Die Sache mit der Menschenwürde

Im ersten Absatz des ersten Artikels des Grundgesetzes steht das bundesrepublikanische Glaubensbekenntnis: „Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar.“ Kein anderer Satz ist in Deutschland derart demonstrativ konsensfähig, kein anderer Satz bedient derart das deutsche Bedürfnis nach moralischer, nicht zuletzt erinnerungspolitischer Selbstvergewisserung, und kein anderer Satz der Verfassung eignet sich gerade deshalb derart gut für politisch zweckentfremdete Feindmarkierungen. In einem der unrühmlichsten Vorgänge der jüngeren deutschen Politikgeschichte hat das die Potsdamer Professorin Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf erfahren müssen.

15. Juli 2025

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Parlamentskultur und Bundesverfassungsrichterwahl

Die Wahl neuer Richterinnen und Richter an das Bundesverfassungsgericht sorgt für politisches Störfeuer – trotz fachlich überzeugender Vorschläge. Statt juristischer Expertise dominieren moralische Reflexe und parteipolitisches Kalkül. Die Plenumsentscheidung stellt aber hohe Anforderungen an die Parlamentskultur: Die aktuellen Entwicklungen drohen, das Vertrauen in das demokratische Verfahren der Richterwahl nachhaltig zu schädigen.

15. Juli 2025

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The Right to a Healthy Environment as a Catalyst for Urgent and Ambitious Climate Action at the IACtHR

The right to a healthy environment is at the heart of the landmark Advisory Opinion 32/25 (AO-32/25) on the climate emergency from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR). AO-32/25 marks the clearest ruling to date from an international court on the urgency of transformative changes to address the existential threat of the planetary environmental emergency caused by human activities.

15. Juli 2025

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The End of an (Unlawful) Era

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On June 17th, the Danish Supreme Court delivered an important judgement concerning the principle of non-penalization of refugees, ending decades of unlawful prosecutorial practices. A closer reading points to longstanding deficiencies in informing asylum seekers of their rights during the procedure. Moreover, questions remain regarding the interpretation of Article 31 for beneficiaries of subsidiary protection.

15. Juli 2025

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Turkey’s Gerontocratic Constitutional Moment

In less than a year, Turkish politics has undergone a profound realignment. It began in October 2024 with a remarkable speech by Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and President Erdoğan’s chief coalition partner. In one of the most cryptic U-turns of his career, Bahçeli—long a hardliner on the Kurdish question—proposed reopening the long-frozen peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the separatist armed group that has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state. In short, the tectonic plates of Turkish politics are shifting, and at the center of this transition stands a cast of aging men, each well past seventy.

14. Juli 2025

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Stellungnahme zur Causa »Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf«

Über 300 Rechtswissenschaftler*innen protestieren in dieser Stellungnahme nachdrücklich gegen die Art und Weise, wie im Rahmen der Richterwahl zum Bundesverfassungsgericht in der Politik und in der Öffentlichkeit mit Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf umgegangen wurde. Dieser Umgang ist geeignet, die Kandidatin, die beteiligten Institutionen und mittelfristig über den Verfall der angemessenen Umgangskultur die gesamte demokratische Ordnung zu beschädigen.

14. Juli 2025

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Starlink, the Cloud, and Corporate Dependency

The Trump Administration has repeatedly pushed for the adoption or licensing of Elon Musk’s satellite company Starlink in trade negotiations. But as Musk’s strategic use of his satellite service reveals, corporate control over critical infrastructure inevitably translates into political power. Power that companies may wield in alignment with, or in opposition to, state interests. The solution, however, may not lie in stronger state oversight alone, but in democratizing corporations themselves.

14. Juli 2025

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Assets Without Alibi

Păcurar is yet another version of the familiar cat-and-mouse game between anticorruption agencies and corrupt public officials: some public officials quietly amass real estate, luxury cars, financial investments, or cash, and – once confronted by anticorruption agencies to explain the difference from their declared legal income – rely on whimsical excuses. On 24 June 2025, the ECtHR held that wealth may be taken away if public officials cannot explain that very difference. This ruling completes the ECtHR’s endorsement of civil law instruments in the fight against corruption by fully disconnecting confiscation from any link to a crime.

13. Juli 2025

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Petro’s Schmittian Turn

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On 11 June 2025, Colombian President Gustavo Petro issued a decree calling a national popular consultation on a package of long-stalled social reforms. The decree came after the Senate had explicitly rejected his formal request to hold such a vote – approval that is constitutionally required under Article 104 of the Constitution. This reveals something deeper and more dangerous: an increasingly Schmittian conception of democratic power, in which the president, claiming to represent a unified people, overrides institutional checks in the name of higher constitutional fidelity.

13. Juli 2025

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On the »Whims of Foreign Courts«

Last week, the UK High Court decided that the UK can continue to issue licences for F-35 components that go into a pool of spare parts which Israel can use on its existing F-35 jets. The finding by the High Court that the UK cannot exclude Israel as an end user for UK manufactured components because “the only way for the UK to ensure that its components do not reach Israel is for it to suspend all exports into the F-35 programme” raises pertinent questions with regard to the UK's compliance with the Arms Trade Treaty and other key provisions of international law.

13. Juli 2025

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