Document Type : Academicm and Research
Authors
1
Department of International Law. Faculty of Law and Political Science, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
2
Department of Public and International Law, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran
10.22091/csiw.2026.13559.2705
Abstract
This article starts from a moment in which a legal order meets crisis and defines its relation to exception: does departure from the rule mark the failure of law and a break in the normative order, or can it reveal the order’s capacity to contain an abnormal situation? In Imamiyyah jurisprudence, the principle of necessity offers an internal answer. Rooted in Qur’anic texts, practical reason, conflict of obligations, public interest, and necessity, it does not annul the ordinary rule; rather, it adjusts its application where compliance has become impossible or harmful. The state of exception in Carl Schmitt’s thought, and in Giorgio Agamben’s reading, moves differently. There, crisis exposes the relation between law and sovereign decision, the possible suspension of order, and the danger that exception may continue beyond its original occasion. Using a comparative-analytical method and a functional-conceptual comparison, this article does not treat these traditions as concepts on the same plane. It examines them through the roles they play when a normative order faces crisis. The comparison turns on five questions: who identifies the emergency, how exception relates to rule, what temporal and material limits govern departure from ordinary norms, whether return to the prior order remains possible, and how crisis bears on dignity and human rights. The article argues that necessity in Imamiyyah jurisprudence contains exception within the order, whereas the Schmittian-Agambenian state of exception makes suspension, extension, and institutionalization a central problem of modern public law.
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