Articles for category: AAA General

The Transformation of European Climate Change Litigation

In a transformative moment for European and global climate litigation, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled today that the state has a positive duty to adopt, and effectively implement in practice, regulations and measures capable of mitigating the existing and potentially irreversible future effects of climate change. In Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland (“KlimaSeniorinnen”), the Court held that by failing to put in place a domestic regulatory framework for climate change mitigation, the Swiss government violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the right to respect for private and family life. The judgment is a milestone for human rights protection.

9. April 2024

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Paternalistische Freiwilligkeit

Nachdem das Digitalunternehmen Meta ein sog. „Pay-or-Consent“-Modell im November 2023 für seinen sozialen Netzwerkdienst Facebook eingeführt hatte, riefen mehrere staatliche Datenschutzbehörden den EDPB an, um die Vereinbarkeit dieses Modells mit der DSGVO zu klären. In einer grotesken Volte soll das Datenschutzrecht als Hebel dienen, Medienunternehmen oder großen Netzwerkbetreibern das Angebot einer Leistung zu untersagen, die datenminimalistischer ist als das überkommene Geschäftsmodell. Die Datenschutzbehörden stehen damit vor der Frage, ob die Interpretation der DSGVO einen „social justice turn“ vollziehen soll und Anliegen sozialer Gerechtigkeit zum Schutzzweck gemacht werden können.

9. April 2024

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Amending the Constitution Without Deliberation

India is undergoing a “deliberation backsliding”. Since the current government was elected to office in 2019, only 13% of all government bills introduced in Parliament were referred to Parliament Committees for detailed study, scrutiny and stakeholder consultations. While the deliberation deficit is concerning with respect to ordinary government bills, it becomes alarming with respect to bills which seek to amend the Indian Constitution. In this blog post, I argue that the promise of deliberative democracy in India is coming undone, which sets back the project of constitutionalism in India.

8. April 2024

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To Define Is Just to Define

Social media allows users to share content worldwide. This also enables users to distribute illegal content. The laws of the EU Member States vary greatly when it comes to what content they consider to be illegal, especially regarding hate speech. Thus, it is important which national law applies in cross-border cases concerning online content. Ultimately, this question is closely linked to the broader reshuffling of power in the digital sphere: will it be actual ‘law’ that platforms enforce online or norms made by platforms themselves? So far, the law of 27 Member States plus the EU itself remains utterly chaotic compared to the more uniform Terms of Service (ToS) of the internet giants.

8. April 2024

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Ecuador’s Embassy Raid

The Mexican government broke diplomatic ties with Ecuador after the Mexican Embassy in Quito was raided on April 6, 2024, to detain Ecuador’s ex-vice-president Jorge Glas, convicted of bribery and organized crime. Both governments are facing significant stakes: Ecuador must ensure that a high-profile crime does not go unpunished, while Mexico is obligated to uphold international law and offer international protection for Jorge Glas.

7. April 2024

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Reimagining Indian Federalism

As India’s new dominant party system coalesced after 2014, the country entered a phase of centralisation. India has always had federalism with a strong centre, but from the late 1980s to the mid-2010s, political and economic regionalism and national coalition governments encompassing national and regional parties produced an appearance of deepening federalisation. Since 2014, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) became the first party in over 25 years to win an outright parliamentary majority, the twin pillars of political centralisation under a dominant party system and economic concentration, have once again drawn attention to the contested nature of India’s federal contract.

7. April 2024

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Anna Julia Cooper

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.

7. April 2024

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Why Party Bans Often Don’t Work

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.

6. April 2024

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Gewalt durch Sitzblockaden

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.

6. April 2024

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Civil Society and its Engagement with the Constitution

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.

5. April 2024

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