Farewell, Verfassungsblog

Today marks the end of my time as academic coordinator of the research project »Verfassungsblog: Perspectives of scientific communication in legal scholarship«, and of my tenure as contributing editor of Verfassungsblog. Sometimes in life, time has come for a change, and my transition from the Wissenschaftskolleg to the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law marks such a point of change. Until the end of this academic year, I will remain affiliated with the research project Verfassungsblog as lecturer at Humboldt University’s Faculty of Law, co-teaching the VerfassungsblogSeminar with Max Steinbeis, and, Deo volente, co-convene a thrilling ... continue reading

16. Juni 2014

Dank und Adieu

Heute beende ich meine Tätigkeit als wissenschaftliche Koordinatorin des Forschungsprojekts »Verfassungsblog: Perspektiven der Wissenschaftskommunikation in der Rechtswissenschaft« und meine Präsenz als ständige Autorin des Verfassungsblogs. Manchmal ist die Zeit für eine Veränderung gekommen, und mein Wechsel aus dem Wissenschaftskolleg ans Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, für das ich ab Herbst in Heidelberg und Berlin tätig sein werde, markiert den Zeitpunkt für eine solche Veränderung. Ich werde dem Forschungsprojekt Verfassungsblog an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in diesem Sommersemester noch als Dozentin im VerfassungsblogSeminar verbunden bleiben und – wenn alles glückt – im Winter eine spannende VerfassungsblogDebatte mitverantworten. Und natürlich ... continue reading

16. Juni 2014

Why Kumm is Wrong and there is not in LAW a duty to appoint Juncker

I would go so far to say that were the European Council to make a nomination based on the sort of legal duty Kumm asserts, and were that nomination to be taken by the qualified majority vote which the treaty permits, an outvoted state would have good legal grounds for challenging the decision before the European Court of Justice. Maybe then we would see who is right and who is wrong.

13. Juni 2014

Why Armstrong is wrong and there IS in fact a legal duty to appoint Juncker

Thankfully the Treaties provide the basis for leaving behind the ancien régime of executive federalism and pushes towards a more democratic politics in Europe. Ironically the path to a brighter democratic future in Europe depends to a nontrivial extent on the Council acting in conformity with its duty to nominate a perhaps less than inspiring steady hand of the past as Commission President.

13. Juni 2014

Valuing the values and diluting the dilemma: a call for an EU framework for fundamental rights

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The European Union is entering a time of revival and renewal. It has a brand new Parliament and will soon have a new Commission, one of whose members is likely to be made responsible specifically for fundamental rights. The European Council is about to adopt strategic guidelines that will guide the Union’s future policies in the area of Justice and Home Affairs – an area of utmost importance for fundamental rights. And the Union as a whole is in the process of acceding to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights. Similar to proposals by the European Union Agency for fundamental rights (FRA), the Council of the European Union concluded on 5 June 2014 that the EU could indeed “gradually” develop a “Union internal strategy on fundamental rights, possibly through an action plan on a mid-term basis, regarding the respect and promotion of the Charter”. This opens new perspectives for the protection and promotion of fundamental rights within the EU. This is the right moment to establish an EU internal framework for fundamental rights that mirrors the existing external fundamental rights framework. It would send a strong signal to the outside world, demonstrating that the EU and its Member States are prepared to ‘walk the talk’ and thus decrease the dilemma of inconsistency between the Union’s internal and external behaviour.

12. Juni 2014

Why the European Council is NOT under a legal duty to appoint Jean-Claude Juncker

Speculation over the nominee for the next President of the European Commission has been rife in newspapers, media and the blogosphere. In the face of such uncertainty, it might be reassuring to believe that, as Mattias Kumm asserts, there is an actual legal duty to appoint a particular candidate. No such luck. If there was to be legal certainty, then the authors of the treaty could quite easily have provided that clarity, including by institutionalising the Spitzenkandidat concept in the treaties. They did no such thing.

11. Juni 2014