Julian Scholtes

Quote from the piece by author Or Bassok: “The Behemoth narrative conceals a much more complex reality which is saturated with law, and in which legal academia supports the agents producing this law.”

What is the role of law in the Gaza war?

To OR BASSOK, the reality in Israel is not a story of a struggle between those who speak in the name of law against the lawless Behemoth.

It's more complex than that: both sides are speaking the language of law.

verfassungsblog.de/fraenkel-isr...

Thank you so much – I'm glad you enjoyed the article. Your own work was extremely helpful to figuring out my conceptual framework!

While the article is principally about the VC, it raises wider questions about how we imagine European constitutionalism and how forms of hierarchy and difference engrained in our constitutional imagination can potentially fuel illiberal backlash.

I look in particular at the differentiation between 'new' and 'established' democracies common throughout the VC's standards, as well as the idea of 'European constitutional heritage' prominent in the VC's work.

The Venice Commission and the Mental Map of European Constitutionalism - Hague Journal on the Rule of Law The Venice Commission is known to differentiate its constitutional advice depending on whether a state is considered a ‘new’ or an ‘established’ democracy. This article gives an account of the distinc...

My newest in the Hague J on the Rule of Law: a critical study of the work of the Venice Commission. I argue that aspects of the VC's work sheds light on our 'mental map' of European constitutionalism, emphasising above all an East-West binary.

Read it here:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Excited to be on research leave for the next six months – the first unfettered research time I've had in four years. I'm looking at an open field with many ideas but no clear plan yet, which makes it all the more exciting. If you've ever wanted to get in touch on research matters, now is the time!

The article uses Solange I as a window through which we can critically examine the doctrinal connection between constitutional identity and unamendability that has become so prevalent, and casts doubt on its cogency and usefulness.

I argue that the Court's conception of constitutional identity in Solange I was very different from its later conception of CI in the Lisbon judgment of 2009: Whereas the constitutional identity of Lisbon is strictly tied to unamendability and the eternity clause, the identity of Solange I wasn't.

New article out in @zaoerv.bsky.social as part of a special issue on the 50th anniversary of the German CC's Solange I judgment. Read it here: doi.org/10.17104/0044-2348-2025-2-547

This (and related measures in the EU's Area of Freedom, Security and Justice - FSJ) causes yet another conceptual headache for understanding the Windsor Framework (like we didn't have enough). 1/

Such an interesting provision – I had to think about it in the context of a hypothetical ECHR withdrawal a while back and it got me worked up about the temporal horizon of that provision, as well!

An intellectually fascinating (and entertaining) engagement with Armin von Bogdandy's 'European society' project by Martin Loughlin: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Quote from our published article by author Jennifer Orlando-Salling: “New pathways towards understanding the rule of law’s deficiencies emerge from investigating contexts “upwards” or from below, problematising the rule of law’s imperial and colonial blind spots.”

In our newest contribution to our symposium “Controversies over Methods in EU Law II” JENNIFER ORLANDO-SALLING explores how decolonial approaches in European Law offer a constructive space towards dialogue and reconstruction.

verfassungsblog.de/decolonialit...

A Law Letter on FWS v Scottish Ministers A coalition of legal academics have drafted a letter setting out our support for trans rights and our concerns about the FWS v Scottish Ministers UKSC ruling. We are opening it up for signature to ev...

A group of us law academics put together a letter on FWS v Scottish Ministers UK Supreme Court ruling & we are asking other *UK based law folk* (academic activist practitioner etc) to sign

More details 👇

#transrights #trans #transgender #lawsky #academicsky #UKlaw

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Glad to see this out on the UKCLA blog, especially as it shows that the Court completely neglected the HRA/ECHR arguments brought by Amnesty International in their submission. So, even taking at face value claims that this decision was 'purely' about statutory interpretation, it is seriously wanting

To make the field even more confusing, there's also the mass grant of citizenship to the Hungarian minority in Romania by the Orbán government – equally tied to language/culture/etc. but strategically motivated by the interest of establishing a new class of loyal Orbán supporters.

"yeet the rich"

Nice.

Pirates of the Mediterranean meet judges of the Kirchberg: the CJEU rules on Malta’s investor citizenship law Steve Peers , Professor of Law, Royal Holloway University of London* Photo credit : Aldo Ardetti, via Wikimedia Commons *Thanks to Jus...

Blogged
Pirates of the Mediterranean
The CJEU rules against Malta's investor citizenship law - my analysis: eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2025/04/pira...

A screenshot of the title (“Civilizational Hierarchies and the Notion of ‘Europe’ in the European Convention on Human Rights”) and abstract of the paper available at the link above

📄 New article:

Colonialism continues to shape the project of European human rights. In this article I trace the continuity of civilizational hierarchies in the ECtHR’s case-law on extraterritoriality and European consensus

Available in EJIL @ejiltalk.bsky.social: academic.oup.com/ejil/advance...

This isn't anything an "independent" statutory body would ever produce. It's an unworkable overreach by a politically motivated actor that should not be a statutory body anymore.

Planned Call for applications: Ten doctoral research positions

🚨📢Come work with us! We at
Humboldt University’s law faculty have an amazing Easter present for all EU law aficionados!

The DFG Research Training Group DynamInt offers 12 fully funded PhD positions in the area of European law starting from October 2025!

www.rewi.hu-berlin.de/en/lf/oe/rhp...

Screenshot of an Associated Press article titled “UK’s top court says definition of a woman is based on biological sex and excludes transgender people.” The subheadline reads: “The ruling means that a transgender person with a certificate that recognizes them as female should not be considered a woman for equality purposes.” Below the headline is a photo of two smiling women holding hands and raising their arms in apparent celebration. One wears a green cardigan and pants; the other wears a black blazer and floral blouse. The article is by Sylvia Hui, Brian Melley, and Jill Lawless, and was updated at 12:55 PM EDT on April 16, 2025.

There's maybe no photo that better defines this ghastly era than these people celebrating the right to deny shelter to homeless trans women in the name of female empowerment.

Tentative First Thought - Today's UKSC ruling in For Women Scotland divides UK jurisdictions - the Equality Act doesn't apply in NI and trans people in NI have protections under some EU law (applicable through Art 2 Windsor Framework) which does grant trans people protections based on sex.

Not sure how closely the situations compare: From what I read, CG's disqualification was based on CCR precedent established in D. Șoșoacă's case, which was based on candidates' compliance with constitutional values - which makes that case at least more fuzzy as to connection to 'political views'.

www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...

I'll be giving a talk at the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law next Wednesday (26 March, 4pm) – some reflections on the standards of the Venice Commission and what they tell us about our 'mental map' of European constitutionalism. Registration link below!

One might also think that we'd be better off if, vice versa, *certain* people *hadn't* paid so much attention...

This is not to deny that Georgescu is a very dangerous figure, but only to point out that his snake-oil salesmanship instrumentalises actual problems that have been ignored.

On March 11, 2025, the Romanian Constitutional Court rejected a candidacy in do-over May elections for Georgescu – an ultranationalist, MAGA-style firebrand.

BOGDAN IANCU offers a fascinating comparison with the timeless H.G. Wells' The Time Machine:

verfassungsblog.de/romanian-mil...

Full text of today's Advocate General's opinion on the Polish constitutional Court - independence and primacy of EU law
curia.europa.eu/juris/docume...

Possibly the most head-on the Court/an AG has faced constitutional identity yet. The AG refutes connection between CI (as asserted by national CCs) and Art 4(2) TEU and asserts that "it is for the Court to settle definitively any conflict between EU law and the CI of a MS".