Mapping the Future
On 25 June 2026, the Paris Judicial Court became the first court to rule on the merits of Notre Affaire à Tous and others v. TotalEnergies SE. At its core, the case concerns whether TotalEnergies violated the French Commercial Code by failing to adequately report the climate risks associated with its activities and take action to mitigate those risks in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. The decision demonstrates that a domestic due diligence statute can reach the full climate footprint of a global energy major.
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Don’t Leave the President at Home
Relations between Czech President Petr Pavel and Prime Minister Andrej Babiš's government have deteriorated almost since the government took office in December 2025. A few months ago, the political conflict culminated in an unprecedented dispute over the President's participation in the upcoming NATO summit in Ankara and prompted an unusually swift intervention by the Czech Constitutional Court. After the government had tried to prevent the President from attending the NATO summit, he filed a competence complaint and a request for an interim measure on 22 June 2026. Just two days later, on 24 June 2026, the Court released its decision.
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Not a Return, Rather an Abduction
On 17 June 2026, the European Parliament approved the new so-called Return Regulation with the backing of conservative and far-right groups. Only the Council's final approval is now pending. Under the Regulation, people may be forcibly transferred to a country they have never known or even set foot in. By any ordinary understanding of the term, this has nothing to do with a "return." It bears a much closer resemblance to what most people would call abduction.
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Femizide und die Verantwortung des Staates
Der Mordtatbestand erfasst Femizide bereits heute. Dennoch gelingt es der Rechtsprechung seit Jahrzehnten nicht, patriarchale Tatmotive konsequent als solche zu erkennen. So entsteht eine Schieflage, die nicht nur rechtspolitisch schwer zu rechtfertigen ist, sondern auch den staatlichen Schutzauftrag gegenüber Frauen berührt. Wenn Gerichte das Problem nicht lösen, rückt der Gesetzgeber in die Pflicht.
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Fiktion der Einzelfallprüfung
Die Vereinbarkeit einer AfD-Mitgliedschaft mit der beamtenrechtlichen Verfassungstreuepflicht prägt den juristischen Diskurs. So auch im jüngsten Fall vor dem VG Berlin, das die Nichteinstellung eines AfD-Kommunalpolitikers in den Polizeidienst billigte. Die Entscheidung ist konsequent, dennoch plädiere ich für eine Umkehr der Beweislast: Nicht die politischen Aktivitäten müssen eine verfassungsfeindliche Haltung untermauern, vielmehr begründet die Parteimitgliedschaft als solche eine Regelvermutung, die der Betroffene durch aktives innerparteiliches Eintreten für die freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung widerlegen kann.
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A Tale of Our Times
Keir Starmer's resignation only two years after Labour's landslide victory is more than a story about the failures of Labour or Starmer himself. It says something larger about the increasingly difficult conditions under which governments in what were once called “advanced liberal democracies” operate today. Across Europe and beyond, political fragmentation, electoral volatility and the rise of populist challenger parties have made governing considerably harder.
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Strengthening Data Protection Resilience Against Geopolitical Threats
Geopolitical threats to data protection can arise in particular from armed conflicts and cyberattacks, and may involve disrupting the processing of personal data needed to deliver vital services, destroying public records and databases, and misusing data to facilitate human rights abuses. EU law is currently unprepared to protect data processing in case of a major crisis such as kinetic or cyber warfare. This requires action by the EU institutions and the data protection authorities, in particular under the EU GDPR.
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Sweden’s Vital Interests
Can “vital interests” of the state serve as a legal criterion for a Migration Authority to strip the nationality of citizens with dual citizenship on security and organized crime grounds? The problem of gang-related organized crime has led to the latest legislative proposal to revoke citizenship, which threatens Sweden’s vital interests. But the legal standard of seriously damaging “Sweden’s vital interests” remains very broad and thus highly susceptible to misuse. Moreover, only criminal law – with all the constitutional safeguards it affords – should carry out such a sanction.
Continue reading >>Vorauseilende Neutralität
Die AfD wirft der Technischen Universität Berlin einen Verstoß gegen das Neutralitätsgebot vor, weil in ihren Räumen ein Kongress linker Studierender stattfand. Bereits vorab wollte die AfD diesen Kongress daher verhindern. Angesichts der Gefahr durch autoritäre Politik für die Wissenschaftsfreiheit und die Universitäten wären Hochschulleitungen gut beraten, sich nicht vor den Karren der AfD spannen zu lassen und politischen Druck an Studierende und Wissenschaftler weiterzugeben. Das „Neutralitätsgebot“, auf das sie sich beruft, bindet sie nicht.
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New Genomic Techniques in Food and Feed
On 17 June 2026, the European Parliament adopted new rules on plants obtained by certain new genomic techniques (NGTs), including the famous genetic scissors CRISPR-Cas9, and the food and feed made from these plants. This is the most radical change in the regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the EU in the last three decades. The new rules exempt certain NGT plants and their products from investment-choking GMO rules under Directive 2001/18 and lower the risk assessment requirements for certain other NGT plants.
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CURRENT DEBATES
European Society After Commission v Hungary
The landmark judgment in Commission v Hungary has opened a new chapter in the history of EU law. In this decision, the CJEU not only held that Article 2 TEU can be invoked as a self-standing provision in infringement proceedings but also acknowledged the existence of a European society, in which certain values prevail – a historic first. In this symposium, we aim at showing the diverse ways in which scholars from law, philosophy, and the social sciences reflect on European society, in and beyond Commission v Hungary.
Read all articles >>Inter-Judicial Dialogue on Climate Change and Human Rights
This symposium brings together judges, practitioners, and scholars from the European, Inter-American, and African regional human rights systems to examine climate change as a human rights challenge, tracing shared legal questions, divergent doctrinal responses, and the growing importance of inter-judicial dialogue in shaping transnational climate justice.
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Volume 7,
Issue 2
July 2025
JUS COGENS
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Killing Hitler Word by Word: The Oath as Apocalyptic Lawmaking
GREGOR NOLL
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Adjudicating Climate Protest as a Tool of Modern Republicanism
DMITRII KUZNETSOV
OUR LATEST PUBLICATION
Christophe Geiger & Bernd Justin Jütte (eds.)
Enabling Access, Fostering Innovation: Towards a Digital Knowledge Agenda in Europe
Access to knowledge and information is essential to foster innovation. In the EU, existing copyright rules pose significant barriers to research and education. Instead of promoting access to knowledge resources, copyright creates legal uncertainty for researchers and educators and enables information intermediaries to exercise strict control over the use of protected works. This edited volume proposes ways out of the copyright conundrum by rethinking copyright as an access right.
Discover the Open Access digital edition here.
EDITORIAL
Pilze finden
Ich suche leidenschaftlich gerne Pilze. Ich laufe durch den Wald und lasse meinen Späherblick schweifen, bis er irgendwo hängen bleibt: Halt! Da stimmt was nicht. Das ist irgendwie auffällig, wie sich das Laub vom Vorjahr da ineinanderschichtet zwischen den Sonnenflecken. Da sind zwischen dem ganzen Erdbraun und Staubgrau merkwürdige, oft merkwürdig intensive Farben: ein Dottergelb, ein Samtbraun, ein Elfenbeinweiß. So finde ich Pilze, und so finde ich auch meine Ideen beim Schreiben. Seit Neuestem habe ich dabei jemanden/etwas an meiner Seite. Claude heißt er/es und tut fortwährend so, als wäre er ein Gefährte, ein Subjekt, ein Mensch.
VB SECURITY AND CRIME
In cooperation with:
VB Security and Crime is a cooperation of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law (MPI-CSL) and the Verfassungsblog in the areas of public security law and criminal law. The MPI-CSL Institute is a member of the Max Planck Law network.