Articles for category: AAA General

UNRWA as Sui Generis

Since UNRWA preemptively disclosed Israel’s claim to have evidence that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the 7 October 2023 attacks, at least 16 donor states and the European Union, which collectively supply the vast majority of the Agency’s budget, have suspended their contributions. This poses an existential threat to UNRWA, the largest provider of humanitarian assistance in Gaza. This post explains how the current episode displays the unsatisfactory sui generis status of UNRWA’s Palestinian staff, and forms part of an ongoing and largely successful attempt to position UNRWA as a compromised, sui generis UN organisation which constitutes an outlier in the law and practice of the United Nations.

9. Februar 2024

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Exercising Power from the Outside

Since 2019, anti-Islam non-parliamentary activists have explored the limits to freedom of speech in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands through their provocative Quran desecration acts. Using the non-parliamentarian arena to exercise power from a position of minority, the far-right activist Rasmus Paludan and his party were able to effectively push the Danish constitutional boundaries, while at the same time affecting the geopolitical situation. While the protests so far only have had legal repercussions regarding blasphemy and freedom of speech in Denmark, it clearly demonstrates that non-parliamentary far-right activists also hold certain legislative powers.

9. Februar 2024

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Subnational Politics and the Path of National Democracies

In Germany and the United States, political factions have emerged in the last decade that have challenged some of the core institutions, conventions, and norms of liberal democratic life. In both countries, subnational units of government—states or municipalities—have operated as staging grounds for parties or factions of parties that reject some or all necessary elements of democratic practice. While they have used different institutional tactics to this end, many basic elements of political strategy can be observed across the two cases.

8. Februar 2024

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Regime Adaptation Within Russia’s Judicial Elites

The case of Valery Zorkin, chairman of the Russian Constitutional Court, shows how elites prioritize their own survival and therefore do not oppose a repressive and aggressive regime, most likely because they fear revenge from liberal peers and victims of the system. And since the war against Ukraine, elites have another reason to stay loyal. For those who fear being held responsible for a war of aggression and war crimes, Putin is the only “guarantor of stability.”

8. Februar 2024

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Grundrechtsverwirkung und Parteiverbote gegen radikale AfD-Landesverbände (Teil III)

In diesem abschließenden dritten Teil werde ich die dritte These des Beitrags begründen: Die Verfassungstreuepflicht engt das politische Antragsermessen für solche Anträge umso stärker ein, je klarer ihre Voraussetzungen erfüllt sind. Sie reduziert dieses Ermessen auf Null und begründet eine Antragspflicht, wenn, wie hier, die Voraussetzungen hinreichend klar vorliegen und die zu erwartenden Nachteile die Vorteile eines Antrags jedenfalls nicht klar und eindeutig überwiegen. Sie verlangt zudem auch von allen Amtsträger:innen, nicht zuletzt auch von der Staatsrechtslehre, sich stärker gegen diese Bedrohung der freiheitlichen Demokratie zu wenden, als das bislang vielfach geschieht.

8. Februar 2024

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Examining the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act

Finally, consensus on the EU Artificial Intelligence Act. The academic community is thus finally in a position to provide a (slightly) more definitive evaluation of the Act’s potential to protect individuals and societies from AI systems’ harms. This blog post attempts to contribute to this discussion by illustrating and commenting on the final compromises regarding some of the most controversial and talked-about aspects of the AI Act, namely its rules on high-risk systems, its stance on General Purpose AI, and finally its system of governance and enforcement.

7. Februar 2024

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Grundrechtsverwirkung und Parteiverbote gegen radikale AfD-Landesverbände (Teil II)

Das demokratische Haus in Deutschland brennt. Es ist höchste Zeit, die Instrumente der streitbaren Demokratie gegen Landesverbände der AfD einzusetzen, die mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit verfassungswidrig sind, wie die in Thüringen, Sachsen und Sachsen-Anhalt. Warum die Voraussetzungen für Grundrechtsverwirkung und Parteiverbot dort vorliegen, und die Verfassungstreue es auch verlangt, diese Anträge zu stellen, begründe ich in diesem dreiteiligen Beitrag. In diesem zweiten Teil werde ich näher auf die Voraussetzungen für ein Parteiverbot für die fraglichen Landesverbände eingehen, aber auch darauf, welche Rolle in dieser Debatte gerade auch Staatsrechtslehrer spielen, die den Volksbegriff des Grundgesetzes in einem ethnisch-exkludierenden Sinn verstehen.

7. Februar 2024

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Paving the Way for Violence

The negative effects of the 1993 conflict prevailed over the benefits from the end of a confrontation. Its outcomes raised a major barrier to the democratization of Russia and paved the way for the use of violence as a means of preserving power. This conflict contributed to the maximization of presidential power and to the weakening of checks and balances in the constitution, which included significant authoritarian potential. The political order established in Russia after the 1993 conflict largely determined the subsequent trajectory of Russian political evolution and its drift towards a personalist authoritarian regime.

7. Februar 2024

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Grundrechtsverwirkung und Parteiverbote gegen radikale AfD-Landesverbände (Teil I)

Das demokratische Haus in Deutschland brennt. Es ist höchste Zeit, die Instrumente der streitbaren Demokratie gegen Landesverbände der AfD einzusetzen, die mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit verfassungswidrig sind, wie die in Thüringen, Sachsen und Sachsen-Anhalt. Warum die Voraussetzungen für Grundrechtsverwirkung und Parteiverbot dort vorliegen, und die Verfassungstreue es auch verlangt, diese Anträge zu stellen, werde ich in diesem dreiteiligen Beitrag begründen. In diesem Teil werde ich darlegen, warum eine Verwirkung mit Wählbarkeitsausschluss möglich ist und deren Voraussetzungen voraussichtlich auch erfüllt sind.

6. Februar 2024

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Bricolage, Bullshit, and Bustle

On 15 December 2023, the Swiss Federal Council (Government) announced that it intended to start formal negotiations with the EU on the conclusion of a Framework Agreement (FA) 2.0. Five existing and two new treaties between the EU and Switzerland are to be subject to dynamic alignment and institutionalised, i.e. provided with a monitoring and judicial mechanism. The project, which is practically fixed in the decisive questions by a “Common Understanding” (“CU”) between the two parties, is based on a triple B approach: in substance, it consists of unsuccessful bricolage, the foundations were laid by bullshit, and because elections and a change of the Commission are imminent in the EU, bustle is supposedly of the essence. The CU summarizes what the Parties have informally agreed on.

6. Februar 2024

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