betray everything the NHS stands for and its ability to provide safe, world-class care. Lord John Mann has made a series of robust and practical recommendations which we are accepting.”

A fairer end to relationships

The Government has launched a consultation on A fairer end to relationships. The consultation covers three discrete but linked areas:

• financial remedies on divorce and dissolution;
• financial provision for cohabitants on separation; and
• inheritance provision for cohabitants on death.

It invites views on:

• “a ‘codification-plus’ model of reform, which would bring settled case law principles, such as those of ‘needs’ and ‘sharing’, into statutory form”;
• further targeted reforms, including introducing qualifying nuptial agreements which would enable couples to make binding financial arrangements in advance of divorce or dissolution;
• introducing a statutory framework of rights and protections for eligible cohabitants at the point of separation; and
• proposals to modernise the law affecting cohabitants on intestacy and on access to financial provision from a deceased partner’s estate.

The accompanying press release explains that the proposals support the Government’s manifesto commitment to “strengthen the rights and protections for women in cohabiting relationships”. The consultation closes on 14 August.

A longer analysis by Professor Russell Sandberg, Why the consultation on cohabitation rights is to be welcomed, will be posted early next week.

Other Lords Spiritual??

In a rather strange written question, Lord Patten (Con) asked HMG “why leaders of faith groups such as Jewish, Muslim and Roman Catholic leaders in the House of Lords are not considered as Lords Spiritual”.

To which Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, Parliamentary Secretary in the Cabinet Office, replied on Tuesday (carefully avoiding the obvious answer, “Because they aren’t”) as follows:

“The presence of the Lords Spiritual in the House of Lords reflects the constitutional position of the Church of England as the established Church and the Sovereign as the Supreme Governor of the Church. The Government believes the House of Lords benefits from having a membership with a wide and diverse range of backgrounds including faith and religion.”

MPs to debate e-petition after lack of progress with assisted dying bill

The Hansard Society reports that, tomorrow, MPs will debate an e-petition calling on the Government to ensure that bills supported by MPs and the public have sufficient time to complete their passage through Parliament. The petition, e-petition 752673, which was published on 4 February 2026, has attracted more than 115,000 signatures. It was prompted by concerns that the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – commonly known as the assisted dying bill – ran out of parliamentary time after more than 1,000 amendments were tabled in the House of Lords. The petition will be debated in Westminster Hall at 4:30 pm on Monday, 8 June.

The Society notes that whatever one’s view of assisted dying, questions remain about whether and how the Bill could be re-introduced in the new parliamentary session. Its recent briefing examines whether the Parliament Act could be used to secure its enactment. It explores the constitutional issues involved, reviews previous uses of the Act, and considers the procedural lessons they offer for the future of the Bill.

Freedom of assembly and Falun Gong

In Serbian-Chinese Friendship Society FDH v Serbia [2026] ECHR 105, the Third Section held that the Serbian Government had violated Article 11 ECHR (freedom of assembly) when it banned a demonstration to protest against the Chinese persecution of Falun Gong that had been planned to coincide with the visit of the President of China to Serbia.

It noted at [46] that the ECtHR requires that domestic law provide for “adequate and effective legal safeguards against arbitrary and discriminatory exercise of the discretion left to the executive” and that “This ‘judicial review’ must make it possible to obtain an assessment of the proportionality and necessity of the impugned restriction” in accordance with Article 11(2). In the present dispute, there was no evidence in the case file that the relevant Serbian authorities had carried out any specific security assessments before deciding to prohibit the public gatherings planned by the applicant society [72] and:

“Even if there had been a genuine risk of violent confrontation between the protestors and counter‑protestors, this, in and of itself, should not have resulted in the decisions to prohibit the planned public gatherings, without the authorities having first complied with their positive obligation to try to ensure the peaceful conduct of the planned events and the safety of all persons concerned”… [73].

There had therefore been a violation of Article 11 and of Article 13 read in conjunction with Article 11. [With thanks to Religion Clause.]

The rule of law and why it matters: Key Stage 1

The Council of Europe has published an explainer on the importance of the Rule of Law. Obviously, no regular or even occasional reader of this blog needs any such explanation; unfortunately, however, many others clearly do.

News from the auction houses

As a segue to Shirani Herbert’s guest post, Sale of church treasures: Re St Peter, Little Budworth, we were informed by David Turner KC that the painting in question, “The Good Shepherd” by William Dyce (1806–1864), was sold at Bonhams on 25 March 2026 for £267,100 inc. premium.

This week, there have been stories on the movement of artwork in the opposite direction; the BBC reported that a hatchment stolen from St Leonard’s Church, Flamstead, Hertfordshire, had been identified  and will be unveiled on 4 June as part of the Flamstead Arts Festival. There are similarities with the hatchment from St Margaret’s Church on the Felbrigg estate in Norfolk, stolen in 1993 but eventually returned by the Essex Police Rural Engagement Team.

Quick links

• Jasjit Singh, The Conversation: Who can carry a kirpan in the UK? Religion, law and the question of risk.