The dramatic events taking place in 2017 resulted in an unprecedented intervention of the Government of the Kingdom of Spain in the duties of the authorities of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia. The procedure for the fulfilment of constitutional obligations of the authorities of one of the seventeen Autonomous Communities, that make up Spain, was introduced for the first time in history. The sources of this situation should be sought in the conflict between Barcelona and Madrid, which has been growing for a decade, and reached its peak with the Spanish Government’s failure to recognize the independence referendum and the attempt to secede by the Catalan authorities. The situation showed the need to reform the Spanish constitutional system, in particular as regards the rights and obligations of Autonomous Communities.

War in Donbas - considerations on the understatements of the just war theory

The following article covers the analysis of the War in Donbas from the perspective of the “traditional concept of a just war” (as interpreted by Michael Walzer). The main axis of the analysis is determined by the issue of the possibility of third countries intervening in armed conflicts concerning the specific case of the War in Donbas. The text indicates the key factors that make it impossible to develop a conflict in eastern Ukraine according to traditional just war theories, such as the pursuit of incomplete secession of pro-Russian separatists, the status of the Russian Federation as an unofficial participant in the conflict, and the problem of the “reality” of the separatist intention itself. Therefore, the main problem of this work is the interpretation of Russian actions from the perspective of the principle of non-intervention, and the attitude of other third countries and their right to (not) intervene in this conflict, and its conclusion - in the author’s opinion - indicates the need to update the theory of just war, in a way that would clearly indicate the proper conduct in the event of secession in favour of the existing state.

Right to Secession. The Constitutional and Meta-Legal Argument of the Old South of the United States

Before the outbreak of the Civil War, the theorists and politicians of the South of the US developed the theoretical instruments of resistance to what they considered tyrannical practices of the federal government. Just next to interposition and nullification, the most radical measure was the right of secession. In the article, the author distinguishes between constitutional and meta-legal arguments. The first ones refer to the thought of the Founding Fathers, the spirit of ‘98 and the concept of states’ rights. Its main elements are: the contractual nature of the Union, the original sovereignty of the states and the interpretation of the phrase: “We the People” used in the Constitution. In turn the philosophical justification refers to the right of resistance to tyrannical government contained in the Declaration of Independence. The two group of justifications appeared together, and the author searches for them in the acts of secession of South Carolina and the CS Constitution