Justice by Algorithm
Our use of language is under attack from an all-consuming Artificial Intelligence. David Langwallner responds
David Langwallner
Justice by Algorithm
Our use of language is under attack from an all-consuming Artificial Intelligence. David Langwallner responds
Gerry ‘the Monk’ Hutch Challenges Gangsters Inc.
At their inauguration, public leaders must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep to atone for their presumption to hold office – Seamus Heaney, ‘From the Republic of Conscience’ With a Dublin Central by-election on the horizon, Irish politics appears to be descending into GUBU. The ‘grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented’ prospect of alleged crime … Read more
On the Question of Immigration
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is perhaps best understood as the culmination of the Enlightenment tradition of constitutionalism, hedged in legalistic language of proportionality and balance. It asserts that people have a right – or at the very least the right to have rights – to rely on the Convention when a domestic … Read more
Distortions Of Language
What tangled web we weave when our intention is to deceive? Sir Walter Scott The distortion of language lies at the heart of the greatest of threats to human civilisation. It now effects all aspects of the public and civic sphere, from court rooms to journalism to the expression of corporate-political elites. It is … Read more
Public Intellectuals: Voltaire
Voltaire (1694-1778) is the self-invented name of François-Marie Arouet, riffed on a childhood description of him as a determined little man. He belongs in the Panthéon in Paris, old wise and wizened, but eyes sharp and gleaming through the stone. The central figure in the Enlightenment, Voltaire’s legacy is now being systematically dismantled worldwide. It … Read more
A Visit to the Hague
Late last year HHJ Gumpert KC – one of the judges in the formidable fortress that is Woolwich Crown Court the flagship anti-terrorism court in the U.K. – kindly secured for me a visit to the ICC out of court time. The tour was given by a former member of the team he led in … Read more
The Austrian Mind
There still exists – even today – a yearning, a nostalgia for European solidarity, a solidarity of European culture. Regrettably, solidarity itself no longer exists, except in hearts, in consciences, in the minds of a few great men at the heart of each nation. European consciousness – or what one might call a ‘cultural European … Read more
The Relevance of Jurisprudence to Law Part 2
In the first part of this series, London-based barrister, who taught Jurisprudence for sixteen years in the Honorable Society of the King’s Inns in Dublin, David Langwallner takes issue with Irish Supreme Court Justice Gerard Hogan devotion to Legal Positivism, instead arguing morality and politics should inform the law. He elaborates further on that debate … Read more
Guilt and Innocence in the Criminal Justice System Part 2
As the founder of the now seemingly inactive Irish Innocence Project, and co-founder of The European Innocence Network, I staunchly oppose the death penalty, with exceptions for certain Crimes Against Humanity. I have personally visited and represented individuals on death row in Kenya and the U.S.. This underscores the critical need for our legal system … Read more
We are in a new dark age: David Langwallner on Julian Assange
David Langwallner is a barrister working in the U.K.. He has written numerous articles for Cassandra Voices, and was a natural choice to speak to about the Julian Assange case, which shows every sign of drawing towards a dénouement in a London courtroom. Between Tuesday, February 20 and Wednesday, February 21, a strange scene played … Read more
Lessons From the Great Depression (I)
This is the first instalment of a three part essay on the legacy of the Great Depression.. The Great Depression began in 1929, leading Wall Street bankers literally to throw themselves from windows. I was shown one such exit site on 45th Street 5th Avenue in Manhattan. Lives were destroyed as a favourable market collapsed. … Read more
Does Ireland still have a Problem with Whistleblowing?
Over the past few years, a broad consensus has emerged that in Ireland providing adequate protections for whistleblowing, and whistleblowers, is a lot more difficult to achieve in practice than in theory. In many fields, extreme real life consequences for a brave decision to go public with revelations of wrongdoing have been apparent. The protections … Read more
J. G. Ballard: Foreshadowing Collapse
The fusion of mood and setting, the mapping of a landscape of the troubled mind – that is what really matters in Ballard. Martin Amis I have been drawing attention for some time to the disintegration of a neo-liberal world order. The pandemic has delivered the coup de grâce, but the fighter’s limbs had been … Read more
Unforgettable Year: February 2020
By February 15th there was a scent of danger in Bull Moose’s nostrils. Discussing which Democrat candidate would take on Donald Trump – would Mike Bloomberg have beaten Trump? – he brought our attention to coronavirus, a new viral danger emanating from China, which seemed quite exotic at that point. Coronavirus might be the trigger … Read more
Unforgettable Year: January 2020
Here begins our journey back through the #unforgettableyear of 2020… The drone-strike assassination of Qassem Soleimani on January 3rd, 2020 seems a long time ago now, but to our U.S. columnist Bull Moose it suggested a new phase in U.S. involvement in the Middle East. Who knows what would have happened in that region during … Read more
Gradations of Evil: Neoliberalism and Neoconservatism
Since the 1970s, the consistent presence of neoliberalism in politics alongside short, sharp bursts of neoconservatism have shaped our planet to a greater extent than any other ideologies. This has been to the detriment of all but a shrinking cast of billionaires that profit in periods of crisis, even during the pandemic. The prognosis is … Read more
Multiculturalism in an Age of Extremes
I feel that Europe, in its state of degeneracy has passed its own death sentence. Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday, (1942) The Best Lose All Conviction… This piece revisits aspects of The Limits of Multiculturalism – a piece I wrote last year warning of a reversion to the 1930s in terms of austerity, extremism … Read more
Enforcing Environmental Rights
Introduction However scant the support provided by the legal process, as a lawyer I am drawn to rights-driven considerations. In terms of recent context – blinkered by the present over-reaction – Obama’s climate change initiative has been overturned by Trump, who effectively tore up the Kyoto Accord. The internal U.S. solution to climate issues is … Read more
In Conversation with David Langwallner
London-based Barrister David Langwallner, the founder of the Innocence Project in Ireland, responds to the latest interview with Edward Snowden. He distinguishes between private concerns and socio-economic rights; with the latter more urgent than ever during this period of crisis. By comparison, he says, privacy considerations are not essential: ‘the most important human rights are … Read more
It is Time for a Renewed Deal
U.S. President (1932-45) Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born into one of the most aristocratic families in America. A distant cousin, Teddy, had even been elected President. In his youth FDR, as he became known, was a bon vivant and ladies’ man, who strayed from Eleanor, his saintly but formidable wife. This blue blood seemed an … Read more