The chapter reflects on the relationship between human rights discourse and populism from a politico-philosophical and socio-legal position. In this perspective, human rights and politics are closely linked. These rights are vocalized in the political process and mediated by social institutions. Contemporary populism is founded on the moralistic imagination based on an axis of elite-population division that leads to the necessity of a social transformation within which power and social resources will be redistributed. At the same time, such political rhetoric and practice emphasize its democratic character, which distinguishes it from simple authoritarianism. This leads to populism acceptance, at least rhetorically, of the universalist human rights discourse with the simultaneous need to change its content. The populist regime of Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) in the years 2015–2023 in Poland provides a useful case study in this regard. Populism’s attitude towards human rights is not explicit and does not consist of simple rejection. Populism instead redefines the relationship between the community and individual rights through rhetoric that violates minority rights and policies that strengthens social rights and distributes recognition based on national identity. As a result, populism pursues its own, different from (but grown out of) liberal, more republican politics of human rights.

Available at: DOI:10.5553/ELR.000256 

Available at: Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights – Alberto Quintavalla, Jeroen Temperman – Oxford University Press (oup.com) 

Een analyse van Gerechtshof ’s-Hertogenbosch 6 september 2022,
ECLI:NL:GHSHE:2022:3091 (Pand uit 1948 met energieprestatiecertificaat F).

De verkoper en de aankoopmakelaar worden aangesproken in dit arrest (gerechtshof ’s-Hertogenbosch 6 september 2022, ECLI:NL:GHSHE:2022:3091 (Pand uit 1948 met energieprestatiecertificaat F)) door de consument-kopers wegens non-conformiteit en schending van de zorgplicht. Deze zaak is met name interessant met het oog op de gedane mededelingen en de relatie tot het verstrekte energieprestatiecertificaat bij de koop van de woning. In de huidige tijd, waarin de kosten voor energie steeds belangrijker worden, is het interessant of consument-kopers de verkoper en aankoopmakelaar kunnen aanspreken in verband met de verwachtingen omtrent isolatie die bij de aankondiging op internet, in de NVM-vragenlijst en het energieprestatiecertificaat zijn gewekt.

Capitalism as Civilisation: A History of International Law articulates the kind of international legal history that reflects the field’s co-constitutive relation to global capitalism. This is done through the lens of the standard of ‘civilisation’ – a concept that Ntina Tzouvala shows to be both flexible and plastic and yet consistent in mediating the needs of capitalist expansion. A key insight of Capitalism as Civilisation is that ‘civilisation’ has functioned as an argumentative pattern that has been decisive for the allocation of rights and duties among different communities. Tzouvala illustrates how the adaptability and non-static nature of ‘civilisation’, and more precisely its oscillation between a ‘logic of improvement’ and a ‘logic of biology’, have contributed to its longevity and its continuing relevance for contemporary modes of capitalist accumulation. In brief, the ‘logic of improvement’ has conveyed a promise of equal participation in international law, insofar as non-Western communities would be willing to adopt the institutions and structures of Western capitalist modernity. At the same time, the ‘logic of biology’ consistently denied that very promise on account of inherent – and thus insurmountable – difference. As I will attempt to show in this review, Tzouvala uses these findings to make a broader intervention on the relationship of international law to global political economy, drawing the contours of a materialist legal theory.

DOI: 10.1080/20414005.2023.220353

Available at: Aflevering 9, 14 augustus 2023 | Juridische Berichten voor het Notariaat | NDFR