Wer fragt nach dem Recht, wenn der Tod auf der Schwelle steht? Jurist*innen müssen das wohl tun, selbst wenn die Welt unterginge. Allerdings sollten sie sich auf Ungewissheit in globaler Ausbreitung und in bisher unbekanntem Ausmaße einstellen. Das Recht ist selten klüger als die Gesellschaft, deren Verhalten es reguliert. Solange es gelten will, muss es lernen.
As has been highlighted by other contributors to this Symposium, emergency decrees have already been used to achieve political ambitions beyond addressing COVID-19 in places like Hungary or Bulgaria. While states bear the responsibility of protecting their nations, modern day international human rights law is designed precisely to protect people from governments that abuse their powers. What limits does international human rights law impose on governments during emergencies? Can they be enforced? And how does COVID-19 fit in these conceptualizations?
On Angela Merkel, her crisis management, the tyranny of goals and the difference between both.
Über Angela Merkel, ihr Krisenmanagement, die "Tyrannei des Ziels" und den Unterschied zwischen beidem.
On 16 April 2020, the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court announced Decision No.1-20-EE/20, allowing it to monitor the impact of its previous judgments on the constitutionality of emergency powers granted to the President in the fight against Covid-19. This decision shows that a Constitutional Court can indeed play an essential role in a country’s response to a catastrophe, whose consequences are painfully obvious in Ecuador, one of the countries in Latin America worst hit by the pandemic.
In its early stages, the COVID-19 crisis in Iran looked nothing like a crisis. The initial reactions to the outbreak were met by skepticism by both the public and many of Iranian officials – despite the World Health Organization warning of the potential for a catastrophe for weeks. Indeed, in late February Iran’s deputy health minister – Iraj Harirchi who denied accusations that the government was downgrading the coronavirus outbreak in the country – has reportedly tested positive for the sickness.
A new virus, SARS-CoV-2, emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019. Infected persons developed an atypical form of pneumonia, later known as COVID-19. The pathogen created a pandemic, with fatalities throughout the world, and also led to the adoption of restrictive measures which were, until recently, unthinkable, as well as fostering new political conflicts. Even the path of the multilateral order in its current form is at stake. For a take on these issues under international law, the legal regime of the World Health Organization (WHO) and its response to the pandemic provides an insightful access.
The measures introduced to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Poland are among some of the most extensive and far-reaching, affecting many spheres of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. Few of these measures amount to recommendations and suggestions of specific behaviour, most of them are hard, legally enforceable orders and prohibitions and flouting them incurs the risk of severe financial punishment. Yet the legal framework for these measures causes a significant degree of controversy. This report aims to present a birds eye’s view on the measures in Poland and to highlight some issues legal scholars and experts have taken with both the substantive side of the measures and the means they were introduced.
Unser heutiges Thema hat mit Corona unmittelbar gar nicht so viel zu tun, mit Krise dafür um so mehr: Es geht um Polen, um das polnische Verfassungsgericht, das in dieser Woche ein Urteil gefällt hat, das, sagen wir mal, erklärungsbedürftig ist. Dieses Urteil, um das Ergebnis vorweg zu nehmen, springt nicht nur mit dem polnischen Verfassungsrecht, sondern auch und vor allem mit dem Europarecht auf beispiellos brachiale Weise um. Darüber spricht Max Steinbeis mit einem Europarechtler, der sich sowohl mit dem Verhältnis von nationaler Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit zum EU-Recht als auch mit dem speziellen Fall Polen viel beschäftigt hat und obendrein ein langjähriger Freund und Autor des Verfassungsblogs ist, nämlich FRANZ MAYER von der Uni Bielefeld.
Although the pandemic is far from over, Greece has been praised so far for its fast and firm response to the crisis. The country’s efforts to contain the dissemination of the virus seem to have achieved а flattening of the curve, i.e. the slowing of the spread so that fewer people need to seek treatment at any given time. Greece owes much of its – to date – accomplishment to a number of dubious applications of the rules laid down in the Constitution.
13. September 2025
Giovanni Capoccia
12. September 2025
Anne Peters
12. September 2025
Anne Peters