Emergency Powers in Theory and Practice

Why have the early years of the 21st century seen increasing use of emergency-type powers or claims of supra-legal executive authority, particularly by the Western countries regarded as the world's leading democracies, primarily the UK, the US and Australia? This book examines the extraordinary range of executive and prerogative powers used and challenges attempts by legal and academic theorists to relativise, rationalise, legitimise or propose supposedly safe limits for the use of emergency powers, especially since the September 2001 terrorist attacks.