[Analysis] Asser researcher Uladzislau Belavusau reflects on the political crisis in Belarus

In a podcast interview with constitutional law blog Verfassungsblog, Asser senior researcher Dr Uladzislau Belavusau reflects on the mass protests in Belarus. What could be a possible future if Belarus manages to rid itself of the ‘last dictator of Europe’?

The system in Belarus is faltering. The Belarusians want to get rid of their head of state Lukashenka. Let us assume that they successfully put their plan into practice: how would Belarus then go on? What would become of the Belarus constitution that, since 1994, has been changed three times via referendums? And: are there comparable features in the mismanaging of the rule of law in Belarus and EU countries like Hungary and Poland? Asser researcher Uladzislau Belavusau has answers - which he shares (in English, after a brief German intro) in a podcast interview with Max Steinbeis for the German constitutional law blog Verfassungsblog.

Uladzislau Belavusau is senior researcher in European Law at the T.M.C. Asser Instituut. He is part of the research strand Human dignity and human security in international and European law, which adopts as its normative framework a human rights approach to contemporary global challenges, inter alia in the fields of counter-terrorism, international and transnational crimes, new technologies and artificial intelligence, and historical memory.

Further reading

Op-ed Volkskrant: ‘Minister Blok, take a firm stand on the question of Belarus (and use that name)'
The Netherlands should not recognise the election results in Belarus, instead it should support neighbouring countries. And ‘please stop writing ‘Wit-Rusland’ (White Russia) and use Belarus instead’, argues Uladzislau Belavusau in an open letter to Stef Blok, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in Dutch newspaper Volkskrant. (In Dutch).

Blog: The Belarusian response to the COVID-19 pandemic: Denial and a military parade
Belarus is the only European country, next to Sweden, that has not imposed quarantine measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Belarusian president has repeatedly denied the scope and seriousness of the pandemic and, instead, in early May, held a large military parade that gathered thousands of people in the capital of Minsk. Asser senior researcher Ulad Belavusau and  Maksim Karliuk (International BRICS Competition Law and Policy Center) co-authored a blog on the response of the Belarusian government to the COVID-19 pandemic in Verfassungsblog. In it, they observe that whereas democratic states seem to have embraced autocratic methods in the face of the pandemic, the Belarusian government, surprisingly, has not exercised the emergency powers available to it under its constitution.