Wer schützt wen vor wem?

Die Geschichte des Staatsschutzstrafrechts in der Bundesrepublik ist geprägt von NS-Kontinuitäten, politischer Instrumentalisierung und antikommunistischer Paranoia im Kalten Krieg. Juristen mit NS-Vergangenheit formten 1951 ein Strafrecht, das autoritäre Denkmuster fortschrieb und zur Verfolgung politischer Gegner nutzbar machte. Trotz Reformen ab 1968 bleibt der Staatsschutz ein sensibles Instrument, das stets zwischen legitimer Sicherheitsvorsorge und Machtmissbrauch balancieren muss. Die Lehre aus der Geschichte: Strafrecht darf in einer Demokratie nur ultima ratio sein – und muss vor allem die Freiheitsrechte der Bürger schützen.

13. August 2025

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Zart im Nehmen

Autoritär-populistische Kräfte instrumentalisieren das Strafrecht, um Macht zu festigen, Gegner:innen zu markieren und die öffentliche Ordnung in ihrem Sinne zu inszenieren, während das Strafrecht zugleich demokratische Prozesse und Grundrechte schützt. Diese doppelte Funktion birgt Spannungen: Zu starke Eingriffe riskieren, selbst demokratiegefährdend zu werden. Das Strafrecht agiert damit zwischen wehrhafter Verteidigung der Demokratie und politischer Vereinnahmung.

13. August 2025

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A Panoply of Consequences?

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Among the most significant – but underexplored – aspects of the ICJ’s climate advisory opinion is its treatment of reparations and remedies. This blog post unpacks the legal consequences outlined by the ICJ, examining what the opinion says – and does not say – about how climate-related harm should be remedied. At the heart of this analysis lies a central question: can the affirmation of legal responsibility, without clear guidance on the design of reparations, meaningfully advance climate justice?

12. August 2025

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»Do(n’t) Cry for Me Argentina«

Through abusive feminism, political leaders use elements of feminism as a shell devoid of content. Two central elements are needed: (a) “a pool of suitably qualified women who oppose feminist goals or substantive commitments to gender equality,” and (b) “a public that assumes that in general ‘women help women’”. Argentina offers a timely example of this trend: its current vice-president, Victoria Villarruel, has shown a political position that reveals the legitimization of an illiberal project committed to dismantling gender equality protections and attacking human rights commitments.

12. August 2025

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Reproductive Violence in Tigray

A new July 2025 investigative report highlights the devastating weaponized sexual and reproductive violence unleashed during the 2020-2022 Tigray conflict in Ethiopia. Based on hundreds of medical records and health worker testimonies, the report documents mass rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, and sexual torture of Tigrayan women and children by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers. The deliberate reproductive dimension of violence in Tigray constitutes clear violations of both the Maputo Protocol and international law, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

12. August 2025

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A Fallen Curtain and Open Questions

On 25 June 2025, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered its Decision on Kovačević v. BiH. This ruling could completely change the legal assessment of strict ethnic quota systems in political institutions for worse. While the case originates from Bosnia and Herzegovina, it will likely have far-reaching political consequences for other power-sharing systems in and beyond Europe, as well. Crucially, it is prone to “overrule” all previous judgments of the ECtHR against BiH. This means that it will render all future efforts to support constitutional reform in the country futile, because it seems to legitimize the de facto strict ethno-national cartel of power materialized in its constitution.

11. August 2025

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Weaponising Gender in South Africa’s Chief Justice Appointment

Ros Dixon argues that “[p]lacing women in high office reflects commitments to fairness, diversity and equality of opportunity. But it also creates opportunities for anti-feminist, would-be authoritarians to use women’s descriptive representation to advance and legitimate their own sexist, authoritarian projects”. The South African Judicial Services Commission’s interviews for the country’s Chief Justice in 2022 provide a fascinating example of this phenomenon in the context of political struggles around corruption and accountability in South Africa.

11. August 2025

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Harmonizing Sources, Hardening Duties

The ICJ’s advisory opinion on climate change may come to be remembered as the moment international law explicitly rose to the climate challenge. Yet, what the opinion offers is not a new edifice but a sturdier legal architecture. By advancing an “all of the above” approach to international law’s sources; by treating these sources as interlocking parts of a living legal system; and by recognizing erga omnes and erga omnes partes duties with concrete consequences for responsibility, the Court has given States, courts and litigants a legally rigorous, source‑sensitive map.

11. August 2025

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Wer ist eigentlich Verfassungsfeind?

In mehreren Bundesländern steht eine Reform der Verfassungsschutzgesetze an – und damit auch die Chance, die Definition der „freiheitlichen demokratischen Grundordnung“ zu modernisieren. Statt an überholten Formulierungen aus den 1950er-Jahren festzuhalten, könnten die Legaldefinitionen enger an den Kernelementen Menschenwürde, Demokratie und Rechtsstaatlichkeit ausgerichtet werden. Doch die Reformansätze der Länder gehen auseinander.

11. August 2025

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The Texas Gambit

American politics at present is defined by the daily discarding of long-standing norms. The latest ignominy involves the brazen attempt, by the Republican leadership of the State of Texas, to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts to give the GOP control over an additional five seats; a move that, if successful, would raise the number of U.S. House seats held by Texas Republicans. What is unprecedented in the Texas situation is both the origin and timing of the attempted gerrymander, and the gaudy theatricality that has followed.

10. August 2025

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