A document containing all lecture notes for the course Security and the Rule of Law, excluding lecture 3. The document also contains summaries of the following course literature: Waldron (2023), Sanders (2018), Wilmhurst (2021), Mavronicola (2021)
Security and the Rule of Law
Lecture 1: Conceptual framing
What is Security and the Rule of Law
> analyse security necessities and issues in relation to legal structures and norms
> not about evaluating the legality of specific actions and practices but demonstrating you understand
the need to balance necessities with rights and freedoms.
What is law?
> the law is set of legal rules that governs the way members of a society act towards one another
> behavioural codes that guide people into actions that conform to societal expectation
> laws are norms supported by codified social sanctions – based on culture and history
> necessary for order (& justice?)
Sources of law
The function of the law?
> order (security)
- essential prerequisite of a society
- by providing order, law provides the security that facilitates social and political development
- so: the soverein is the only actor responsible for public security and the only one that can
lawfully and legitimately use violence (monopoly of the use of force)
> internal sovereignty
- superiorem no recognoscens: the highest governing authority in a country
- state-society relations: how the government rules the domestic society
> external sovereignty
- both the government and the domestic society make up the state
- juridical statehood: more about constitutional independence and empirical elements of
statehood + recognition of other states
- ‘empiricial’ statehood: more about the legitimacy of who is in power
so the state gets to be sovereign
> the legal State authority (gewalt) and public authority allow the State to exercise its right to control
the others (protestas).
- entitlement to use force necessary for protection of common good, meaning collective
interests as ‘everyone was entitled to see to their rights, if needed be by force of arms’
,> general relationship of power is part of the State and it exists regardless of the type of state or
constitution
However: strict relationship between law and politics
> with politics, come questions about justice and its relationship with order (security)
> different political regimes have a different balance between law & politics, i.e. different countries
have different legal regimes, traditions & sensitives
> specifically of democratic rule & politics: balance between legal policy and political policy
Functions of law
> order (security)
- essential prerequisite of a society
- by providing order, law provides the security that facilitates social and political development
> justice
- more contested – different philosophical and political definitions
- overall:
- fairness
- moral rightness
- a scheme or system of law in which every person receives their due from the system,
including all rights, both natural and legal
Bedner (2010) – elementary approach to the RoL
> 1st category: procedural elements
> 2nd category: substantive elements
> 3rd category: controlling mechanisms
The Rule of Law - Procedural Elements
> rule by law (consistency)
> state actions subject to law (impartiality)
> formal legality (predictability)
> democracy (rationality)
→ purpose is to limit the exercise of the coercive powers of the government: protection of
citizens against the State
The Rule of Law - Substantive Elements
> principles of justice (BUT: the meaning of justice is a political creation)
> protection of individual rights and liberties → still largely protection of citizens against state
> protection of social rights and liberties → use of state resources to increase the welfare of its
citizens (and potentially protect them from each other)
> protection of group rights and liberties → mixture
→ purpose is dual: protection of citizens against the State & protection of citizens against each
other
(The Rule of) Law and Justice
> Derrida (1990): justice as a political concept
, > doing justice means giving what is due → balancing competing claims and dealing fairly with
all parties
> necessary ideal, a horizon towards which is the best impulses of human civilisation are directed
> but also different ideas about what a just society is (social contract philosophies: Hobbes, Rousseau,
Locke, Rawls)
> Think about the debate between equality & equity
Control mechanisms
> trials political
- separation of legislative, executive and judicial power
- checks and balances
> other guardian institutions
So the state gets to be sovereign, but…
> the state is limited in its sovereignty by the procedural and substantive principles of the Rule of Law
> the states is limited in how it organizes itself by the control elements that need to be built in to
protect the Rule of Law
- to some extent self-imposed
> The Westphalian system dictates that states should not interfere in the internal affairs of other states.
And if they do, other states have the right to protect themselves and to potentially protect other states.
> After WW2, increased relevance of humanitarian principles to give states & the international
community the right – and perhaps even an obligation – to intervene and protect people from violence
and abuse, also from their own governments (so a limitation of the Westphalian principles).
Different levels of law
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