What’s the future of the free world? What does the ‘free world’ even mean? Recent reports from leading democracy assessment bodies depict a shrinking democratic atlas that is more fragmented than it has been for decades after a steep decline in every world region.
The judgment of 29 April 2021 quashing parts of the Climate Protection Act (CPA) has made history. Not only because the First Senate of the BVerfG put an end to deferring the reduction of greenhouse gasses to the future, or at least to the next government. But because this turn to the future came in the form of a turn to international law and institutions. It is precisely by relying on international law that the court overcomes the counter-majoritarian difficulty commonly tantalizing climate litigation and human rights law generally. The most astonishing fact is, however, that the court entirely avoids the tragic choice between supposedly undemocratic international commitments and the democratic legislature. I argue that it does so by approaching constitutional law in a decidedly postcolonial perspective.
Der Klima-Beschluss des Bundesverfassungsgerichts schlägt hohe Wellen. National wie international wird das Urteil bereits jetzt als Meilenstein für den Klimaschutz gefeiert. Der Beschluss legt den Grundstein für eine weitergehende und dauerhafte verfassungsgerichtliche Kontrolle der staatlichen Klimaschutzbemühungen anhand der Grundrechte und Art. 20a GG
Who ought to decide on climate issues? Now, the Constitutional Court has decided. It held that the provisions of the Federal Climate Protection Act are “incompatible with fundamental rights insofar as they lack sufficient specifications for further emission reductions from 2031 onwards”. This decision is extraordinary in many ways: in its interpretation of the constitutional obligation to protect the environment (art. 20a of the Basic Law) as much as in its commitment to international cooperation and international law in climate issues. From this decision on, the German constitution will speak in the future tense.
What began as a health crisis quickly morphed into an economic, human rights and governance upheaval. In March 2021, we came full circle as we saw a return to excessive law enforcement in the country on account of the third wave of the virus, which has led to a surge in the number of people testing positive and thrown the country back into a state of disarray as poorly resourced health facilities grapple with the influx of cases.
The government response to COVID-19 in Latvia can be characterised as one of legal caution. Even though successive states of emergency have been used to manage the crisis, adequate parliamentary and judicial oversight has resulted in broadly proportional handling of the pandemic.
The Croatian government has, much like any other, struggled to find an adequate response to the pandemic of COVID-19. “Dancing with the virus” for the last year entailed introducing, relaxing and re-introducing more or less stringent measures limiting constitutional rights and individual liberties based on epidemiologic developments and political priorities of the day, or season. The measures have ranged from almost a full lockdown in early 2020 when our numbers of infections were amongst the lowest ones in Europe, to a (far too) lenient regime during the tourist season in summer and fall 2020, when the budgetary, economic and political concerns prevailed over the need to address the serious worsening of our epidemiologic parameters. Even today, in the midst of the ‘third wave’, Croatia has quite a moderate set of measures.
The Philippines have one of the longest lockdowns in the world in response to COVID-19. This post reviews the past year, focusing on the main legal and political issues as well as prospects in the country with the second highest total number of COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia.
The disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on minorities and indigenous peoples across the globe has been well documented. Individuals from these communities have been infected at a greater rate, are more likely to die after contracting the disease and now risk being at the back of the queue in national vaccination programmes. Our work has focussed on a number of elements of this phenomenon, including a study of the disproportionate burden of Covid-19 on the most marginalized communities worldwide, and the ways that members from these communities have been pushed into forced labour as a result of the pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic posed an unprecedented challenge for the Lithuanian society and the decision-makers. Lithuania’s response to the disease was overseen by two different governments - a populist centre-left government in spring 2020 and a liberal-centre-right coalition formed after the 2020 October parliamentary elections. Since Lithuania’s approach to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic including its legal/constitutional framework has already been addressed, the present analysis will focus on the second quarantine as well as on some overarching issues concerning the rule of law, human rights and good governance.
13. September 2025
Giovanni Capoccia
12. September 2025
Anne Peters
12. September 2025
Anne Peters