Dropping CETA’s current investment chapter and trilateralising its (re-)negotiation would provide the space for making a conscious, open, and unbiased decision in favour of an investor-state dispute-settlement mechanism in European trade and investment agreements.
David Cameron has pledged to hold a referendum on the UK’s EU membership if his Conservative party wins a majority at the British general election in May. Jo Murkens writes on the impact an EU referendum would have on the UK’s place in Europe and on the UK as a whole. He argues that the EU referendum debate highlights the extent to which the UK has failed to contribute to the EU’s political goals in key areas like the Ukraine crisis, and that the net effect of the referendum could be to weaken the unity of the United Kingdom itself.
Nach der Aufdeckung der NSU-Mordserie gab es viele Stimmen, die eine radikale Reform oder sogar Abschaffung des Verfassungsschutzes forderten. Eine Debatte über die Rolle deutscher Staatsanwaltschaften im Umgang mit dem NSU-Komplex bleibt bislang aus.
The Strasbourg court has found that Poland violated the European Convention on Human Rights due to its collaboration in the rendition, imprisonment and torture of two terrorism-suspects (Al-Nashiri and Abu-Zubaydah) by CIA officers. This judgment may be interpreted as an accusation against the US. But neither the ECtHR nor any international human rights‘ court has any jurisdiction over the assessment of individual complaints against the US. Therefore, individual cases can only be taken up against supportive countries such as Macedonia, Poland, Lithuania or Romania, but cannot be lodged against the major perpetrator. This is like punishing the fence, but not ... continue reading
Wenn ein Krieg mit Mandat des UN-Sicherheitsrats oder im "Konsens der internationalen Gemeinschaft" geführt wird, dann kann man ganz ruhig davon ausgehen, dass dabei keine Kriegsverbrechen begangen werden. So sieht das heute der EuGH in seinem Urteil Sheperd. Kann man?
It goes without saying that a supranational court’s engagement with national social policy is a sensitive endeavour. This is all the more so when the norms this court is protecting are of a ‘classic’, rather than of a socio-economic kind. In the recent case of Béláné Nagy v. Hungary the European Court of Human Rights seemingly recognises a right to obtain social security benefits under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which contains the right to protection of property. The case was decided by a three to four vote and hence might be referred to the Grand Chamber. Yet it is especially the strong and diverging conclusions of the majority and the minority on a sensitive issue like the protection of social security qua property rights issue, that make this judgment worth elaborating upon.
Lombardy, Italy’s most populous region, has just enacted a law that seems to be designed to make life for Muslims as hard as possible. On January 27th, the Council of the Lombardy Region has enacted amendments to the Regional Law that regulates the planning of buildings and other structures for religious purposes. These amendments make it extremely cumbersome to build new places of worship for all non-established religious denominations, particularly Muslims – while the still dominant Catholic Church remains exempted from the regulation. Discrimination is not the only aspect of the new law that makes its constitutionality look more than questionable.
Five years from the entry of the Lisbon Treaty into force, national parliaments are evaluating the means of their influence and control over the EU law and policies. New ideas and improvements of existing procedures are being tabled. One of them is the so-called "green card" initiative, explored recently at least by Danish, Dutch and British parliament. In my opinion none of the objections against this proposal is convincing, and there are indeed good reasons for trying out the green card.
Darf die Polizei mich aktiv dazu bringen, ein Verbrechen zu begehen, nur damit sie mich hinterher deswegen verhaften kann? Das darf sie natürlich nicht, alles andere wäre ein Fußtritt in die Magengrube des Rechtsstaats. Die Strafjustiz darf sich die Kriminalität, zu deren Bekämpfung sie da ist, nicht selbst bauen. Nicht nur um meinet- und meiner Grundrechte willen. Sondern weil sie sonst in einen Wirbelkreislauf aus Ursache und Wirkung geriete, in dem sie sich selbst völlig ad absurdum führen würde. Darin sind sich im Prinzip alle einig, vom EGMR über das Bundesverfassungsgericht bis zum letzten Provinzlandgericht. Aber was passiert, wenn sie es trotzdem tut? Hier hört die Einigkeit ganz schnell auf, wie ein heute verkündeter Kammerbeschluss aus Karlsruhe zeigt, der, wenn mich nicht alles täuscht, die ohnehin nicht geringe Sorgenlast, die derzeit auf den Schultern des Straßburger Menschenrechtsgerichtshofs ruht, noch um einiges vermehren dürfte.
The struggle for the continued observance of Article 2 TEU values in the EU is on-going. Arguably, it is now much more acute than ever before. The news that Cyprus considers granting the Russian military access to military bases on its territory is just another urgent reminder of the mounting necessity to upgrade the Union’s role in dealing with values crises in the Member States – both internally and externally – issues which are indispensable for the Union’s survival.
13. September 2025
Giovanni Capoccia
12. September 2025
Anne Peters
12. September 2025
Anne Peters