Protests, Terrorism, and Development: On Ethiopia's Perpetual State of Emergency

Abstract

On October 8, 2016, the Ethiopian government officially declared a nationwide state of emergency in response to a year-long protest by members of Ethiopia's two largest ethnic groups, the Oromo and the Amhara. The Directive issued to implement the state of emergency institutes a new normative regime, astonishing in scope and scale, in which the de jure reversal of the relationship between the rule and the exception has culminated in a new legal reality. This Article argues that Ethiopia's de jure emergency is merely the latest manifestation of the de facto state of emergency in operation since the new Constitutional order was set in motion.