Articles for category: Deutschland

Al-Bashir: flouting court orders are anti-poor and anti-democratic

The decision by the South African government to ignore the order of the Gauteng High Court not to allow President Omar al-Bashir from North Sudan to leave the country, constitutes a deliberate, pre-meditated, act of contempt of court. The case raises many complex legal and geo-political questions over which reasonable people could profitably disagree. But even in an overheated political climate in which emotions tend to overpower principles and logic, it is unclear how any level-headed South African could support the deliberate flouting of a court order.

15. Juni 2015

Kuscheln mit Orbán, oder: Gentlemen, in fact, do disagree about facts

Ein Expertenausschuss der DGAP unter Leitung von Klaus von Dohnanyi will die kritische Berichterstattung vieler Medien über Ungarn mit Fakten widerlegen. Das misslingt und wirft die Frage auf, woher die Neigung vor allem vieler altgedienter Sozialdemokraten rührt, jeden noch so empörenden Angriff auf Menschenwürde, Demokratie und/oder Rechtsstaatlichkeit zu etwas herunterregeln zu wollen, was sich mit genügend Sachkenntnis und Dialogbereitschaft schon irgendwie aus der Welt schaffen lässt.

12. Juni 2015

Foreign Policy and the Luxembourg Court: How to Address a Key Roadblock to EU Accession to the ECHR

The Court of Justice of the European Union recently declared the European Union cannot join the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) unless the Luxembourg court has jurisdiction over all questions of EU law that reach the Strasbourg court – including Common Foreign and Security Policy. The reasons behind this decision have been discussed elsewhere. The big question now is, how to proceed?

12. Juni 2015

The EP 2014 Elections: Constitutional Change or Window-Dressing?

The constitutional expectations developed around the European elections of May 2014 were effectively quite high. Faced with a mounting crisis affecting their output legitimacy, European institutions had to strengthen their status through a different channel. An agreement was struck among the main European political parties for nominating a candidate to the President of the European Commission to be supported, in case of victory at the polls, before the European Council. This novelty was introduced as a two-fold opportunity: first, as a chance for enhancing the representative quality of EU lawmaking and, second, to move the relationship between Parliament and Commission toward a form of parliamentary government. Did it succeed? In hindsight, it is clear that the elections of 2014 did produce some effects, but not those of significant politicisation initially envisaged.

8. Juni 2015

Warum das Tarifeinheitsgesetz die Falschen trifft

Am 22. Mai 2015 hat der Deutsche Bundestag das »Gesetz zur Tarifeinheit« beschlossen, das bei kollidierenden Tarifverträgen in einem Betrieb dem der jeweils größeren Gewerkschaft den Anwendungsvorrang sichert. Dieses Gesetz fordert verfassungsrechtliche Kritik geradezu heraus. Ich habe im Bundestag dagegen gestimmt und in meiner persönlichen Erklärung nach § 31 GO-BT meine eigenen Zweifel an der Verfassungskonformität des Gesetzes zunächst wie folgt formuliert: »Art. 9 Abs. 3 des Grundgesetzes postuliert eine Koalitionsfreiheit, die nur durch gleichwertige Verfassungsgüter eingeschränkt werden kann.« Schon hier wirft das Gesetz die ersten Fragen auf. Denn zu welchem Zweck die Koalitionsfrei­heit eingeschränkt werden soll, ist nicht wirklich ... continue reading

1. Juni 2015

An Empire of Capital? Transatlantic Investment Protection as the Institutionalization of Unjustified Privilege

The field of investor state arbitration is historically connected to purposes and contexts, which are strikingly different from the contemporary world of trade and investment relations between liberal constitutional democracies. What might conceivably have been a mutually useful policy instrument in the relationship between developing and developed countries has no plausible role to play in the relationship between developed liberal constitutional democracies. The idea of investment arbitration as a field with its own separate dispute resolution infrastructure should be seen as an inherently dubious transitional phenomenon that deserves to wither away over time, rather than being reformed.

27. Mai 2015

Gleiche Rechte als Sonderrechte?

Nach dem Referendum in Irland ist es auch in Deutschland an der Zeit, die Ehe für gleichgeschlechtliche Paare zu öffnen. Als politischer Zwischenschritt war das Lebenspartnerschaftsgesetz äußerst wichtig und hat viel in Bewegung gesetzt. Aber ein Sonderrecht, wie es sich in der Sonderbezeichnung als Lebenspartnerschaft statt Ehe ausdrückt und in den vielen fortbestehenden Ungleichbehandlungen in Einzelrechten niederschlägt, das entspricht nicht dem fundamentalen Anspruch von gleichgeschlechtlichen Paaren auf Anerkennung ihrer Gleichheit mit verschiedengeschlechtlichen Paaren. Sonst werden gleichgeschlechtlich liebende Menschen rechtlich weiterhin als Bürger*innen zweiter Klasse behandelt. Nur die gleiche Ehe für gleichgeschlechtliche wie verschiedengeschlechtliche Paare löst das verfassungsrechtliche Gleichheitsversprechen des Grundgesetzes ein.

26. Mai 2015

Giving Greece a chance

Opinion piece by members of the Eiffel Group and the Glienicke Group The Greek tragedy must not go on. Europe’s growing frustration with the new Greek government has triggered calls for stopping negotiations and even accepting »Grexit«, Greece’s exit from the euro. We believe that this would be a mistake. Grexit would be a collective political failure. Above all, it would cause a social and economic catastrophe for Greek citizens. However, keeping Greece in the euro area at the cost of citizens of other countries, without a serious and credible commitment by the Greek government to reform its economy and ... continue reading

22. Mai 2015

Legal implications of human rights reform in the UK

The return of a majority Conservative government in last week’s general election in the UK has made the Conservative Party’s plans for reforming human rights law in the United Kingdom a likely prospect. It is recalled that on 3 October 2014, the Conservative Party published its policy document ‘Protecting Human Rights in the UK’ which sets out its proposal to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) and replace it with a new British Bill of Rights. In addition, the policy document also raised the prospect that the UK might withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). But none of that is as easy as it sounds.

13. Mai 2015