The first wave, in the 1950s and ‘60s, was all about Community Rights and that new legal order. In the 1970s and ‘80s it was, ex nihilo, Individual Human Rights. And in the 1990s and this last decade it has been Citizenship Rights, destined, according to the European Court of Justice in case after case, to become the ‘fundamental’ status of European Citizens. (Have you ever wondered, as I have, about the epistemic status of this most recent mantra of the ECJ? Is it a legal realist prediction? A political desideratum? A statement of judicial intent? A revolutionary manifesto – seeing that it flatly contradicts the express provisions of the Treaty which clearly assigns to European Citizenship a mere supplementary or complementary supportive role in the Citizenship arena?) Be that as it may, there can be little argument that The Individual and his or her Rights are the most common, oft cited, self-celebratory clichés in the vocabulary of European legal discourse. In celebrating the Union’s 50th birthday Angela Merkel, speaking for most of us, veritably gushed…
Editorials
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EJIL Editorial Vol 21:1- Lautsi: Crucifix in the Classroom Redux
There are few legal issues which still manage to evoke civic passion in the wider population. Increasingly, and sometimes for the wrong reasons, the place of religion in our public spaces has become one of them. In the age of the internet and Google we can safely assume that all readers of this Journal will have either read…
EJIL Editorial Vol 21:1- In this issue . . .
We begin this issue with a symposium to honour one of our Founding Editors, Professor Antonio Cassese, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday. Many happy returns. We publish five short pieces on the role that public international law plays and can play in the protection of individuals, a topic of abiding concern to Nino. From…
EJIL:Talk! Welcomes Tolga Yalkin as Guest Blogger
We are happy to announce that over the next few days Tolga Yalkin will be posting on EJIL:Talk! a series of pieces dealing with aspects of international investment law. Readers will remember that, last month, Tolga posted a piece on EJIL:Talk! titled “International Investment Arbitration: Poisoned at the Root?” (which was discussed over at…
Editorial: EJIL Vol. 20:2
Gaza - From Warfare to Lawfare. For many years I taught a Seminar on the legal aspects of the Arab Israeli conflict at Harvard Law School. It was unlike any other of my courses or seminars. The participants, students and researchers, were more passionate and engaged than normal. As expected, there was always a group of…