When terrorists struck Paris in 2015, France declared a state of emergency meant to last twelve days. It stretched on for two years, during which police conducted over 4,600 warrantless searches and placed hundreds under house arrest without trial. What started as a response to genuine crisis became the new normal—and many of those extraordinary powers found their way into ordinary French law.

This pattern repeats across history and geography: governments invoke emergency powers during crises, citizens accept restrictions for safety, and then those temporary measures quietly become permanent features of the legal landscape. Understanding this dynamic isn't just academic—it's essential for anyone who wants to protect their rights when the next crisis arrives.

Emergency measures follow a predictable lifecycle. First comes the crisis—terrorism, pandemic, economic collapse—that genuinely requires rapid response. Governments invoke special powers, suspending normal procedures and rights protections. Citizens, frightened and seeking security, largely accept these measures as necessary evils. The initial time limit passes, but the crisis continues or morphs, justifying extension after extension.

What makes normalization so insidious is how it happens through small, reasonable-seeming steps. Take surveillance powers granted after 9/11: first they target suspected terrorists, then organized crime, then drug dealers, then tax evaders. Each expansion seems logical in isolation. Police and security services, having grown accustomed to these tools, argue they're essential for public safety. Politicians fear being blamed if they roll back powers and something bad happens.

The most dangerous moment comes when emergency measures get written into regular law. Governments argue this provides better oversight and legal clarity—which sounds responsible. But once extraordinary powers enter the normal legal code, they lose their exceptional character. What was unthinkable before the crisis becomes unremarkable afterward. France's 2017 anti-terrorism law incorporated many emergency provisions into permanent legislation. Britain's temporary Prevention of Terrorism Acts, first passed in 1974, evolved into permanent counter-terrorism legislation that would have horrified earlier generations.

Not all rights are created equal when emergencies strike. International human rights law recognizes that some rights form an absolute core that governments can never suspend, no matter how severe the crisis. These non-derogable rights include freedom from torture, slavery, and retroactive criminal laws. You cannot be punished for something that wasn't illegal when you did it, even during martial law. Governments cannot reintroduce slavery to address labor shortages or use torture to extract information about threats.

But here's where it gets tricky: most rights can be restricted during genuine emergencies, including freedom of movement, assembly, expression, and privacy. The key word is 'restricted,' not eliminated. International law requires that any restrictions be strictly necessary, proportionate to the threat, and non-discriminatory. A pandemic might justify limiting large gatherings but not banning all protest. A terrorist threat might allow enhanced airport security but not ethnic profiling.

The real battles happen in the gray zones. Governments often claim their measures are proportionate while rights advocates argue they go too far. Courts generally give governments significant leeway during active crises, only scrutinizing measures carefully after the immediate danger passes—by which time the damage is often done. Israel's decades-long state of emergency, technically still in effect since 1948, shows how 'temporary' derogations can become permanent realities. Even democratic states with strong legal systems struggle to maintain proper limits once emergency mindsets take hold.

The most effective protection against permanent emergency powers is building expiration into their DNA. True sunset clauses don't just set end dates—they make renewal progressively harder. Germany's constitution, shaped by memories of how the Weimar Republic's emergency decrees enabled Hitler's rise, requires parliamentary approval for extensions and automatically terminates emergency measures if parliament cannot convene. Some proposed models require supermajority votes for each renewal, ensuring broader consensus as time passes.

Civil society plays a crucial role in enforcing sunsets. During South Korea's COVID-19 response, civic groups closely monitored the government's use of tracking data, successfully pushing for deletion of collected information after the specified period. Independent oversight bodies, mandated reporting requirements, and automatic judicial review can prevent quiet extensions. New Zealand's approach to emergency legislation includes mandatory parliamentary review committees that must assess whether emergency powers remain necessary and proportionate.

The most innovative sunset strategies recognize human psychology. People adapt to restrictions surprisingly quickly—what seems intolerable at first becomes normal within months. Some proposals include 'sunrise' provisions that automatically restore rights in phases, making it politically costly to reverse the restoration. Others mandate cost-benefit analyses showing that emergency measures remain more effective than normal legal processes. The key insight is that ending emergencies requires as much institutional design as declaring them.

Emergency powers are necessary—no society can handle every crisis through normal procedures. But history teaches us that the greater danger often comes not from the crisis itself but from the permanent erosion of rights in its wake. The surveillance state that monitors us today, the restrictions on assembly and movement we've normalized, the executive powers that bypass legislative oversight—many trace back to long-forgotten emergencies.

Your rights are most vulnerable precisely when you're most willing to sacrifice them. Remember this when the next crisis comes, because it will. Ask not just whether emergency measures are justified today, but whether you'd want them to become permanent features of tomorrow's normal.