Articles for category: English Articles

Constitutional Resilience

Resilience of a body in general describes the ability to cope with an attack on its immune system. What is undisputed in psychology or biology is also valid for legal bodies, in particular for states. The term “constitutional resilience” obviously refers to the abilities of constitutions to cope with attacks and in the end to cope with a real crisis. In searching for answers on what constitutional resilience is, this article asks three questions: Where are the vulnerable parts of a democratic state governed by the rule of law? How can one protect the vulnerability of the state or some of its features? If vulnerable parts of a Constitution are properly protected – are the democratic state and its constitution safe?

6. Dezember 2018

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How populist authoritarian nationalism threatens constitutionalism or: Why constitutional resilience is a key issue of our time

The problem with movements and parties spearheaded by “populist” leaders such as Putin, Erdoğan, Orbán, Kaczyński or Trump is not that they happen to embrace more nationally focused policies that metropolitan elites widely condemn as unjust, ineffective or otherwise misguided. Nor is the problem that they embrace a confrontational political style and uncouth rhetoric at odds with the mores of reflexively enlightened society in political capitals across liberal constitutional democracies. Neither of those features would constitute a constitutional threat justifying sustained reflections on constitutional resilience. The problem with electoral successes of populist authoritarian nationalists is that they pose a fundamental threat to liberal constitutional democracy.

6. Dezember 2018

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Introduction: Constitutional Resilience and the German Grundgesetz

What lessons does the plight of the Polish and the Hungarian democracy hold for a seemingly stable constitutional state like Germany? How resilient would the German constitutional setup turn out to be in the case of an authoritarian majority taking and successfully holding on to power? What kind of legal or institutional changes may be helpful to make that event less likely and/or less hard to prevent? These were the questions we aimed to address in a debate jointly organized by Verfassungsblog and WZB Center for Global Constitutionalism, generously supported by Stiftung Mercator.

6. Dezember 2018

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The CEU Leaves – Hungarian Students are Left in the Lurch

For 27 years Central European University has operated in Hungary’s capital. That era has come to an end. The forced move of the CEU to Vienna signals to Hungarians and other citizens in illiberal democracies that vulnerability is their future. They are left to the wayside by the international community, abandoned by the European Union, and left questioning who will ever defend liberal-democratic values in practice.

5. Dezember 2018

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Brazil in the Dock: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights Rulings Concerning the Dictatorship of 1964-1985

On July 4th 2018, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) made public the condemnation of Brazil for its omission in investigating, prosecuting and condemning the public agents supposedly liable for the torture and murder of the journalist Vladimir Herzog. The events took place back in 1975, during the dictatorship of 1964-1985. After several attempts to move judicial authorities in the domestic system, the case was taken to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights and, finally, to the IACtHR. Investigation is now open again in Brazil. However, as we will demonstrate in the following piece, there is a stark dissent ... continue reading

3. Dezember 2018

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The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration – Hope for our Constitutive Commitments?

Next month, on 10 and 11 December 2018, the Intergovernmental Conference to Adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration will be held in Marrakech, Morocco. The draft for the compact has been highly contested and many states have already announced they would not sign it. However, the compact has something to say about fundamental commitments of our societies, especially about human dignity.

30. November 2018

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Will the ECtHR Shake up the European Asylum System?

Are European embassies abroad obliged to issue visa to particularly vulnerable asylum seekers under European human rights? This question is at the core of the case of Nahhas and Hadri v. Belgium currently pending before the Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg Court. Too accustomed have we often become to the limits of state obligations to note how they can make the promise of universal rights fade into hypocrisy. It is crucial that in light of concrete cases the drawing of boundaries is reconsidered – to ask what the law requires, and to render visible the responsibility we have to mitigate shortcomings of the law.

30. November 2018

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