Like many others, I used to admire Julian Assange. In 2009 I took part in a campaign to nominate Assange for ‘Australian of the Year’, thinking that putting forward a journalist who actively publishes material that challenges nationalistic myths for a nationalistic...
One of the dangers of awareness campaigns centred on social media is that they risk being online popularity contests. The [Dutch] national “Wanted For Love” campaign—a collaborative initiative of Hivos and Human Rights Watch aimed at drawing attention to the plight of...
Ever since judicial supremacy was affirmed in Marbury v Madison [5 US 137 (1803)], the political content of US-inspired constitutions has been compressed and turned into purely techno-legal content (ordinary law). What has taken shape is a tradition in which the...
We use law when it proves useful; we break the law when it prevents the realization of a more just common life (Teatro Valle Occupato, my trans.) The financial crisis and the subsequent series of austerity measures have prompted fierce resistance in the streets and...
As my facebook friends know, I take my status updates seriously. This does not mean that I only treat serious topics, or that I take myself overly seriously. Indeed I can be very frivolous and I always maintain a healthy cynicism towards whichever way I happen to see...
In his 2007 book Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism, Costas Douzinas asks “Are human rights a defensive barrier against domination and oppression or the ideological gloss of an emerging empire?” (p.viii) In posts on this blog Douzinas...
