Abstract
Within Scandinavia, Sweden stands out for not having gone to war in over 200 years. Its neighboring states—Finland, Denmark, and Norway—have not been as fortunate. Their respective constitutions each provide insight into their different experiences. The Swedish Constitution remains silent on emergency situations that do not rise to the predefined level of “war.” The Finnish constitution differs from the Swedish in that it allows for time-limited restrictions to protect fundamental rights and freedoms during a state of emergency, aggression, or any other situation that poses a severe threat to the nation, if stipulated by law and in congruence with international obligations of Finland. Importantly, when and how a government can declare a state of emergency is a question of ordinary law, rather than a constitutional one. This Article offers a comparative constitutional law analysis of the relative constitutional silence in Sweden and Finland as concerns emergency powers. The analysis takes as its starting point Böckenförde'sThe Repressed State of Emergency: The Exercise of State Authority in Extraordinary Circumstances.
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