—Fabrício Bertini Pasquot Polido and Emilio Peluso Neder Meyer, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) Brazil faces the most critical moment of the COVID-19 pandemic since its beginning in 2020. Death tolls soared to new highs – with more than 300,000 deaths by the end of March 2021 – and the National Public Health System
Democracy on Hold? Framing the Debate on the BARMM Transition in the Philippines
—Armi Beatriz E. Bayot, University of Oxford Faculty of Law [Editors’ Note: This is one of our biweekly ICONnect columns. For more information on our four columnists for 2021, please see here.] When the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) took over as interim government of the new Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in 2019,
Ethiopia’s Continuing Constitutional Crisis
—Berihun Adugna Gebeye, Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg [Editors’ Note: This is one of our biweekly ICONnect columns. For more information on our four columnists for 2021, please see here.] On April 2, 2018 the Ethiopian parliament elected Abiy Ahmed as prime minister. This was
Malaysia’s Game of Thrones amid a Pandemic: Constitutional Implications and Political Significance of the State of Emergency
—Dian A H Shah, National University of Singapore Faculty of Law The old Malay proverb “terlepas dari mulut buaya, masuk ke mulut harimau” (literally translated as “out of the crocodile’s mouth, into the tiger’s mouth”) seems to be an apt description for Malaysia in the new year. The government, having just re-implemented stricter restrictions in
Acting (or Not Acting) on (Lawful or Unlawful) Advice in Malaysia: From Windsor to Kuantan and Back Again
—Andrew Harding, Centre for Asian Legal Studies, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore As has been previously noted in this blog, Malaysia has been undergoing an unprecedented period of political instability that has tested the interpretation and implementation of many constitutional provisions, especially those relating to the appointment and dismissal of governments.[1] In this
Election Anxiety: The Other Global Pandemic
—Andrea Scoseria Katz, Washington University in St. Louis, School of Law [Editor’s note: This is one of our biweekly I-CONnect columns. For more information about our four columnists for 2020, please click here.] On Monday, three days before Thursday’s televised encounter between U.S. presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential
ICON Editorial – A Modest Proposal on Zoom Teaching
—J.H.H. Weiler, NYU School of Law; Co-Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Constitutional Law (ICON) No preliminaries are necessary here. One result of Covid-19 has been a shift to online teaching by Zoom (or similar platforms). In some law faculties all teaching is online. In most faculties most teaching is online with some hybrid teaching, and in
Compulsory Vaccination in Brazil: Anticipating the COVID-19 Vaccine Struggles
—Bruno Santos Cunha, City Attorney, Recife, Brazil In the last week of August 2020, the Brazilian Supreme Court had a peculiar case on its docket: the State of São Paulo was suing the parents of a 5 year-old child in order to compel them to regularize their child’s vaccination according to the mandatory vaccine calendar
Going It Alone: The Constitutionality, Feasibility, and Ulterior Motivation of Donald Trump’s COVID-19 Relief Orders
—Andrea Scoseria Katz, Washington University in St. Louis, School of Law [Editor’s note: This is one of our biweekly I-CONnect columns. For more information about our four columnists for 2020, please click here.] It has been a big week for the power of the pen. Last week, just after imposing sanctions on Chinese media giants
ICON Volume 18, Issue 2: Editorial
Orbán and the self-asphyxiation of democracy; Publishers, academics and the battles over copyright and your rights, Part I; Festschrift? ‘That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow! That is the whole Torah; the rest is interpretation’ (from the Elder Hillel in Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a); In this issue Orbán and the
