With a foreword by Ján Figel, Special Envoy for Promotion of Freedom of Religion or Belief outside the EU.

What room should be granted to controversial statements and expressions about faith? Should the state subsidize the building of places of worship? How much loyalty to the state can be demanded of religions? Under what

circumstances may the state and religious communities work together to reach a common goal? What does equal treatment of religions mean today?

The debate on the relation ...

Climate change poses tremendous legal challenges. The law is still largely unsettled. Seeing the global consequences of GHG emissions, many enterprises may face litigation before courts in multiple jurisdictions. The outcome of these cases is often hard to predict. It is in the best interest of humankind and the environment to create global obligations, for instance in the form of concrete obligations of States and enterprises, which can be applied by courts around the globe. Using a myriad o...

When Christopher Columbus (circa 1451-1506) arrived at the Bahamas in 1492, it could hardly be predicted that this would result in the most dramatic upheaval in the history of the American continent and the nearby islands. The encounter with the new world inaugurated an era of conquest, colonisation, and economic exploitation by European powers that would last for several centuries. Large numbers of Europeans settled in these newly acquired territories, bringing along their own culture and re...

The seventh edition of this widely utilized handbook provides a user-friendly and original and innovative introduction to comparative constitutional law, with specific reference to liberal democracies and states under the rule of law. For each area of constitutional law of such systems, a general introduction and a comparative overview is provided, followed by more detailed country chapters on that specific area. Though the book focusses extensively on selected countries, references to other ...

Are liberal democracies in decline? If they are, what role does populism play in this? What can and should democracies do to defend their core features against ‘democratic decay’? And which features can be considered essential? These are difficult questions further complicated by the realisation that their answers depend on perspective. Populism and democratic decay are global phenomena but they play out differently in different countries and regions. They also cannot be properly understo...

The book is the extended version of the inaugural lecture given by Professor Petra Bárd on 21 September 2023 on the occasion of her taking up the Chair in Sustainable Rule of Law at the Research Centre for State and Law (SteR) in the Faculty of Law at Radboud University, Nijmegen.

Professor Bárd places the specific manifestation of rule of law deficiencies in the evolution of European criminal justice within a broader constitutional context. She has led the way in reframing the academic and...