Lord Hermer KC has done it again. Delivering RUSI’s annual security lecture this week, the Attorney General set out to ‘depolarise’ the debate about international law, before promptly comparing those who are open to withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) with Carl Schmitt, the notorious German jurist who joined the Nazi party in 1933. If Lord Hermer’s intention truly was to lower the political temperature, and to help to broaden the base of support for the government’s approach to international law, his speech must be judged a failure. Perhaps his choice of words was simply clumsy, as he has since said, although the text as a whole suggests otherwise.
Lord Hermer’s approach to international law is incompatible with our political history and constitutional tradition
The Attorney’s speech mentions Schmitt, and a Schmittian approach to the rule of law, four times, linking him not only to the Nazis but also to Putin’s aggression against Ukraine.
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