The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
This article aims to bring philosophical and legal aspects of the discussions of the problem of emergency together by employing classic philosophical views on the problem of emergency to categorize dominating paradigms of legal interpretation in the American Supreme Court. In the first part of the article I review the American Supreme Court's case-history and single out three dominating legal paradigms for interpreting the problem of emergency: 'the rights model', 'the extra-legal model' and 'the procedural model'. I argue that the procedural model has been by far the most influential. In the second part of the article I ask how this precedence has played out in the context of terrorism cases. I argue that the first four cases that were brought against the government confirmed the procedural model as the Court's primary model for evaluating legal problems related to emergencies. But I also argue that the Court's latest decision on this issue, 'Boumediene v. Bush' from 2008, introduces a shift from the previous general tendency to rely primarily on a procedural model towards including substantial rights concerns.
VERSITA Central European Science Publishers, Warsaw; http://versita.com, in cooperation with journal owner - Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas; http://www.vdu.lt
VERSITA Central European Science Publishers, Warsaw; http://versita.com, in cooperation with journal owner - Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas; http://www.vdu.lt