Taiwan and Civil Liberties in the State of Exception

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the Taiwan government’s lifting Martial Law and passing the National Security Law signified a process of liberalization or the continuation of the state of exception. Its aim is to unpick the relationship between security policy development within the legal framework and human rights. This study’s historical perspective is deployed deductively to analyze the changes to, and the effects of, the emergency policies. The analysis employs a comparative approach to the two emergency policy periods. They will be discussed thematically according to Giorgio Agamben’s concepts – juridico- political, law of revolution, sovereignty and legal status – of the State of Exception theory. The results indicate that Martial Law and the subsequent National Security Law constitute the continuation of the state of exception in relation to the civil liberties. The difference lies in the application of the legal frameworks. In the first instance, targeting the social sphere in its totality and in the second, the individual. From the civil liberty perspective, it could be noted that this constitutes a continuation of the emergency policy era in an evolved form, its objective being the elimination of individuals who are deemed to endanger authority.