The Utopia of Legality: A Comparison between the Polish and Dutch Regulation of the COVID-19 Crisis

Description

Central question: to what extent can the current regulation of the pandemic in Poland and the Netherlands be considered a utopia or dystopia from the viewpoint of the rule of law? Claim: on the one side the present situation is a dystopia, since the current regulation in both countries, at least partly, operates at the border or even outside the confines of the rule of law. Although it is not officially declared, we may be locked up (or locked down) in some sort of state of exception (as Agamben claims). On the other side it constitutes a utopia, since the Dutch government seeks to strengthen the legal basis of the measures taken. So there is the promise (or at least the pretense) of legality. Moreover, the current crisis contains the hope that we can and have to do better (in terms of solidarity, sustainability, the way humans treat nature and animals etc.).

Period	16 Sept 2021
Event title	13th CEE Forum Conference: Political Imagination and Utopian Energies in Central and Eastern Europe
Event type	Conference
Location	Prague, Czech RepublicShow on map