Articles for category: AAA General
Voßkuhle drinnen, ich draußen
Und da sage noch jemand, Verfassungsthemen seien nur für ein paar elitäre Eierköpfe interessant… Zu dieser Stunde spricht gerade Andreas Voßkuhle, Präsident des Bundesverfassungsgerichts, in der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften über das Thema „Europa als Rechtsgemeinschaft„. Das hätte ich mir gerne angehört. Ging aber nicht. Als ich pünktlich um sieben am Gendarmenmarkt eintraf, sah ich schon von weitem eine Menschentraube. Gut 50 Leute standen sich vor verschlossener Tür die Füße in den Bauch. Die ganz vorne standen, klopften immer wieder gegen die Scheibe. Vergebens. Die Tür blieb zu. Irgendwann kam einer und rief: wegen Überfüllung geschlossen! Und das Tollste: die ... continue reading
Translating Ideas
Picking up some of the threads of the current debate on this blog, I would like to focus on an aspect that to my mind is of crucial importance in the matter: the necessity of translation. What I mean by that will hopefully become clear in the course of the following three steps: First I would like to argue why and in what sense doctrinal scholarship is (or at least can be) at the very core of law. In a second step I would like to explain why – therefore and nevertheless – it needs interdisciplinarity and internationalization/comparative legal studies. ... continue reading
Bundesgericht pfeift „Schweizermacher“ zurück
Die Schweiz hat im Moment, wenn es um „Fremde“ geht, keine besonders gute Presse, und das Bundesgericht hat daran
NPD darf am Holocaust-Gedenktag gegen Euro demonstrieren
Heute hat die NPD wirklich Grund zum Feiern. Nicht nur kommt sie am 25. Mai,
Politisierung des Europaparlaments: Für Karlsruhe nichts als „spekulativ“
Gibt es Gründe, sich um die Funktionsfähigkeit des Europaparlaments Sorgen zu machen? Angesichts der Tatsache, dass nach der Eurokrise die Legitimationsgrundlagen des ganzen Integrationsprojekts europaweit ins Wanken geraten sind? Angesichts der Tatsache, dass das Europaparlament die einzige Institution der EU ist, die über eine zwar unvollkommene, aber doch immerhin unmittelbare demokratische Legitimation verfügt? Angesichts der Tatsache, dass ein dysfunktionales Europaparlament, das keine Mehrheit mehr zustande bringt, die EU insgesamt lähmen und so eine Spirale der immer weiteren Delegitimierung der Integration in Gang setzen könnte? Angesichts der Tatsache, dass in vielen EU-Ländern wohl Parteien die Europawahl gewinnen könnten, die an einem ... continue reading
Poor Prospects for Internationalization: Germans and Americans in Law Faculties Jenseits des Atlantiks
Introduction For all the noise it makes about internationalizing German legal scholarship, the Council’s Report only makes a feeble pass at the deeply parochial culture that dominates the German legal academy. One of the gravest consequences of that parochialism is the exclusion of foreign legal scholars from Germany’s law faculties. This, in turn, undermines other attempts at internationalizing German legal scholarship. I hope to illustrate the extent of this problem with a survey that shows how few American jurists are teaching in Germany and how many Germans have succeeded in becoming law professors in America. Globalizing Legal Education The German ... continue reading
Wissenschaftsrat in Wonderland
Had the German Wissenschaftsrat hired an advertising agency to extol the virtues and challenges of German legal education at the dawn of the 21st century, the publicist could hardly have done a more positive job than the Wissenschaftsrat itself. Its report signals that all is remarkably well with the state of legal education and research in Germany: there are more chairs than ever, and those chairs attract more research funding than ever before. German legal scholarship is internationalizing, and coming to terms with the increasing juridification of society and deformalization of law. All is great. Of course, all could be ... continue reading
Expanding the Legal Curriculum: Rethinking the Teaching of Law
What is striking to an outsider about the focus of German legal scholarship is the extent to which it centres on a canonical and dogmatic approach to the interpretation of law. This emerges very clearly from the report prepared by the German Council of Science and Humanities and translated under the auspices of the programme Rechtskulturen. At the same time, there is recognition of the need to develop legal scholarship beyond these frames of reference to engage law in a wider system of higher education and academic research. This not only requires a rethinking of the curricular design to allow ... continue reading
Courage to be wrong, or education to get it right? A response to Michaela Hailbronner
Michaela Hailbronner makes important arguments in her informed and carefully balanced post. I agree with much of what she says. I just think the main problem of interdisciplinarity in Germany is not lack of courage. It is lack of expertise. Much of her analysis strikes me as sound. I would agree that many US law professors have few scruples to write on topics and in areas about which they know very little. But regardless of whether one finds that refreshing or annoying, I do not think it is a relevant factor in the creation of scholarly knowledge. I also think ... continue reading
