Short Cuts: The Article 50 Hearing

Andrew O’Hagan, 5 January 2017

On the last day​ of the Article 50 hearing before the Supreme Court, Lord Kerr, one of 11 justices hearing the appeal, looked pointedly at James Eadie QC, who was responding on behalf of the...

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Short Cuts: The ICC

Stephen W. Smith, 15 December 2016

The​ South African president, Jacob Zuma, has notified the United Nations of his country’s decision to leave the International Criminal Court in The Hague and is encouraging other African...

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Who speaks for the state? Brexit in Court

Frederick Wilmot-Smith, 1 December 2016

What is the proper distribution of power between Parliament and the executive?

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Great Again: America’s Heidegger

Malcolm Bull, 20 October 2016

From 1930​ until the end of his life, Heidegger kept a private philosophical journal in a series of black notebooks. He intended it to be published as the very last of his collected works, but...

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What are we allowed to say?

David Bromwich, 22 September 2016

Two contradictory thoughts now dominate the Anglo-American approach to feelings in the context of public debate. For the speaker, feelings must be restrained – a neutral style of rational euphemism...

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The Overlooked: The Deobandis

Owen Bennett-Jones, 8 September 2016

Largely​ because 15 of the 19 hijackers involved in the 9/11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism is often cited as the fountainhead of violent jihadism, but that is to make too much of...

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More than a Religion: ‘What Is Islam?’

Malise Ruthven, 8 September 2016

For many years​ now – and especially since 9/11 – there has been much strongly felt disagreement about what Islam is. Is it a religious faith like Christianity, where theological...

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Resistance to Torpor: The Rule of Law

Stephen Sedley, 28 July 2016

When​ the Earl of Bute resigned as prime minister in April 1763 it looked as if the North Briton, a paper whose vituperative attacks had dogged his administration, had achieved its ambition and...

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Philippe Sands elicits the most extraordinary revelations in his exploration of the ‘great action’ of August 1942, when the Jews of Lemberg were sent to their deaths.

Read more about Except for His Father: The Origins of Genocide

Active, Passive, or Dead? Sovereignty

Martin Loughlin, 16 June 2016

In the run-up​ to the EU referendum, the Leave campaign has struggled to win the argument about jobs, prosperity, the value of the pound in your pocket and world peace, but has felt on safer...

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If We Leave

Francis FitzGibbon, 16 June 2016

If​ Britain votes to leave the EU it will take several years to disentangle what’s to be kept and what discarded from our EU-saturated legislation. The law of the European Union has left...

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Murder in Mayfair

Peter Pomerantsev, 31 March 2016

As he lay dying Alexander Litvinenko solved his own murder and foresaw the future: a professional detective on his last case, with himself as the victim.

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Short Cuts: Snooping on Migrants

Frances Webber, 31 March 2016

In October​ 2015, the government amended the ministerial code, removing all references to the obligation on ministers to comply with international law when carrying out their duties. This quiet...

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Is it a condition on the acceptability of warfare that those who kill should put their lives on the line?

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Joint Enterprise

Francis FitzGibbon, 3 March 2016

Until​ the Supreme Court gave its landmark judgment in R. v. Jogee on 18 February, it was possible for someone to be convicted of a crime which they did not personally commit or intend to...

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It is striking how many Catholic organisations seem to do a whole range of lucrative things they were never set up to do, while still enjoying tax exemption as religious institutions.

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Miracle on Fleet Street: Operation Elveden

Martin Hickman, 7 January 2016

On​ 11 December, the director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, announced that all outstanding cases against Mirror Group journalists for phone hacking would be dropped, and that no...

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In such a Labyrinth: Hume

Jonathan Rée, 17 December 2015

Back​ in 1954, the American critic Ernest Campbell Mossner brought out a Life of David Hume that was not only a pioneering work of scholarship but also a labour of love. Mossner wanted to...

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