International Journal of Law in Context· 2026Q2
Necessity and exception: rethinking the Belgian state of siege in World War I
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- Q2SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
A 1916 Belgian decree-law effectively suspended fundamental rights during WWI, circumventing a constitutional ban on suspending the constitution, by invoking a poorly defined "necessity."
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Key points
- Belgian WWI government issued a decree-law on Oct 11, 1916, to restrict fundamental rights.
- The decree effectively suspended rights, contradicting the Belgian Constitution's Article 187.
- The justification for the decree was an undefined notion of "necessity."
- Necessity is argued to include both wartime survival and postwar political objectives.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Abstract This article takes a closer look at the creation of the Royal Decree of 11 October 1916, which regulated the state of war and the state of siege during World War I. It gave the government the power to restrict certain fundamental rights to such an extent that it effectively amounted to a suspension of those rights. It is notable that the Belgian Constitution prohibits this through Article 187 (formerly Article 130), which states that the Constitution can never, as a whole or partially, be suspended. Nevertheless, was the decree-law justified under the notion of necessity, without giving a proper explanation of what necessity actually meant? Using a socio-legal-historical approach, this article finds that necessity should be understood not only as a factual situation requiring certain measures to survive the war, but also in relation to specific (postwar) political objectives.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. International Journal of Law in Context, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Political Science and International Relations
Political Science and International RelationsSocial Sciences