Abstract This article examines the consequences of adaptation as the primary response to social, systemic, and moral crisis. Utilising Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road as a point of analytical departure and return throughout, we develop the idea of humans as ‘adaptation machines’ and situate this within the contextual chaos and brutality of 21st century governance. The article first focuses on individual and interpersonal responses to crisis. Humans exhibit incredible adaptive capacities. Yet when adaptation is asserted or assumed as an ethical end-in-itself, it invites a series of questions. What is the political status of adaptability? How does the status of adaptability change under conditions of authoritarian lawlessness? Can adaptation exacerbate states of social and moral decay? Should we be able to adapt to anything? In grappling with these questions and aided by the novel, we develop a second line of interpretation concerning human adaptation and adaptability as a moral ideal at the collective level in the 21st century. We conclude by questioning forms of governance which place the unbounded pursuit of adaptability at their core. Under forms of contemporary governance characterised by permanent crisis, adaptation becomes a demand placed upon individuals and populations to endure, absorb, and continue to function within systems that normalise insecurity and harm.

This study is assigned to international tax law. It elaborates on various innovative strategies for tax-optimized profit repatriation from foreign subsidiaries. As an example, the analysis is carried out against the background of the country constellation USA/European Union. However, the results and strategies can be applied to other country constellations. The elaboration of profit repatriation strategies solves a significant taxation problem for investments in foreign subsidiaries, namely the incurrence of withholding tax in the subsidiary's foreign country of residence. At the same time, a contribution is made to expanding the literature. Tax effective profit repatriation strategies regarding investments in foreign subsidiaries have hardly been derived and discussed in the literature.

International law is becoming increasingly more specialized and diversified. In response to these developments, international lawyers now widely refer to international investment law, European human rights law and many other branches as ‘special regimes’. Scholars in the field see the proliferation of special regimes as a threat to the unity of the international legal system. In so doing, they are applying the traditional definition of a special regime as a collection of norms. This article encourages readers to conceive instead of a special regime as a community of practice—as an activity structured around the normative presuppositions of the people and institutions that participate in it. This new understanding, the article argues, is compatible with all predominant theories of law. When you adopt it, importantly, the proliferation of special regimes does not have the disintegrating effect that many scholars believe it to have.

Besides state actors, non-state actors and particularly private companies target human rights defenders (HRDs) and violate their rights to intimidate and stop them from challenging their interests. Despite the absence of responsibility of non-state actors in international human rights law, the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) set out global standards and acknowledge the role of HRDs in the promotion of human rights, urging corporations to work closely with defenders. Considering the effectiveness of the UNGPs, the article explores the potential for protecting HRDs within the framework and concludes that the UNGPs could be utilised to enhance the protection of defenders in relation to business activities. It also suggests that current efforts of implementation would be strengthened by mandatory human rights due diligence laws at the national and regional levels, and emphasises that a clear inclusion of corporate responsibility to respect defenders is required, as it would be beneficial for both sides, defenders and business enterprises.

We argue that the right to life—for example under Article 2 of the European Convention—has become an increasingly fragile thing, prone to sharp rationing by domestic law and policy makers, almost to the extent seen in certain works of dystopian science fiction. The near-future novel ‘Logan’s Run’ (1967) depicts a brutally austere regime, that is ‘justified’ in law on the basis that finite, scarcening resources must somehow be preserved, to enable survival. Over—population means that human rights are now fictive however—there are neither family life rights nor privacy rights, and human dignity is in short supply. An all-powerful AI ‘being’ governs via algorithms to ration and curtail lifespans, so that no one is allowed to be older than 21. This rule is enforced via ‘voluntary’ submission to euthanasia, and the intervention of a murderous militia for those who do not comply. As ever, patriotic behaviour is key. Arguably, not dissimilar crisis thinking was seen during the pandemic, with various resources diverted or triaged towards the worthiest citizens—those with the best chances of survival—through the use of such things as ‘frailty algorithms.’ Recent UK case law is then analysed to gauge the extent to which dystopian reasoning might be encroaching upon the effectiveness of human rights protections, post-pandemic.