The Origins of Racism and the new Basic Law: Jewish Nation-State
The Basic Law: Jewish Nation-State, enacted in July 2018, sets forth the constitutional identity of the regime. The opponents of this Basic Law can be roughly divided into two camps. The first camp...
View ArticleThe Politics of Language in the Nation’s Law – Between Bialik and Orwell
Much has been, and will be, written about what the Basic Law – Jewish Nation-State (or the Nation’s Law) does, but attention is also due to how it does what it does. The use of language in the Nation’s...
View ArticleCombining Justice with Power: How to Challenge the Narrative of Democratic...
Israel’s Nation-State Law can be seen as an expression of the kind of democratic authoritarian populism that appears to be spreading globally. As articulated by scholars like Jan-Werner Mueller (What...
View ArticleThe Tale of Two Citizenships
August 2018: Two reports make the rounds in Austrian media. One discusses data protection issues for persons on the so-called citizenship “Promi-Liste”. It tells a story of a Chinese investor, who...
View ArticleCitizenship Revocation in Italy as a Counter-Terrorism Measure
Since the outbreak of the threat posed by international terrorism in 2001, democratic countries have often reacted in a way that conflates immigration and counter-terrorism measures. Indefinite...
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Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement Fails Romanian and Bulgarian Migrant Workers
Two weeks ago, on a Friday night, I was grabbing a bite to eat with a few Romanian colleagues at Bill’s Restaurant on Green Street in Cambridge, England. Two of us stepped outside for a cigarette....
View ArticleAccess to Menstrual Products is a Constitutional Right. Period.
“Periods are not a luxury – lower the tampon tax!” These were the exact words of Nanna-Josephine Roloff and Yasemin Kotra, who started a petition launched on International Women’s Day in 2018. As a...
View ArticleThe Delhi Killings and the Making of Violence
The recent killings in Delhi, orchestrated by armed mobs with impunity and legitimized through the highest offices of government and the current ruling party, resulted in the death of almost 50...
View ArticleThe EU, Segregation and Rule of Law Resilience in Hungary
The legal and political consequences of the Hungarian government’s campaign against an appeal judgment which ordered the payment of compensation for school segregation can reverberate across the EU,...
View ArticleHospitality Ltd
Once upon a time, Airbnb’s story of creation goes, thousands of designers from across the world were flocking into the magical kingdom of San Francisco to attend the biennial conference of the...
View ArticleIt’s not about Bathroom Policies, it’s about Constitutional Principles
The United States Supreme Court is expected to soon deliver its judgment in R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the first transgender rights case...
View ArticleFighting COVID-19 with Religious Discrimination
The Korean authorities have garnered significant praise for their effective response to COVID-19. However, the country’s experience has not been without controversy. A significant proportion of cases...
View ArticleHomosexuality as a Form of Expression
Numerous courts have dealt with the question whether the sexual identity of an individual enjoys constitutional protection as freedom of expression. Recently, Singapore’s Supreme Court has rejected...
View Article“Race” and the Constitution: A South African perspective
For a South African constitutional lawyer, watching from afar, the current debate in Germany on the removal of the word “race” from section 3 of article 3 of the German Basic Law, is perplexing. In...
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In Brief
This weekend saw a long weekend of negotiations in Brussels, which we also addressed on our blog: with a plea for a comprehensive human rights perspective so that the recovery package actually reaches...
View ArticlePreserving Prejudice in the Name of Profit
Few CJEU judgments in recent years have received more criticism than the ‘headscarf judgments’, Achbita and Bougnaoui. In particular the decision in Achbita that private employers can legitimately...
View ArticleThe United Kingdom on Race
The United Kingdom’s Commission on Ethnic and Racial Disparities, led by Tony Sewell, has recently published a report (“the Sewell Report”), which has been widely discredited since its launch by...
View ArticleFrom Russia with Love
On 18 November 2020, we wrote a blogpost on the new chapter of the Government’s crusade against LGBTQI persons in Hungary. We argued that the amendments to the Fundamental Law paved the way for more...
View ArticlePride or Prejudice?
Rarely are CJEU judgments criticised as widely and unequivocally as the 2017 Achbita judgment, which allowed private employers to pursue a policy of neutrality – and ban visible signs of political,...
View ArticleTackling Discrimination in Targeted Advertising
It’s a cliché by now to note that social media platforms’ real clients are advertisers, not users. On June 21, Meta (formerly Facebook) and the US Department for Housing and Urban Development released...
View ArticleCitizenship Imposition is the New Non-Discrimination Standard
Savickis and others v. Latvia is about pension rights. Employment periods accrued in the former republics of the USSR, other than the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (“SSR”), are excluded for...
View ArticleBattling the hydra in EU anti-discrimination law
Can a company refuse to conclude or renew a contract with a self-employed person because he is gay? And may contractual freedom prevail over the prohibition of discrimination in such a situation? The...
View ArticleReframing Harassment as Occupational Safety and Health Issue
In 2019, the International Labor Organization (ILO) adopted the Convention No. 190 on Violence and Harassment at Work (alongside the accompanying Recommendation Nr. 206). The convention has been dubbed...
View ArticleHate Speech on and off the Field
During the EURO 2024 in Germany (14 June to 14 July), the UEFA has taken a series of sanctions against national football federations for inadequate statements of their fans and two players, based on...
View ArticleUnder Guise of War
Since October 7, 2023 and amidst the bloody Iron Swords war, the Israeli Parliament (hereinafter: the Knesset) has continued to fulfill its role as legislator, submitting and enacting new legislative...
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