Self-Determination

On 23 November 2022, the UK Supreme Court issued an important judgment on the question of the Scottish referendum. The judges unanimously ruled that the Scottish government could not pass legislation paving the way for the second referendum without the approval of the UK parliament. The reasoning of the UK Supreme Court is heavily based on the…

In a previous post, I introduced the recent decision of the UK Supreme Court that the Scottish parliament lacks the authority to legislate for an independence referendum. This post will focus on the part of the Court’s judgment where it appears to have denied that self-determination applies to Scotland. While it is of course true…

The UK Supreme Court has ruled—unanimously—that the Scottish parliament lacks the authority to legislate for an independence referendum (para 92). Moreover, in passing the Court also appears to have denied that self-determination applies to Scotland. While it is of course true that Scotland is not a colony in the traditional sense, as the Court noted, the ruling…

With its historical denialism, Newspeak and propaganda, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has given new life to George Orwell’s evocation of how political language can be used to obscure or misrepresent reality. Does the same hold true for legal language? On 30 September 2022, following the illegal pseudo-referenda organised by Russia in the occupied areas of…