The COVID-19 Pandemic in Cyprus: A Problematic Legal Regime, and the Potential of Rule of Law in Emergencies

In the first part of this chapter, we shall argue that the legal regime under which most of the COVID-19 measures were adopted in Cyprus is problematic both from the standpoint of the democratic principle and from the standpoint of the meta-principle of rule of law. In the second part, in the context of an analysis of the path that the Republic of Cyprus did not follow, i.e. a Proclamation of Emergency under Art. 183 of the Constitution, we shall see how a "compulsion of legality” (Dyzenhaus) was incorporated into the emergency doctrine upon which the operation of the constitutional order of Cyprus has been based since 1964. The doctrine of necessity in Cyprus illustrates the potential of the rule of law even in emergencies. The "compulsion of legality” which animates the Cypriot version of the doctrine of necessity affirms the importance of legislative action and of judicial review. At least on COVID-19 measures, this compulsion should orient courts away from constructions (such as the doctrine of "actes de gouvernement”) which insulate executive action from judicial scrutiny. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Europa y Japón: socios con valores comunes en un mundo incierto

En un escenario internacional cada vez más incierto, en el que todavía no se ha dejado atrás la pandemia de Covid-19, a lo que se suma la necesidad de gestionar la ilegítima invasión rusa de Ucrania, así como unas relaciones entre Estados Unidos y China cada vez más tensas, Europa y Japón han reafirmado sus vínculos históricos, económicos y políticos con dos acuerdos de asociación, uno de carácter económico y otro estratégico, en vigor desde 2019. El continente asiático se ha convertido, además, en el principal eje geopolítico del mundo, y Japón quiere tener un papel relevante en el nuevo escenario al que ha respondido mediante su iniciativa del Free and Open Indo-Pacific, a la que Europa ha respondido con ciertas reservas. ¿Deben Europa y Japón seguir profundizando en su relación? ¿Cuáles son los ámbitos susceptibles de mejora? El marco adecuado debe ser, en nuestra opinión, el "orden internacional basado en normas" del que ambos actores son claros defensores, y los valores comunes de democracia, Estado de Derecho y protección de derechos fundamentales que los unen.Alternate :In an increasingly uncertain international environment, in which we are still trying to put the Covid-19 pandemic behind us while trying to manage the illegitimate Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the increasingly tense relations between the United States and China, Europe, and Japan have reaffirmed their historical, economic and political ties with two association agreements, one economic and the other strategic, in force since 2019. In addition, the Asian continent has become the geopolitical axis of the world, and Japan wants to play a relevant role through its Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) initiative, to which Europe has responded somewhat hesitantly. Should Europe and Japan continue to deepen their relationship? What are the areas for improvement? The appropriate framework, in our opinion, should be the "rules-based international order" of which the two actors are firm defenders, and the shared values of democracy, rule of law, and protection of fundamental rights that unite them.

Legal Education and Legal Profession During and After COVID-19

This edited volume records the amazing transformations brought about by leaders in legal education and legal profession. It captures experiences and experiments in the governance of law schools and legal profession during the COVID-19 pandemic as case studies;ideas which helped in resilience and which could show the way forward;the psychological, philosophical, and sociological aspects of the transformation;and the spiritual and material sources of motivation of the leadership. The contributions are along the following themes --- The shifting idea of law school: systems and processes;The "new normal” in legal profession;Psychological, philosophical, and sociological aspects of transformation;Experiences from global regions and countries;Legal education and legal profession in a post-COVID world. Through these five themes, and the eighteen contributions, the volume seeks to answer questions like --- how the educational and professional leaders adapted to the circumstances by building a "new normal”? How and to what extent their own legal education and professional experiences informed their actions during the Pandemic? How they re-imagined ambitions and reordered systems and processes? What type of guidance and support they received from the state and regulatory bodies? How they guaranteed the well-being of students, faculty, and staff during the Pandemic and the transition? How they upheld professional values and ethics when contexts of their application collapsed. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.

The Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights in the Coronavirus Pandemic in Germany

The coronavirus pandemic has been a great challenge for most constitutional states in many aspects. This will be illustrated in this contribution taking Germany as an example, with the focus lying mainly on the rule of law principle and fundamental rights, examined in light of the case law developed so far. Notably during the first lockdown, a lot of fundamental rights in Germany were massively curtailed. This is why this unprecedented situation was sometimes qualified as a "state of emergency” or a "corona-dictatorship”, given that the breadth, depth and duration of the encroachments on fundamental rights were, and in some cases still are, exceptionally great. Nevertheless, the following contribution demonstrates that such an approach is misplaced. The German Basic Law ("Grundgesetz”) does not provide for a state of emergency or any other exceptional provisions regarding the interventions in fundamental rights in times of crisis. The traditional model of the separation of powers has proven to be sufficiently flexible to meet the needs for even far-reaching encroachments on fundamental rights on the one hand, and to adequately control and react to these encroachments in accordance with the rule of law on the other. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Economic policy uncertainty, governance institutions and economic performance in Africa: are there regional differences?

In recent years, the global economy has witnessed several uncertainty-inducing events. However, empirical evidence in Africa on the effects of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on economic activities remains scanty. Besides, the moderating effect of governance institutions on the uncertainty-economic performance relationship in Africa and the likelihood of regional differences in the response of economic activities to EPU on the continent are yet to be investigated. To address these gaps, we applied system GMM and quantile regressions on a panel of forty-seven African countries from 2010 to 2019. We find that while global EPU and EPUs from China, USA and Canada exert considerable influence on economic performance in Africa, the effects of domestic EPU and EPUs from Europe, UK, Japan, and Russia were negligible, suggesting that African economies are resilient to these sources of uncertainty shocks. We also find that governance institutions in Africa are not significantly moderating the uncertainty-economic performance relationship. However, our results highlighted regional differences in the response of economic activities to uncertainty, such that when compared to East and West Africa, economic performance in Central, North and Southern Africa is generally more resilient to global EPU and EPUs from China, USA, Europe and UK. We highlighted the policy implications of these findings.

The Covid-19 Pandemic as a Driver of More Responsive Social Procedures: between Theory and Practices in Slovenia

Social and other administrative procedures are gaining importance because of the increasing complexity of administrative relationships brought about by the Covid‐19 pandemic, digitalisation, and other societal changes. When exercising social rights, procedural elements should be seen – both at the level of regulation and enforcement of the rules – as factors contributing to the welfare state, the rule of law, and good administration, and not as an excuse for a bureaucratic attitude. In view of the multifunctionality of social procedures, including their casual‐functional role in social relationships and their potential for a critical value‐based evaluation of the current regulation, the rationale for this study is to assess the impact of the Covid‐19 pandemic on special administrative procedures conducted by the 16 social work centres (SWCs) in Slovenia. A special emphasis is placed on the informational calculation of social assistance payments, such as child benefits, kindergarten subsidies or state scholarships ‐by far the most numerous procedures involving social rights in Slovenia, with over one million cases annually. Drawing upon a normative analysis, available statistics, semi‐structured interviews with SWCs managers and surveys among employees, the findings reveal that the response of SWCs to the crisis has improved. However, largely due to the lack of coordination on the part of the line ministry, the simplifications introduced mainly benefit the public administration rather than particularly vulnerable parties to the procedure. Consequently, there is a need to pay greater attention to providing the parties with adequate protection of their constitutional rights and other elements of good public governance. In addition to analysing the direct practical implications of the legislative, organisational, and IT adaptations to the Covid‐19 pandemic, the article provides a broader study of the multifunctionality of social procedures and their role in ensuring citizens' fundamental rights in times of socially unstable conditions. The findings are thus directly applicable for practitioners deciding on social procedures in the broader European setting, and for policymakers and legislators in the respective fields. As the conclusions are grounded on a strong methodological framework, this should contribute to advocating the much‐needed change in ensuring the protection of the basic constitutional rights in social procedures in times of crisis in Central Europe and beyond. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration & Policy is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Protection of Patients' Rights during a Pandemic

The coronavirus has brought the world unprecedented quarantine measures, border closures, air traffic closures, and restrictions on certain human rights as a result of which patient safety has become a major global health issue. Pursuant to international standards, there are inherent human rights that cannot be restricted under any circumstances. In the research, special attention is paid to the basic principles that must be adhered to when introducing temporary measures to restrict constitutional rights of human rights: the rule of law and the principle of proportionality The paper uses the following scientific methods of cognition: general dialectical method of cognition, systematization, problem-oriented, comparative-legal, special-legal, historical-legal, formal-legal analytical and scientific knowledge. On the basis of these, it can be deduced that as a result of scrutinizing this hitch, the article developed proposals in the field of protecting the rights of patients during a pandemic, as well as proposals for enriching the theoretical apparatus.

Measuring global pandemic governance: how countries respond to COVID-19

Covid-19 is an unprecedented crisis that faces the majority of governments around the world. The pandemic has resulted in substantial changes to government work cultures, financial management, and the implementation of good governance. The paper has shown how these governments react to the crisis caused by Covid-19. We analyse strategy, policy, and financial management when facing Covid-19 and give a result that will contribute to the development of crisis governance field. In this article, we argue that the most successful action in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in high income, upper-middle income, and lower-middle income countries is guided by the implementation of good governance principles. Data used in this research was obtained from the World Health Organization and the World Bank. The results indicate that countries that have been able to manage the COVID-19 pandemic have good governance indicators, such as voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence/terrorism, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption.

ENFRENTAR RIESGOS PARA LA SEGURIDAD SANITARIA EN EL MARCO DE UN ESTADO DE DERECHO. LECCIONES A APRENDER DE LA COVID-19

Este trabajo pone de relieve cómo la pandemia causada por el COVID-19 constituye uno de tantos riesgos globales a los que se enfrentan nuestras sociedades, uno de esos riesgos que han venido para quedarse y que, por lo tanto, exigen una respuesta fuera de los estados de excepcionalidad. Se advierte también de los riesgos y la inseguridad que para los derechos fundamentales supone la dilación en el tiempo de medidas de excepcionalidad, apostando por una regulación por ley orgánica de las situaciones de emergencia sanitaria, la actual o las que podamos vivir en el futuro. La cuestión de cómo valoramos los riesgos y que respuestas reglamos con antelación para afrontarlos constituye hoy un imperativo para la defensa de los derechos fundamentales.Alternate :This paper highlights how the pandemic caused by COVID-19 constitutes one of the many global risks faced by our societies, one of those risks that have arrived to stay. That, therefore, demands a response out of a state of exceptionality. The paper also warns of the risks and insecurity for fundamental rights posed by the delay in the time of exceptional measures, and advocates regulation by organic law of health emergency situations -the current one or those that we may experience in the future-. The question of how we assess the risks and what responses we regulate in advance to face them constitutes today an imperative for the defense of fundamental rights.

Health belief and behaviour: an analysis of the predictors for receiving COVID-19 vaccines in Malaysia

PurposeThe paper examines the ‘Intention to Receive the COVID-19 Vaccines' or IRV from three perspectives: the health belief model, behavioural economics, and institutional quality.Design/methodology/approachThis study provides quantitative analysis by applying Chi-squared test of contingencies, paired sample t-tests, exploratory factor analysis, and multiple linear regression (stepwise method) on the data collected from 591 respondents mainly from Malaysia.FindingsThe results show that Perceived Benefits, Perceived Barriers, Perceived Susceptibility, Herding, and Institutional Quality play roles as predictors of IRV. Perceived Benefits play the most crucial role among the predictors and Perceived Barriers is the least important predictor. People have the herding mentality after being exposed to information encouraging such behaviour.Originality/valueThis study reveals that the respondents changed their behaviour in different circumstances when exposed to information that incorporates the effect of herding. Herding mentality, the effectiveness of government authorities, and regulatory quality have become important factors in enriching public health policies and the effectiveness of interventions.

Populism and Contemporary Democracy in Europe: Old Problems and New Challenges

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of populism on the European democratic polity. In the last two decades, European democracies have come under strain amid growing populism. By asserting the superiority of the majority over the law, of direct democracy over representation, and claiming the necessity to defend national sovereignty against foreign interferences, the populist conception of democracy is in stark contrast with the longstanding Western notion of liberal democracy. This volume investigates populist attempts to radically change what Bobbio called the "rules of the game" of democracy from an eminently legal perspective. Weaving together normative and empirical analysis, the contributions focus on the institutions that have suffered the most from the rise of populism as well as those that have better resisted the populist tide. Special attention will be paid to the Venice Commission's opinions and documents, as they represent the best European standards to evaluate the extent to which populism deviates from constitutional democracy requirements. The book also considers the responses of European States to the explosion of the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has indeed been an accelerator of known and studied trends in most constitutional systems, such as the concentration of powers in the executive hands and the consequential loss of parliament's centrality. Various forms of populism across Europe have thus found an ideal breeding ground to implement their agenda of granting the executive broad regulatory and decision-making powers while loosening parliamentary and judicial checks. Against this backdrop, the book analyses how European democracies should adapt to the challenges posed by the pandemic, as this reflection can help respond to populist threats and propose a way forward for liberal democracy. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

The Legitimacy of EU Soft Law: Still Nothing New or a Turn for The Worse in the Field of State Aid?

This article takes issue with the State aid soft law and its questionable legitimacy, trans-parency and compatibility with the rule of law. Although critics in this regard are almost ‘traditional', the practice of adoption of EU soft law does not imply a conclusion that some-thing is changing in this regard. What is more, the dimensions of the current pandemic seem to emphasize them. Recognising advantages of soft law and the existence of wide discretion of the European Commission this paper looks at the current state of affairs regarding EU soft law in EU State aid regime (and briefly also other EU policies), determines the gap between EU soft law and the rule of law and presupposes solutions that would improve EU soft law's quality in the European integration. © 2022, Lexxion Verlagsgesellschaft mbH. All rights reserved.

Russia's Utilization of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lockdowns, Re-Sovereignization, and Disengagement from the West

This article discusses the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic poses to the current concepts of globalization, universality of human rights, and the rules-based international order. This article discusses how Russia has used the COVID-19 pandemic to accelerate its move away from Western ideas and institutions so as to solidify the power of its executive branch. In particular, this article examines the Russian Constitutional Court in its dealings with both the 2020 Russian constitutional amendments and the government's lockdown measures. This article concludes that the Russian Constitutional Court-which is supposed to serve as a key guarantor of fundamental rights of citizens against the machinery of the state-is becoming increasingly politicized, which threatens the Court's independence. Russia's desire to strengthen the power of the executive branch, to retreat further into traditional notions of sovereignty, and to move away from international norms and institutions, is not unique. The COVID-19 pandemic has served as a powerful catalyst in magnifying and intensifying the existing divisions in the current international order.

Who Deserves European Solidarity? How Recipient Characteristics Shaped Public Support for International Medical and Financial Aid during COVID-19

International solidarity is indispensable for coping with global crises;however, solidarity is frequently constrained by public opinion. Past research has examined who, on the donor side, is willing to support European and international aid. However, we know less about who, on the recipient side, is perceived to deserve solidarity. The article argues that potential donors consider situational circumstances and those relational features that link them to the recipients. Using factorial survey experiments, we analyse public support for international medical and financial aid in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results show that recipient countries' situational need and control, as well as political community criteria, namely, group membership, adherence to shared values and reciprocity, played a crucial role in explaining public support for aid. Important policy implications result: on the donor side, fault-attribution frames matter;on the recipient side, honouring community norms is key to receiving aid.

Guest editorial

Corporate governance and sustainable development in Africa The African continent faces many challenges including extreme poverty, rampant corruption, human rights abuses, environmental degradation (due to extractive industry activities), extreme inequalities, HIV/AIDS, conflicts and weak rule of law. In the context of these many challenges, Africa is strongly featured in the UN 2030 Sustainable Development agenda as most vulnerable and deserving special attention (United Nations General Assembly, 2015). [...]SDGs are particularly relevant to Africa among other development countries. NEPAD in particular, an initiative by the African leadership, emphasises the importance of good governance for achieving sustainable development in Africa and sets out principles to strengthen, not only political governance, but also economic and corporate governance (Hope, 2005). [...]there has always been acceptance that effective firm-level corporate governance is paramount in supporting sustainable development in Africa on the continent (Hope, 2005). Most studies examining the impact of corporate governance in African firms' decision-making processes have focused on firm performance (Mangena et al., 2012;Darko et al., 2016;Assenga et al., 2018;Erena et al., 2022;Abang'a et al., 2022) and corporate reporting (Waweru et al., 2019;Chijoke-Mgbame et al., 2020). [...]our knowledge about whether and how corporate governance contributes to the SDGs or sustainable development principles in Africa remains very limited.

The Rule of Law in a State of Disaster: Evaluating Standards for the Promulgation, Administration and Enforcement of Emergency Regulations in South Africa

This paper applies the rule of law test to emergency regulations adopted to combat a national disaster in South Africa. A declaration of a national state of disaster, such as a pandemic, triggers emergency powers which enable the executive to mitigate the disaster, assist and protect the public, provide relief, and protect property. However, emergency powers provide a pretext for the executive to limit constitutional rights and to curtail the enjoyment of freedoms. These unprecedented powers also pose a risk of arbitrary exercise of public power, which can only be prevented if the promulgation, administration and enforcement of emergency regulations conform to the principles of legality, rationality and proportionality. These principles are understood as tenets of the rule of law in South Africa. They require a strong commitment to respect, protect and promote human rights at a time when they are most vulnerable to violation by the State. Given the role of the judiciary in the maintenance of the rule of law, and the litigation against the emergency regulations adopted in response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper also discusses the ensuing case law to illustrate the practical application of the rule of law test to a national disaster.

Análisis de las Apps Covid en la Unión Europea: entre la excepcionalidad y la protección de los derechos fundamentales

Los retos a los que se enfrenta la Unión Europea crean en ocasiones situaciones de tensión, en las que la organización debe responder al mismo tiempo a la protección y garantía de los derechos fundamentales de su ciudadanía, y a necesidades de índole global que excepcionalmente requieren la suspensión de esos mismos derechos por un bien mayor. Este fue el caso durante la pandemia de 2020, en el que la Unión Europea y los Estados miembros decretaron cuarentenas en contra de la libertad de movimiento, para restringir los contactos e intentar contener los contagios. En este contexto se produjo también una implementación de políticas digitales para afrontar la gestión de la crisis, en concreto nos referimos a las aplicaciones covid de rastreo y vigilancia de los contactos entre individuos. Estas aplicaciones estaban sujetas a los requisitos y garantías del marco legislativo comunitario, que hemos visto evolucionar en los últimos dos años, para hacer frente a la creciente digitalización de los servicios públicos. El caso de las aplicaciones covid es paradigmático para observar cómo se ha producido esa adaptación. La injerencia de los estados de forma excepcional durante la crisis, pero regulada hoy en instrumentos de coordinación comunitarios, ha creado nuevos marcos de navegación en internet. Los usuarios cuentan ahora con un nuevo nivel de protección de sus datos personales y su derecho a la privacidad, que si bien venía garantizada por el Reglamento de Protección de Datos (679/2016), ha dado un importante paso adelante con la aceleración de la digitalización de la administración durante la pandemia. Además, a través de una crítica desde la teoría contractual, podemos ver cómo la Unión Europea ha respondido a las dinámicas globales a nivel de normativa digital, priorizando hoy un sistema de contrapesos y límites tanto a las empresas como a las administraciones públicas, en su intercambio con los usuarios en internet. Las aplicaciones covid materializan esas limitaciones y garantías de protección de los usuarios (esencialmente de su privacidad y derechos fundamentales), que nos llevan a plantear la creación de un nuevo contrato social digital, igual que se ha transformado en otras ocasiones para responder a cuestiones como la clase, el género, la raza y la ecología.Alternate :The challenges facing the European Union (EU) can sometimes create tensions, in which the organization must answer both to the protection and guarantee of the fundamental rights of its citizens, and to global needs that exceptionally require the suspension of those same rights for the greater good. In its liberal political tradition that believes in the existence of a public and a private sphere, it has established systems of checks and balances, rule of law and stable institutions to protect the rights and freedoms of its citizens.Yet sometimes these must be suspended in cases of exceptionality for their own preservation. This was the case during the 2020 pandemic, when the European Union and its member States decreed quarantines against the consolidated and fundamental freedom of movement of persons, to restrict contacts and try to contain contagions. In this context, digital policies were also implemented to deal with crisis management, like Covid applications for tracing and monitoring contacts between individuals. This invasion of the private sphere of citizens had to be accompanied by a set of limitations and guarantees, to protect this inherent and private individual's right. These applications were subject to the requirements of the European legislative framework (the commonly known acquis communautaire), which included several legal instruments laid out by the EU to create a framework to guide the performance of its member-state Governments on this matter. Apart from the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive, we underline the importance of Recommendation (EU) 2020/518 that connects health rights, health management and data protection;and also, the importance of Communication 2020/C 124 I/01 th t set a series of ideal elements to guide apps functions, and established the importance that it is Government agencies that manage digital apps, so there is a guarantee of the protection of citizens' rights. Through the comparative study of how apps were managed when they first appeared in 2020 throughout most of 2021, and how apps evolved (both in management and use) in 2021 and throughout 2022, we can address the evolution of EU policy on digital matters, which have meant to create new frameworks for internet navigation. At first, there were 24 different apps for the 24 out of 27 Member States who decided to create and promote the use of these instruments among their citizens. Most of them were managed by national authorities (except for Austria and Romania who were managed by Red Cross and a local NGO respectively), and were developed by a public-private collaboration, or only public agencies.At the end of the crisis, at least politically since societal weariness and the economic crisis rendered it difficult to keep up the restrictions introduced in the spring of 2020, in June 2021 the EU created its GreenPass or vaccination passport.This policy was implemented in most countries and even though 24 different national health services were still in place, they all used the EU passport, available to citizens via their national health websites or apps. Even though the exceptionality of the pandemic has ended, one of the outcomes has been the establishment of a system of data gathering, storage and management for public means, managed by National Authorities, which has technically created a digital contract where the State guarantees citizens' digital rights. This is even more important as we attend to an increase in the digitalization of public services, especially since 2020.The changes were thus promoted in a state of exception during the crisis to regulate Government interference in the citizen's private sphere but have laid a roadmap for the development of the digital framework, which may lead to the conclusion of a digital social contract. The social contract appears in the EU's liberal tradition as a metaphor of the relation between the State and the individual, it defines the notion of sovereignty as the set of rights possessed by the citizen that may be subject to special protection. Hence, the social contract serves as the basis for creating modern societies, yet it is not permanent and can (and will) change when societies change accordingly. Several critiques have been made to the original social contract, creating new and developed contracts, including the class critique (from worker's movements and Marxism during the 19th Century to Piketty's present denouncing of social inequalities), the gender critique (as Carole Pateman's Sexual Contract puts it, the social contract institutionalized patriarchy), the racial critique (where Charles W. Mills develops the gender critique from a racial point of view where the social contract created a system of domination by the Western world) and finally the environmental critique (where its advocates claim for an eco-social contract or a nature social contract that shifts the approach to a bio-centric system). Therefore, the contract serves as a theoretical framework that can be changed, and in this case, it challenges the evolution towards a digital social contract. The evolution of internet and tech structures that support the web and its processes has been marked by three stages: its birth in the 80s by the hand of the State and linked to military research;its deregulation during the 90s and the privatization of the main telecommunications enterprises (in the case of the EU, the digital policy followed this trend);and the consolidation of a digital sphere in the 21st century, where the EU has taken a step back and created a set of instruments to guarantee the protection and freedom of its citizens when they navigate the internet. We can see how the EU has responded to global dynamics at the level of digital regulation, prioritizing today a multistakeholder system with s veral actors, and counterweights and limits for both companies and public administrations in their exchange with users on the internet. With the emergence of new spaces for social relations such as in the digital sphere, new types of sovereignty must be considered in order to guarantee the rights and privacy of users (we must not forget the importance of the separation between spheres, as fear liberalism reminds us, and of limiting exceptionality to those circumstances that really appear as such). Once the foundations on which the model of digital guarantees can be developed have been laid, the next step can be the creation of a real digital contract between users and the state on the internet. However, the contract is but an idea of reason for understanding politics and institutions, which begs the question of what digital politics we aspire to as societies.

Intellectual capital and institutional governance as capital structure determinants in the tourism sector

PurposeThis study investigates the capital structure determinants of the Middle East tourism sector by examining intellectual capital (IC) efficiency and institutional governance along with firm-specific and macroeconomic variables. This research also identifies the determinants of capital structure for tourism companies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and non-GCC countries.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 45 listed tourism companies of nine Middle Eastern countries over five years from 2014 to 2018. The data were analysed using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and checked for robustness using the generalised methods of moment (GMM) estimation.FindingsOverall, the results indicate that tourism companies rely more on short-term debt (STD) than long-term debt (LTD), thus decreasing liquidity and increasing financial risk. Furthermore, tourism companies in non-GCC countries have higher IC efficiency compared to those in GCC countries. The aggregate institutional index is much higher for GCC countries compared to non-GCC countries. The OLS estimations suggest IC efficiency and institutional governance index provide inconclusive evidence as a determinant of capital structure proxy. High capital employed efficiency (CEE) is associated with more leverage for tourism firms. Theoretically, the results support pecking order and trade-off theories due to the relationships between firm-specific indicators and debt.Originality/valueThis study closes the gap in the capital structure debate by providing valuable insights into IC efficiency and institutional governance. These two factors serve as capital structure determinants in the Middle East and the GCC and non-GCC regions.

The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Constitutionalism and the State of Emergency

The emanation of the Covid-19 global pandemic has managed to influence specific legal, political and socio-economic aspects. Public health, public institutions, as well as concepts such as: the rule of law, restriction of certain human rights and socio-economic wellbeing became characteristics of the global pandemic and as such triggered a state of emergency. The pandemic cannot be a justified pretext for an unlimited suspension of democracy. Indeed, restrictions on civil rights and liberties ought to be interim, proportional and transparent. Although the emergency measures taken by governments against the Covid-19 should be provisional, timebound and in congruence with democracy as any contemporary political regime or state governed by the rule of law. This situation once again revealed to us the importance of a constitutional state of emergency guided by public law in its forms and examples of comparative constitutional law regarding events which in 2020 demanded the emergence and function of public institutions in an effort to protect society. The state of emergency is regulated by the Constitution of the Republic of North Macedonia of 1991 in general which gives the government expansive power, such as bypassing the parliament's power through issuing acts by force of law. It is worth mentioning that in North Macedonia there is no lex specialis or special legislative act that regulates a state of emergency.

The Rule of Law Tested by covid-19: The Case of Gabon

In Gabon, the covid-19 crisis was accompanied by the adoption of emergency measures to respond to the health emergency caused by the pandemic. According to the texts in force, these measures should be necessary, non-discriminatory and strictly proportional to the health catastrophe. However, the governmental measures were accompanied by an infringement of fundamental rights and freedoms. Also, they have sometimes been taken outside of any legal framework. Thus, the objective of this article is to study the conformity of health emergency measures to the rule of law in Gabon. The method used to conduct this study is based on comparative law. It consisted mainly in comparing the legal responses to covid-19 in Gabon with those used in the country that seems to have inspired them, France. Similarly, an analysis was made of all the decisions rendered by the Gabonese constitutional court. This study shows that government measures have had a deleterious effect on the rule of law, further weakening its structure. The security response to the covid-19 crisis and the increase in inequality due mainly to government measures to combat covid-19 could have damaging effects that could extend well beyond the period of the pandemic. © 2023 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden.