Abstract Constitutional democracies face significant threats. Such threats are countered by various theories of militant democracy and non-militant democratic self-defence, using a wide range of repressive, educational and social policy tools. The article introduces an alternative perspective on democratic self-defence policies, emphasising integration as a key component in maintaining the resilience of the constitutional community and draws on Rudolf Smend’s integration theory. It explores how constitutional design through its structures, powers, procedures, rituals and symbols shapes community cohesion and strengthens the constitutional order by deliberately using emotions.

Abstract Digital health services in Kenya comprise mobile health applications (mHealth apps), electronic health records, telehealth and telemedicine, which form part of an expanding digital health assemblage. These are shaped by transnational development agendas and donor-driven public health interventions. This paper discusses the for-profit turn in the digitalisation of health care – what I term the ‘appisation’ of health – as a site of intensified commodification where users are reconfigured as digitised health consumers. While other scholars have argued that digitalisation functions as extractive in deepening market penetration into spheres of life we rely on, I extend these arguments by claiming that, far from enhancing access, these technologies exploit vulnerabilities through opaque governance mechanisms and algorithmic decision-making, while transferring responsibility for health from the state to the individual, thus creating new dependencies on market-mediated platforms. Using discursive interface analysis of two health apps in Kenya, I examine how consumer health apps embed vulnerabilities while consumer law remains structurally limited in confronting the collective harms they generate.

Abstract The introduction and use of digital contact tracing apps as part of pandemic management have notably raised many legal and ethical challenges, ranging from determinations of public interest in using gathered data to privacy protections for app users and broader considerations of national socio-economic priorities. As the use of these digital contact tracing apps is supported by laws, legal preparedness is essential in determining appropriate legal authority that considers necessary trade-offs such as temporary privacy infringements, proportional data gathering and collective public health benefits. This paper examines the extent of legal preparedness in addressing competing interests between public health and individuals in the use of digital contact tracing apps. It does so through two main lenses: (1) an analysis of Singapore’s legal framework pertaining to data protection, privacy and contact tracing apps and (2) an analysis of the domestic social and political influences that explain why Singapore’s approach to digital contact tracing was viable, and assess its potential or limits for broader applicability.

Abstract The question of how digital health is regulated has become increasingly important within debates on technology, inequality and global health. While digital health is frequently celebrated for its capacity to expand access, build resilient systems and advance equity, scholars have raised critical concerns about its role in reproducing asymmetries of power. The potential for reproducing rather than curbing inequality is particularly relevant for the Global South. This Special Issue of the International Journal of Law in Context interrogates the ways in which digital health infrastructures, regulatory frameworks and transnational data flows are constitutive of coloniality and neoliberal capitalism. Bringing together socio-legal, feminist and decolonial perspectives, the contributions examine regulation as a terrain in which vulnerabilities, exclusions and structural inequalities are reinforced. Against the celebratory rhetoric of innovation, this collection situates regulation as a key site for understanding the entanglement of digital health with broader histories of coloniality and capitalism.

Abstract The digital age, while promising tools to advance health care, has simultaneously ushered in new forms of power asymmetry, with extractive data practices risking the perpetuation of historical injustices and structural inequities. Achieving epistemic justice in health data governance initiatives demands a fundamental shift in how knowledge is produced, legitimised and applied. It requires a concerted effort to delink from colonial epistemic hierarchies and to embrace the rich plurality of ways of knowing, ensuring that health data genuinely serves the well-being and prioritises the self-determination of those from all walks of life. This article critically examines Transform Health’s equity- and human rights-based ‘Health Data Governance Principles’ through a decolonial lens, interrogating their potential to foster equity in the rapidly expanding field of digital health. Grounded in a decolonial imperative, the article challenges dominant epistemologies that underpin current global health frameworks. The conceptual foundations and practical applications of the Health Data Governance Principles are then explored in light of the findings of an empirical study undertaken by the author which examined the Principles themselves, organisational perceptions thereof, and efforts towards their operationalisation. In particular, it interrogates whether these principles align with and address the needs and values of historically marginalised communities. Central to this analysis is the introduction of a decolonial nexus that brings into relation the decolonial concepts of ‘health data justice’, ‘epistemological delinking’ and the ‘vernacularisation of human rights’. This approach is intended to not only to expose epistemic injustice within prevailing health data governance models but also to centre emancipatory praxis in reclaiming knowledge, rights and representation in digital health agendas.

Abstract This paper draws on two seemingly disparate moments – standing witness to protest in Guatemala and unpacking programme design in New York City – to explore the connections, linkages and methodological insights brought forward by front-line organisers. These individuals, though not typically recognised as policy experts, offer crucial knowledge that challenges dominant approaches to law and policy. Turning to their actions and framing, this paper argues that these organisers share a deep and urgent analysis of institutional and state violence. Their perspectives highlight the inadequacies of conventional institutional lenses, which often exclude or dismiss such grassroots expertise. The paper emphasises the importance of how these voices are heard and responded to, particularly given the historical and ongoing marginalisation of such knowledge holders. Drawing on multiple examples, it critiques institutional investments in spatial and bureaucratic schemes that deflect responsibility for violence, and that distance possibilities for accountability. This raises the question of what orientation or sensibility is necessary to engage with and to listen to these collective voices differently, especially from within administrative and bureaucratic systems. Grappling with the possibilities and limitations of what a category of ‘activist-scholar administrator’ could mean, this paper identifies three key lessons: the need for bureaucratic imagination, an iterative approach and expanded analytical frameworks. I argue that much more thinking and action are needed to navigate bureaucratic systems – whether in universities or state institutions – in ways that centre community knowledge and respond meaningfully to calls for broader accountability.

Abstract As cities in the Global South gain visibility in global forums – engaging in climate negotiations, forming alliances and aligning with development goals – their legal and economic status remains structurally ambivalent. This article challenges the idea that these cities are becoming full international legal actors. Instead, we argue that they possess a ‘borderline international legal personality’: conditionally included in global regimes through mechanisms that reinforce long-standing asymmetries. Central to this dynamic is the notion of ‘creditworthiness’, now a key metric of development. Tools like sub-sovereign credit ratings pressure cities to prioritise investor confidence over local needs. These interventions promise international agency but often deepen financial dependency. We call for a re-reading of urban internationalism, attentive to the in-between status of Global South cities – caught between aspiration and discipline. Any emancipatory urban agenda must confront the financialisation of local governance and centre debt justice, autonomy and institutional reform.

Abstract Drawing on two decades of collaborative legal ethnographic research with Indigenous communities, this article weaves personal narrative and lived experience to highlight working-class scholar-activism and embodied spiritual rituality as an act of resistance within academia. It critically challenges Western research ethics paradigms by emphasising ethics as a lived, relational practice grounded in rituality and interconnectedness rather than mere compliance. Through an audiovisual lens, it demonstrates how visual storytelling can embody and amplify more-than-human voices, fostering relationality and responsibility. The paper offers two key contributions: recentring the positionality of working-class scholars and recentring the agency of the more-than-human int he field of law as vital in knowledge production. While decolonial and Indigenous scholarship advocate for diverse epistemologies, they often overlook working-class perspectives rooted in societal justice. I argue that a heart-based resistance grounded in critical care, relationality, Indigenous ontologies and spirituality can foster transformative academic knowledge.

The question of how to pursue politically relevant and engaged scholarship has been an ongoing theme within socio-legal scholarship. In the United States of America, Presidential Addresses of the Law and Society Association have consistently urged greater political engagement (Lempert 2001; Seron 2016; Scheppele 2023). In the United Kingdom, journals such as Social & Legal Studies have placed critical and engaged scholarship at the core of their mission (Editorial 1992; Editorial 1998). In the Majority World 1 – where the socio-legal field is less institutionalised – scholars have often been more directly involved in political action, re-imagining colonial law and using it as a tool for social change (Shivji 2018; Sieder, Ansolabehere and Alfonso Sierra 2019). These scholars have not only inspired calls for activist scholarship in the Minority World (Munger 2001) but have also unsettled the very dichotomy between scholarship and activism (D’Souza 2009).

Abstract Environmental protection is widely considered a core function of the state. Yet more than 210 million people currently live under the control of armed non-state actors (ANSAs), many of whom exercise state-like authority over vast, environmentally important territories. Despite growing legal and political science scholarship on ANSAs, their role in environmental protection remains largely unexplored. International law, shaped by conflict-centric frameworks, often fails to account for ANSAs’ non-military dimensions – especially those related to environmental service provision. Similarly, theories of rebel governance have yet to meaningfully incorporate environmental service provision as a governance facet. The article addresses this gap by examining the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP) in Colombia, drawing on documentary analysis and interviews with former combatants. It shifts the limited ecological perspective on war, arguing that the FARC-EP’s environmental practices amounted to a form of rebel environmental governance – structured, intentional and legally plural. Through this case study, the article challenges dominant narratives that view ANSAs solely as environmental spoilers or incidental protectors and instead advocates for a more comprehensive understanding of their impact as environmental service providers and lawmakers. In doing so, the paper reframes ANSAs as socio-legal actors whose environmental practices merit scholarly attention – particularly in ongoing debates around accountability and transitional justice in conflict-affected regions.