This chapter unpacks how narratives about Rwanda’s Twa are created. It seeks to understand how knowledge about Twa is produced, and how the Twa are created, re-created, and re-positioned as indigenous and development subjects in the jurisdictional encounters of the global discourses of development and indigeneity with national policies on unity and reconciliation. The chapter identities three main stories told of the Twa. The first story is that of indigeneity, of a forest people distinct, dispossessed, and suffering. The second tale is of a community historically marginalised but not ethnically different. The third account views Twa simply as poor and vulnerable, positioning them as national development subjects.

This chapter discusses the gradual consolidation of the dual-sided framework in the contemporary digital era. Despite the decades-long transatlantic battle between ‘free flow’ and privacy protection, serious disagreement over how to conceptualize data, and the inter-regime tension between human rights and world trade, this chapter argues that the consolidation of the dual-sided framework is precisely a result of such internal tensions and contradictions. The more this dichotomy seems hard to resolve, the more the two framings of free trade and human rights get reinforced, and the more they monopolize the policy terrain for the governance of information and data. This chapter also shows that, despite the entrenched dichotomy, free trade and human rights regimes have been mutually influencing in the ways they respectively approach transborder data flows and the responsibility of big tech, hence further reinforcing the transnationalization of capital and unequal distribution of power in information capitalism.

This chapter begins by explaining why I came to think questions about the rule of law are crucially important questions in general and why it is particularly important to seek answers to them today. It goes on to outline how my approach to thinking about these issues has evolved away from conventional ways of asking and answering them, and why. In particular I have moved from being a ‘rule of law guy’ to being a ‘tempering power guy’. That is the place to start. What follows depends. I then summarise the themes of the subsequent chapters.

This chapter looks at the governance of information in the last two decades of the twentieth century, when the ambition of the New World Information and Communication Order was superseded by the sweeping wave of liberalization. Free trade became a prominent frame with which to conceptualize information and build institution for its governance. This chapter discusses institutional and conceptual changes during this period. Institutionally, privatization of telecommunication – especially in dominant countries like the United States – affected the organizational structure of international telecommunication organizations. Particularly, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization underwent considerable reforms to ensure an international institutional environment for the privatization of telecommunication. Conceptually, telecommunication was no longer perceived as a public utility; it had become an issue of trade in services, eventually brought to the world trade regime. As a result, the World Trade Organization, with which the ITU formed a complementary relationship, became a primary forum for the regulation of telecommunication.

This chapter first presents an ideal type of a hybrid regime. This account sees a hybrid regime as a regime that presents itself as a functioning democracy, but in which the incumbent has disproportionate control over the rules of the game. The chapter then identifies points of tension between a hybrid regime’s constitution and the constitution of a good state. It shows that three constitutional features tend to be found in a hybrid regime: rivaling constitutional ideologies of democracy and guardianship; a trifurcated dual state legal order; and two levels of constitutional battle. Along the way, the chapter suggests how these features might impact a constitutional court in a hybrid regime.

This chapter examines what judges can do inside the courtroom to promote democratic norms amidst authoritarian pressure. It proposes a two-step adjudicative framework – that of ‘Sustainable Democratic Adjudication’ – that allows judges to systematically incorporate both constitutional legal principles and judicial strategies. Under step one, judges need to form an initial view on what the law requires under the democracy-orienting approach proposed in Chapter Four. During this step, they must apply a presumption of ‘institutional blindfold’, ignoring the possible influence of prudential considerations. This book terms the tentative conclusion reached at this stage the ‘formal legal position’. The second step involves judges lifting the blindfold to check whether, and if so how, the formal legal position should be supplemented with or adjusted by strategic considerations. These are questions determined by the level of risk incurred by maintaining the formal legal position. The chapter also examines the strategies in relation to outcome, reasoning, language and timing that judges can deploy during the adjudicative process.