Much has been written on the constitutional overhaul in Israel, and the attendant constitutional crisis in the first nine months of 2023. Since October 7, however, with the breakout of the Israel-Gaza war, the overhaul was seemingly shelved. This Article seeks to connect both events, by comparing the legal-political response to the overhaul with the legal-political response to the war. It asks why, given the intensity of the protest movement generated by the overhaul, there was a dearth of protest activity after the war, even though both events implicated similar values, namely the rule of law and individual rights, championed by the protest movement. I argue that a central reason for the disparity cannot only be explained by the dynamics of war but also due to the tensions and complexities inherent in Israel’s self-professed constitutional identity as a Jewish and democratic state. In particular, I argue that anti-overhaul protests appealed to liberal universalist values to garner bipartisan support, with the effect of bypassing substantive issues such as the occupation of the Palestinian Territories and discrimination faced by Israeli Palestinians. This explains the lack of Arab participation in the protests, as many perceived them to be an internal Jewish Affair. Thus, when post-war repressive measures mostly affected Israeli Palestinians, the protest movement failed to rally in their support. Although anti-overhaul protests could have brought about greater liberal consolidation in Israel, the relative lack of post-war mobilization casts lingering doubts on the possibility of long-term consolidation of liberal values in Israel. Attempts to depoliticize the protests, while perhaps successful in warding off the overhaul, and though impressive on their own, have likely failed in instilling deeper, more resilient, liberal values in Israel.

Borders are ubiquitous. As invisible lines, they contribute to a functioning world order and guarantee security for the people. In the form of walls and fences, they divide society and establish strongholds of prosperity that are not accessible to everyone. A similar effect can be observed in connection with the concept of citizenship, which binds people fatefully to a particular territory and thus significantly determines an individual’s life chances. This article shows how borders and their protection as well as the concept of citizenship challenge fundamental ideas of justice and traces discourses that seek to evolve the current border and citizenship regimes into a more universal and just form of human coexistence.

Deprivation of national citizenship is one of the strategies used to counter the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters, that is, individuals traveling abroad for the purpose of terrorism. This Article begins with a short overview of the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights on the deprivation of citizenship. In these cases, the contestation of the deprivation of citizenship was based on the infringement of the rights to private and family life. We then turn to the limits imposed by EU law on decisions made by national authorities of Member States concerning citizenship deprivation of foreign terrorist fighters. Focusing on recent cases of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concerning the European citizenship, we address the evolving role that EU law plays in the assessment of the proportionality of Member States’ decisions to strip individuals of national citizenship. We also consider the national practice, focusing on a recent decision in Denmark. In addition, we consider legal issues arising from the repatriation of Foreign Terrorist Fighters and their children. We argue that EU citizenship thus offers a further layer of protection against the deprivation of citizenship and that Member States are under a positive obligation to repatriate EU citizens who are the children of Foreign Terrorist Fighters on account of the case-law stemming from the Ruiz-Zambrano and X (Thai national) cases. For the moment, no common approach to repatriation of foreign fighters, or their children, is taken by EU member States in the context of the EU.

This article presents a “glocal” method of comparative constitutional interpretation. In the debate on the judicial use of foreign ideas, transnationalists claim to propose a simultaneously global and local approach. However, they perpetuate the methodological nationalism of globalists and localists by assuming nations as their primary units of analysis. In contrast, this article advances a truly glocal theory of judicial interpretation. The glocal is the product of a constant interplay between the global and the local, from the inception of an idea to its practical judicial application. This approach follows a three-step process. First, it provides a multiscale toolkit to demonstrate that ideas may have never been purely national in the first place but are the result of plural hybridizations. Second, it uncovers the units that generate and disseminate constitutional knowledge: trans-territorial networks united by thematically shared beliefs rather than by nationality or a global mission. Third, it equips judges with the ability to glocalize or customize the idea, not as an exercise of national differentiation but as a strategy to make it epistemically familiar and more politically appealing to the network. In this way, the article critically engages with the debate on constitutional transplants, challenging its nationalist bias.

The EU Return Directive demands that immigrant detention be as short as possible, but, by logical implication, this also means that detention can be as long as necessary. What concerns the maximum length of detention, the Return Directive is remarkably generous: Immigrants can be detained for a period of up to eighteen months—a deprivation of liberty that is otherwise justified only as punishment for serious crimes. The practice of such long-term detention, now burgeoning, is highly questionable for moral, practical, and—our focus—legal reasons.

The European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) provides the relevant yardstick. While discussions on the legality of immigrant detention have focused on requirements of necessity, we shift attention towards the surprisingly absent question of maximum duration. Our analysis delves into the drafting context of the ECHR to reveal that it only authorizes the pre-removal detention of immigrants for markedly short periods. Picking up the interpretative canon of the regime, we note that meanings can of course change, but we argue that it is a legal mistake to consider that long-term detention is now sanctioned by the Convention.

The digital revolution has transformed the dissemination of messages and the construction of public debate. This article examines the disintermediation and fragmentation of the public sphere by digital platforms. Disinformation campaigns, that aim at assuming the power of determining a truth alternative to reality, highlight the need to enhance the traditional view of freedom of expression as negative freedom with an institutional perspective. The paper argues that freedom of expression should be seen as an institution of freedom, an organizational space leading to a normative theory of public discourse. This theory legitimizes democratic systems and requires proactive regulation to enforce its values.

Viewing freedom of expression as an institution changes the role of public power: this should not be limited to abstention but instead has a positive obligation to regulate the spaces where communicative interactions occur. The article discusses how this regulatory need led to the European adoption of the Digital Services Act (DSA) to correct DPs through procedural constraints. Despite some criticisms, the DSA establishes a foundation for a transnational European public discourse aligned with the Charter of Fundamental Rights and member states’ constitutional traditions.