The Minerva Center for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions at the University of Haifa is an international venue and transnational forum – together with the University of Hamburg, for study, research, training, education and publication. Its mission is to focus on the rule of law, broadly defined to include policy and regulation, under extreme (emergency) situations. Please see our website.
Two years ago the Center began a comparative research project on legal arrangements for coping with emergencies in a range of democratic countries.
Our research products so far include overviews of the legal frameworks applicable to emergencies in 11 countries (soon to be expanded to 13). These overviews summarize data on constitutional and legal arrangements collected from constitutions, primary and secondary legislation, as well as secondary sources in each country. The data was classified according to two dimensions: temporal (before, during or after the emergency) and type (natural disasters; armed conflicts and terrorism; political and economic meltdowns).
The overviews address the following issues: The constitutional and legislative framework (constitutions, generic or specific laws); Entry into an emergency (the definition of an emergency, declarations, termination, and various laws that take effect following a declaration); Powers before, during, and after an emergency, including the division of powers (who is legally empowered to act or to command action in different fields); Rights in an emergency (does the emergency enable the derogation or violation of protected rights and under which conditions).
We wish to culminate this current stage of the research with an international conference bringing together legal scholars who focus on emergency situations in the countries studied: Argentina, Britain, The Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, Turkey, United States. We hope the conference will enable a scholarly discussion on different models of regulation and legal mechanisms for coping with emergency situations, and encourage a comparison of the various legal solutions and structures. The conference will be held at the University of Hamburg, Germany during the summer of 2015.
The next stage of research will focus on 2-3 case studies, in which ‘law in action’ or governance will be examined. The final stage will be the development of a theoretical framework and identification of positive and normative models of emergency law. It is hoped that the Hamburg conference will spark the interest of some of the participants who may be interested in collaborating on the next stages as well.
We are trying to identify (for the purpose of inviting conference participants) legal scholars who focus on emergency situations in the following countries: Argentina, Britain, The Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, Turkey, United States.
If you know of relevant scholars who may be interested in participating, please send us their contact information and we will contact them directly. Thank you in advance!
Sincerely,
Dr. Michal Ben Gal
Academic coordinator
