This study explores how ceremonies, rituals, and symbols function in constitution-making as instruments through which constituent power gains legitimacy and social acceptance. While constituent power is often seen as an extra-legal force, its endurance depends not only on legal norms but also on cultural performance. Practices such as public oaths, anthems, and ceremonial readings consecrate the new order, making visible the link between popular will and political authority. Far from mere spectacle, these acts inscribe constitutional moments into collective memory and shape future political belonging. Drawing on law, political science, and cultural anthropology, the study highlights the constitutive role of symbolic practices in producing constitutional order.

This article attempts to articulate a theory of sovereign power that reveals, yet compensates for, certain shortcomings in Agamben’s homo sacer paradigm. Taking issue with the textual basis and normative implications of his notion of “sacred/bare life,” I offer an alternative notion of biopolitical subjectivity I call “sanctified life.” Based on a close reading, first, of Macrobius’s commentary on the homo sacer of Vergil’s Aeneid , and second, of the tripartite sacrum–religiosum–sanctum classification in ancient Roman law, I argue that sanctified life expresses a democratic countersovereignty that resists the state in the service of a life-affirming politics.

This paper contributes to the growing literature on law and performance by examining the experiences of queer refugees within the asylum system. It examines the performance demands placed on queer asylum seekers—specifically, the dimensions of embodiment, aesthetics, narrative, affect, and audience—while also considering the broader performativity that undergirds the legal system’s construction of queer subjects. It illuminates a fundamental tension between queer theory, which conceptualizes sexuality as infinitely capacious, and the law, which attempts to taxonomize it. It ultimately suggests that queer asylum seekers’ self-making reveals the impossibility of codifying queerness into law: the legal attempt to define sexuality, to prove it, only reveals the plasticity of queerness.

Responsibility for the activities and products generated by artificial intelligence (AI) is a topic currently debated by scholars. However, less attention has been given to the case of inventions created by AI. Who should be held responsible for these inventions? How can we address the negative consequences arising from AI-generated inventions? In this article, we aim to highlight some unique aspects of responsibility related to this specific type of invention. We examine the possibility of addressing responsibility for AI-generated inventions through the concept of ‘legal personhood’, which we conclude introduces a new set of challenges arguably even more complex to resolve. Therefore, we propose several governance tools and outline two practical approaches that have been attempted. This paper offers a tentative discussion on a novel topic within social AI research.

This article critically examines the transformation of colonial prisons in Vietnam—Hỏa Lò, Côn Đảo, and Phú Quốc—into heritage sites and memory tourism destinations amid the cultural economy and postcolonial governance. Using an interdisciplinary framework that integrates contested heritage theory, posthumanist assemblage thinking, and public heritage law, the study explores how these sites are reshaped through legal norms, memory politics, technological mediation, and affective tourism. Drawing on document analysis, field observation, media discourse, and stakeholder interviews, the research identifies three governance models: theatricalized memory at Hỏa Lò, spiritualized commodification at Côn Đảo, and static musealization at Phú Quốc. While each reflects efforts to revitalize national memory, they also reveal tensions—such as the marginalization of alternative narratives, commodification of suffering, and lack of inclusive legal frameworks. Situating the Vietnamese cases within global debates and examples, like Robben Island, Seodaemun Prison, and the Changi Chapel and Museum, the article proposes a pluralistic, ethically grounded model of contested heritage governance. It advocates for community co-governance mechanisms, legal safeguards for memory rights, and alignment with international principles like the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. The study contributes to global memory justice scholarship and offers a posthumanist rethinking of prison heritage as dynamic assemblages of human and nonhuman actors, emotional infrastructures, and sociolegal entanglements.

This paper explores the intersection of sex robots, rape, and sexual consent, examining their legal and normative challenges. Designed for sexual interaction—primarily for a cisgender male, heterosexual market—sex robots risk reinforcing women’s subordination and oppression. Their ability to simulate sexual consent further complicates their societal and legal positioning. While some advocate prohibition, this paper examines regulatory alternatives that embed affirmative consent in design. In particular, it considers the potential of the AI Act and its provision on codes of conduct to guide such development.