Richard Albert and Yaniv Roznai (eds.) “Constitutionalism Under Extreme Conditions – Law, Emergency, Exception” (Springer, 2020).
The book is the result of an international conference organized by the Minerva Center for the Rule of Law Under Extreme Conditions in July 2016. It explores and interrogates how public law manages change in periods of extraordinary pressure on the constitution. It includes 24 chapters, divided into five main parts. In Part I, “Emergency, Exception and Normalcy,” the contributors discuss the practices and methods that could be used to help legitimize the use of emergency powers without compromising the constitutional principles that were created during a period of normalcy. In Part II, “Terrorism and Warfare,” the contributors assess how constitutions are interpreted during times of war, focusing on the tension between individual rights and safety. Part III, “Public Health, Financial and Economic Crises,” considers how constitutions change in response to crises that are neither political in the conventional sense nor violent, which also complicates how we evaluate constitutional resilience in times of stress. Part IV, “Constitutionalism for Divided Societies,” then investigates the pressure on constitutions designed to govern diverse, multi-national populations, and how constitutional structures can facilitate stability and balance in these states. Part V, titled “Constitution-Making and Constitutional Change,” highlights how constitutions are transformed or created anew during periods of tension. The book concludes with a rich contextual discussion of the pressing challenges facing constitutions in moments of extreme pressure.