Dr. Anna Julia Cooper was born into slavery at a time, when the 1831 Act prohibited the teaching of literacy to enslaved people in North Carolina in order to prevent rebellion and emancipation. Despite this, she was the fourth (known) Black female Ph.D. and the first African American woman to receive a doctorade from the Sorbonne University. She is still considered a mother of Black feminism and a formidable writer, activist, and educator.
In July 2008, in an intensely debated and enormously consequential case, Turkey’s Constitutional Court weighed whether to close the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and ban its 71 leading members, including then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Six of the eleven justices voted in favor – falling just one vote short of the super-majority required to dissolve the AKP and bar its leaders from politics for five years. More than 15 years after the AKP closure case, Turkey has experienced significant democratic backsliding, and Erdoğan has secured a third term as president, extending his tenure in office into 2028. Although the tools of “militant democracy” may be useful, the Turkish case suggests that targeted legal interventions, rather than sweeping party bans, may be more effective at safeguarding democracy.
Sitzblockaden der „Letzten Generation“ bewerten deutsche Gerichte als Nötigung durch Gewalt. Ich halte dies für vereinbar mit dem Begriff „Gewalt“, den § 240 Strafgesetzbuch enthält. Gewalt bedeutet nicht zwingend Aktivität – maßgeblich ist, ob körperlich wirkende Macht über eine andere Person ausgeübt wird. Damit wende ich mich gegen den kürzlich erschienenen Beitrag von Siegmar Lengauer, der aus österreichischer Perspektive ungläubig auf die deutsche Rechtsprechung zum Gewaltbegriff blickt und diese ablehnt.
The Indian Constitution is as much a culmination of the ideas of the freedom movement against colonial powers as it is of the achievement of a social revolution through law. Our Constitution, which was inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, thus, not only provided for political freedom from foreign rule and established a democratic republic, but it also provided a road map to undo the deeply entrenched hierarchies, inequalities, and social exclusions in our society and therefore for a social transformation. Much of the civil society interventions of the last seven decades have been to work for redeeming the promise of the constitution inside and outside courts.
Having been governed by Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the last ten years, India will hold elections in the following weeks. We use this moment as an opportunity to reflect upon the last decade and assess how the Hindu nationalists have impacted Indian constitutionalism. To do so, we have asked legal scholars and practitioners to reflect upon the developments in particular areas of Indian constitutional law over the last decade. This blog post will provide an introduction to the symposium.
Improvisation, Irrationality, and Provocative Cruelty.
Party banning was developed in Spain in 2002, with the aim of combating the terrorism of ETA (1958-2018), an extreme left-wing and separatist Basque organisation that murdered more than 800 people. This instrument proved useful in defeating the terrorist group and its network of support organisations, including several parties. Today, there are strong separatist or pro-independence movements in Catalonia, the Basque Country and, to a lesser extent, Galicia, and other regions. Faced with this, there are parties that have proposed using the mechanism of banning parties. But is this viable, and would it be useful?
Shortly after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, the European Parliament expressed its concern about the rule of law in Hungary. 14 years later, the EP still, and yet again, discusses PM Orbán’s lack of respect for the values of the Union. The forthcoming debate on 10 April will be the Parliament’s last chance to prevent the scheduled takeover of the Council-Presidency by Hungary. The EP and the European Council must prevent a self-proclaimed illiberal leader from assuming the Presidency of the Council and thus protect the democratic nature of the European Union.
It is unsurprising that equity has featured so prominently in the Pandemic Treaty negotiations – the Treaty is a direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was characterised by gross inequality between high-income and LMICs. For all the talk at the start of the Treaty negotiation process of equity, of doing things differently in the future, it appears that very little will change. If it works, and there are very good reasons to believe that it will not work, it will at best make sure that a small proportion of vaccines end up where they need to be, and the rest will continue to go to the highest bidder, regardless of need, equity, or justice.
Das Magazin MONITOR berichtet in einem Beitrag von heute, wie diverse deutsche Firmen legale, also nicht-sanktionierte Korridore in den Russland-Sanktionen nutzen, um so Regionen wie Mariupol (unter übrigens enormen sanktionsrechtlichen und völkerrechtlichen Risiken) mit wichtigen Baustoffen zu beliefern oder beliefern zu lassen. In den sozialen Medien und unter Politikern ist sehr schnell, nämlich noch vor der eigentlichen Ausstrahlung der MONITOR-Sendung am heutigen Donnerstag, breite Empörung darüber entstanden, dass hier offenbar eines der wichtigsten Kriegsziele Russlands im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes mit deutscher Hilfe zementiert wird. Die massive Empörung über die Geschäfte ist nachvollziehbar, die allgemeine Verwunderung darüber, dass hier offenbar eine Sanktionslücke klafft, nicht.
13. September 2025
Giovanni Capoccia
12. September 2025
Anne Peters
12. September 2025
Anne Peters