14 January 2021
Das Problem mit den Gefälligkeitsattesten
Rechtspolitisch ist die Lage rund um die Maskenpflicht und die Möglichkeit, sich von ihr befreien zu lassen in mehrfacher Hinsicht problematisch. Problematisch einerseits, weil (wohl nicht ganz zu Unrecht) der Eindruck besteht, dass es für Menschen, die nicht aus gesundheitlichen, sondern aus politischen Gründen das Tragen der Maske ablehnen, ohne größere Umstände möglich ist, sich per Attest von der Maskenpflicht befreien zu lassen. Problematisch andererseits, weil dieser Anschein dazu führt, dass diejenigen, die tatsächlich aus gesundheitlichen Gründen nicht dazu in der Lage sind, eine Maske zu tragen, unter den Verdacht der Coronaleugnung gestellt werden. In diese Problemlage greift der Beschluss des 11. Senats des OVG Berlin-Brandenburg vom 04.01.2021 (11 S 132/20). Continue reading >>
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Und ewig grüßt das Kindeswohl
Schon wieder hat eine neue Formulierung für das Dauerprojekt „Kinderrechte in die Verfassung“ ihren Weg in die Medien gefunden, diesmal als Kompromiss der Koalitionsfraktionen. Wer sich schon länger mit dem Thema beschäftigt, fühlt sich an den armen Bill Murray aus dem Film „Groundhog Day“ erinnert, wie er Morgen für Morgen die Augen öffnet und immer wieder derselbe Tag beginnt, den er schon gestern, vorgestern und vorvorgestern erlebt hat. Doch nein, der Vergleich hinkt, denn im Film wird Murray am Ende mit einer klugen und schönen Frau glücklich, wir aber bekommen weder eine kluge noch eine schöne Verfassungsänderung – jedenfalls wenn es dieser Vorschlag ist, der sich am Ende durchsetzt Continue reading >>13 January 2021
1825 Days Later: The End of the Rule of Law in Poland (Part I)
On 13 January 2016, exactly five years ago today, the Commission activated the so-called rule of law framework for the very first time with respect to Poland. Ever since, the Polish authorities’ sustained and systematic attacks on the rule of law directly threaten the very functioning of the EU legal order. In what has become an annual series of dire warnings, this is an overview of the 2020 developments regarding the deterioration of the rule of law in Poland. Continue reading >>
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Symbolpolitik ohne Kollateralschäden?
Unter dem Banner „Kinderrechte ins Grundgesetz“ hat die große Koalition am Montagabend einen Kompromissentwurf zur Verankerung von Kinderrechten in der Verfassung präsentiert. Obwohl es sich bei dem Vorschlag – Satz für Satz betrachtet – um reine Symbolpolitik handelt und ein Eingriff in das sensible verfassungsrechtliche Beziehungsgefüge zwischen Eltern, Kind und Staat von der Koalition auch ausdrücklich nicht intendiert ist, könnte er in dieser Form ungewollte verfassungsrechtliche Kollateralschäden nach sich ziehen. Continue reading >>12 January 2021
The Good Samaritan that wasn’t: voluntary monitoring under the (draft) Digital Services Act
On 15 December 2020, the European Commission released the long awaited proposal for the Digital Services Act, amending the E-Commerce Directive. First impressions of the proposal mention that the DSA introduces Good Samaritan protection into the EU intermediary liability regime, which the European Commission has lobbied in favour of for quite some time. Upon further examination, however, it is clear that the new protection is yet something else. Continue reading >>Letzter Vorhang für @realdonaldtrump
Dem amerikanischen Präsidenten wurde mit seinem Twitter-Account die große Bühne genommen Ihre Entscheidung war angesichts der beispiellosen Eskalation der Ereignisse in Washington nicht nur rechtmäßig, sondern richtig und im Grunde überfällig. Ein Stück über Macht und soziale Medien Continue reading >>Conference Programme
Multiple legalities: a high-profile online conference on conflict and entanglement in the global legal order will be live-streamed on Verfassungsblog next week. Continue reading >>Multiple Legalities: Conflict and Entanglement in the Global Legal Order
Whether a bureaucrat in an environmental ministry tries to keep track of the various reporting duties she needs to comply with, or an investor seeks to understand the law of international financial transactions; whether a human rights defender faces a multi-level system of domestic and international human rights institutions with which to engage, or a professional athlete competes in a setting where rules from various entities – states, professional associations, the competition conveners – apply, there are today few (if any) situations that are governed by only one single regulatory framework. Multiplicity, it is now widely agreed, is a condition of the law beyond and increasingly also within the state. Continue reading >>Navigating Multiplicity in Law
How do different actors navigate law’s multiplicity? This panel will bring together perspectives from law, critical theory and legal anthropology to discuss how actors’ engagements with legal norms shifts our understanding of law as a unitary order. Continue reading >>
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Colliding Systems or Legal Tapestry?
This panel will analyse different ways in which norms from different legalities are being related: how do different forms of ordering in the field of climate change (standards, guidelines and frameworks) interact with one another? How do norms of environmental protection impact other areas of international law? And how can we best conceptualize the ways in which such norm interactions take place and provide guidance to normative conflicts – are they examples of colliding systems or instead of an emerging legal tapestry? Continue reading >>
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(Post)Colonial Legal Encounters
This panel investigates how international law, formal state law and Indigenous and/or religious law interact and relate to one another by contrasting the historical example of 18th century maritime provinces in Canada with contemporary legal disputes from Bangladesh and Nicaragua to. The papers use ethnographic and legal historical methods to better understand those relationships. Continue reading >>
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Weaving the Law
How do norms get transformed and do new norms emerge from legal interactions? This panel looks at this question with three different case studies of actors weaving different legalities together: World Athletics’ engagement with the norm of gender equality; UNCLOS courts’ and tribunals’ consideration of broader norms of ocean governance; and the impact of corporate social responsibility norms on WTO law. Continue reading >>
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Transnational Law’s Multiple Legalities
Almost seventy years after Philip Jessup coined the term “transnational law” as “all law which regulates actions or events that transcend national frontiers…both public and private international law”, the public-private law dichotomy is still deeply entrenched in legal thought. This panel brings together scholars who have regularly transcended this dichotomy in their work to discuss how legal multiplicity is impacting on our understanding of transnational law today. Continue reading >>
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Cyberlegalities
How are online platforms that are used by billions of users around the world regulated? This panel looks at how platform economies such as Facebook or AirBnB are regulated and how they relate with and connect the different legalities they come into contact with. Does this challenge traditional understandings of law? Continue reading >>
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Competing Visions, Intersecting Legalities
When faced with multiple legalities, how do we know what “the law” is, and how is this notion formed by different actors coming at this question from different vantage points? This panel investigates this question through different case studies, ranging from the post-colonial state of Papua New Guinea to Northern Colombia and China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Continue reading >>
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Networks
Informal, “soft” law has often been investigated through the lens of network authority. This panel contrasts two such perspectives from transnational law – private transnational legal regimes in the field of corporate social responsibility and the transition from and connections between informal and formal law in the field of global financial governance – with a theoretical approach that emphasizes the importance of connectivity norms for the global legal order. Continue reading >>
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Overlapping Spheres of Authority and Interface Conflicts in the Global Order
The Conference on Multiple Legalities is organized as part of the interdisciplinary research group “Overlapping Spheres of Authority and Interface Conflicts in the Global Order”. Three research groups present their main insights from this multi-year collaborative endeavor in conversation with Jeffrey L. Dunoff. Some research results can be found in a Global Constitutionalism Special Issue. Continue reading >>
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Multiplicity and Law’s Foundations
How does multiplicity in law beyond (and within) the state affect our understanding of the nature of law? In this discussion, international law scholar Sarah Nouwen engages in a conversation with legal philosophers Brian Z. Tamanaha and Christoph Möllers to take stock of the debate and its implications for theories of law. Continue reading >>Invisible Drivers Behind Formal Law
Formal legal rules do not appear out of thin air. Rather, their emergence is conditioned by frameworks that are invisible to the formalist perspective. This panel looks at how formal law is driven by an array of less visible factors: data, algorithms, and broader “background rules”. Continue reading >>
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Verticality and Struggles over Human Rights
How do different legal orders interact vertically? Is this interaction marked by conflict and contestation, or by compromise and collaboration? This panel looks at three different such interactions: between domestic courts and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; between regional human rights courts and United Nations Treaty Bodies; and between Swiss domestic law and the lex sportiva. Continue reading >>
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Images of Multiplicity: Spaces, Entanglement, Hybridity
When attempting to analyse multiple legalities, various conceptualizations have been and continue to be offered to capture this phenomenon. These different conceptualizations rest on different images of multiplicity. How do we arrive at such diverging conceptualizations, and what are the reasons behind them? This panel presents and discusses three different images of multiplicity. Continue reading >>
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Multiple Legalities in International Law
This panel assembles four eminent international law scholars to discuss how the multiplicity of law beyond the state observed over the past two days affects the study of international law today. What are the prospects for international law as a discipline? Continue reading >>
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Closing Roundtable
In closing, we aim to take stock of the two-day conference and our attempt to bring into conversation scholars from different backgrounds to understand the implications of multiplicity for the theory and practice of law beyond the state. Continue reading >>
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10 January 2021
Muss der Staat die künstliche Fortpflanzung verbieten?
Das deutsche Fortpflanzungsmedizinrecht befindet sich in einem geradezu erbärmlichen Zustand: Das aus dem Jahr 1990 stammende Embryonenschutzgesetz (ESchG) ist – auch im Hinblick auf den medizinischen Fortschritt – veraltet, als Strafgesetz von repressivem Charakter und in Teilen verfassungsrechtlich nicht haltbar. Politik und Gesetzgeber weigern sich beharrlich, dem dringenden Desiderat nach einem modernen, dem Stand der Medizin angemessenen Fortpflanzungsmedizingesetz Rechnung zu tragen. Continue reading >>08 January 2021
The Paradox of Israel’s Coronavirus Law
On January 12, 2021, the Israeli Supreme Court sitting as High Court of Justice (HCJ) will hear arguments in a series of cases challenging the constitutionality of Israel’s Coronavirus Law. This Law was enacted on July 23, 2020, to replace the Israeli government’s reliance on general emergency powers. It was supposed to curb the government’s powers on restricting rights and ensure parliamentary supervision of enacted measures. In fact, however, it handed the government new executive lawmaking powers rather than limiting them. Continue reading >>
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Zoom in den Gerichtssaal?
Seit dem Ausbruch der Corona-Krise sehen sich diverse Gerichte zunehmend vor die Schwierigkeit gestellt, den normalen Betrieb unter Einhaltung der Maßnahmen zur sozialen Distanz aufrechtzuerhalten. Um dem oftmals verhängten Notbetrieb Abhilfe zu schaffen, wird immer eifriger an der Einführung digitaler Gerichtsprozesse gearbeitet. Ausgeblendet wird in diesen Diskussionen oftmals die Tatsache, dass mit der Digitalisierung von Rechtsprozessen wesentlich grundsätzlichere Fragen zum Wesen und zur Funktionsweise des Rechts aufgeworfen werden, die sich bei näherer Betrachtung als unlösbar mit Fragen von Präsenz verflochten erweisen. Continue reading >>07 January 2021
New Year’s Predictions on Rule of Law Litigation
On December 16, the European Union legislature finally adopted Regulation 2020/2092 on the rule of law conditionality of EU funds. Although the Regulation is supposed to apply from 1 January 2021, Hungary and Poland have reportedly announced their intention to challenge it before the CJEU. Here are three predictions on how this litigation is going to go in the year ahead. Continue reading >>
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Alles unter Verschluss
Das Bundesjustizministerium hat am 12. Dezember 2020 seinen Referentenentwurf zur Umsetzung der europäischen Whistleblowing-Richtlinie (2019/1937) (WBRL) an die Presse weitergereicht. Hinweise von Whistleblowern bezüglich Verschlusssachen sollen pauschal vom Anwendungsbereich der Richtlinie ausgenommen bleiben. In der Praxis würde die Effektivität des Schutzes von Hinweisgebern in staatlichen Behörden hierdurch massiv untergraben. Ein mutigerer Weg ist möglich: Die Einsetzung eines Bundestransparenzbeauftragten. Continue reading >>Insurrection
President Trump is dangerous. He must be removed from office. Immediately. There are three ways to do this. Continue reading >>06 January 2021
The Brazilian Constitution Hanging by a Thread
In a December judgement, the Brazilian Supreme Court finally prohibited the re-election of the president of the House of Representatives, which had been practice for decades despite being in direct violation of the Brazilian constitution. In 2020, there has been unequivocal interest in the position of president of the House of Representatives as it holds the constitutional power to initiate an impeachment process, threatening president Bolsonaro. Although the Court ultimately declared the re-election unconstitutional, five dissenting votes of this judgment demonstrate the power of abusive judicial review. Continue reading >>
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05 January 2021
Dancing with the Dragon
On 30 December 2020, the EU Commission announced that the EU and China “in principle” concluded the negotiations on a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI). So far, there has only been a limited assessment of the CAI from a human rights perspective which is problematic considering recent political developments in China. This leads to the question: How does the CAI measure against the standards of the constitutional law of the EU relating to its external relations? Moreover, it is doubtful that the agreement will meet the requirements prescribed by the European Parliament in this regard. Continue reading >>Notparlament in die Verfassung
In Schleswig-Hostein wird die Corona-Pandemie als Anlass dafür genutzt, Regelungen über ein Notparlament in der Landesverfassung zu verankern. Ein interfraktioneller Gesetzentwurf wird von 68 der 73 Abgeordneten des Landtages unterstützt. Doch der Entwurf enthält Ungereimtheiten und es stellt sich außerdem die Frage, ob die Thematik der Handlungsunfähigkeit des Landtages nicht weitgehend durch andere Verfassungsänderungen gelöst werden kann. Gerade, um die klar zum Ausdruck kommende Angst vor einem tatsächlichen Tätigwerden des Notparlaments zu mindern. Continue reading >>
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04 January 2021
Mitigating Brexit through Bilateral Free-Movement of Persons
Rather than bemoaning the Brexit choice the UK made, it is time to start thinking about living with it in a way that would cause as little disruption as possible for all those concerned. How to mitigate, at least to some degree, the sudden, unprecedented loss of rights that Brexit caused? EU citizenship not any more on the table, bilateral freedom of movement of persons agreements with the EU Member States, EEA countries and Switzerland could offer a way forward. This solution is fully in line with EU law and has already been tested. Continue reading >>Richtige Balance?
Der Europäische Haftbefehl ist nicht nur eine Dauerbaustelle des europäischen Grundrechtsschutzes, sondern zugleich das Produkt verketteter Fehlleistungen europäischer Institutionen. Kommission und Rat haben mit dem Rahmenbeschluss über den Europäischen Haftbefehl 2002/584/JI politisch ein Instrument geschaffen, das einseitig Funktionsinteressen der Strafrechtspflege forciert. Grundrechte wurden hingegen von Anfang auf eine Floskel reduziert, von der die effektive Rechtsanwendung möglichst verschont werden sollte. Continue reading >>A first impression of regulatory powers in the Digital Services Act
The EU Commission Proposal for a Digital Services Act (DSA), released on 15 December 2020, is one of the cornerstones of the Commission’s ‘A Europe Fit for the Digital Age’ political agenda. The regulatory model proposed in the DSA is highly centralised, with the Commission putting itself forward as the sole regulator with teeth vis-à-vis Big Tech, or “very large platforms”. A choice which builds on the failings of the GDPR, but creates tensions with general requirements of independence and impartiality of regulators. Continue reading >>Trump’s Endgame, Part II
The handoff of power from President Donald Trump to President-Elect Joe Biden is not going well. American law currently requires a long “transitional” period of nearly three months during which a defeated American president still holds the reins of power. The length interregnum creates an opportunity for two kinds of consequential mischief. Continue reading >>03 January 2021
Trump’s Endgame, Part I
It should not have been surprising that vote totals were certified on time in Michigan or that an unfounded election lawsuit was dismissed in Wisconsin or that the state legislature of Pennsylvania refused to throw out the election results or that presidential electors voted in every state for the candidates they had pledged to support. This year, however, each of these normally unremarkable moments was reported as “breaking news.” And now we’ve learned that drama will continue to the very last stages of the certification process. Continue reading >>01 January 2021
Grundrechtswende zur Jahreswende
Das Ende des in vielerlei Hinsicht denkwürdigen Jahres 2020 hat Karlsruhe mit einer zukunftsweisenden Grundsatzentscheidung eingeläutet. Mit seinem kurz vor Jahreswechsel veröffentlichten Beschluss in Sachen Europäischer Haftbefehl III erkennt nun auch der Zweite Senat des Bundesverfassungsgerichts die Unionsgrundrechte als unmittelbaren Prüfungsmaßstab der Verfassungsbeschwerde an. In einem begrüßenswerten und keineswegs selbstverständlichen Schritt schwenkt der Zweite auf die Linie des Ersten Senates ein. Continue reading >>
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31 December 2020
Gleiche Unfreiheit?
Das deutsche Gemeinwesen ist eine freiheitliche Ordnung, mit vielen –weithin akzeptierten, zum Teil aber auch beklagten und kritisierten – Ungleichheiten. Nichts Besonderes also. Manchmal aber bricht sich plötzlich und überraschend ein radikaler Egalitarismus Bahn. So ist es jetzt auch beim Impfen. Continue reading >>Speaking of Solidarity
Today the official deadline for members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to submit a report to its General Council on a waiver proposal expires. This waiver would allow WTO members not to comply with certain obligations of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for a limited amount of time in order to be able to effectively prevent, contain and treat COVID-19. For now, members have failed to take this first step towards a temporary suspension of TRIPS obligations but they agreed to continue the discussions beyond today's deadline. Nonetheless, the proposal highlights that intellectual property rights can not only act as an obstacle to global and just access to vaccines and medical equipment but also that the exisiting legal framework is inadequate to tackle crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Continue reading >>
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30 December 2020
Brot statt Böller
Der Zweite Senat des Bundesverfassungsgerichts hat in einem Beschluss vom 1.12.2020, der am heutigen Mittwoch veröffentlicht wurde, vor Abschluss dieses turbulenten Jahres noch einmal ein kraftvolles Zeichen gesetzt. Er folgt der neuen Linie des Ersten Senats aus dem Fall Recht auf Vergessen II und wendet nun ebenfalls unmittelbar die Charta der Grundrechte der Europäischen Union als Maßstab für eine Verfassungsbeschwerde an, wenn das Unionsrecht den Sachverhalt so dominiert, dass sein Anwendungsvorrang im Grundsatz auch die Grundrechte des Grundgesetzes verdrängt. Continue reading >>Conditionality Mechanism: What’s In It?
As from 1 January 2021 the Regulation on a general regime of conditionality for the protection of the Union budget will become applicable. A lot has been said about the outcome of the negotiation process of this new regulation for which all parties involved claimed victory, as it is usually the case once an agreement is reached. We would like to take this as an opportunity to evaluate the outcome from the personal perspective of two people engaged in the process of the negotiations at opposite sides – the European Parliament on the one side and the Council of the EU on the other side. Continue reading >>
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Back to Start?
The UK won a major victory with the EU in the Draft EU-UK Christmas EveTrade Agreement: It got the EU to renunciate the so-called Ukraine mechanism which, in effect, would have made the Commission the UK’s watchdog. This has caused some “Brexit envy” in Switzerland as this mechanism is part of the Draft EU-Switzerland Institutional Agreement. With a “bullshit” campaign, former Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, however, has led Switzerland into a cul-de-sac, making it likely that the negotiations will have to go back to start. Continue reading >>29 December 2020
Failing Efforts to Delegitimize the Incoming Biden Administration
When state actors ignore evidence – or in the case of allegations of widespread election fraud, the lack of evidence – toward obtaining some political advantage, the community’s evaluation of the condition of the rule of law comes out badly. Degradation of the rule of law today leaves it in a state of disrepair tomorrow and alleviating harm to the way in which people morally appraise their legal system is not an easy fix. Continue reading >>
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„Privilegien“ für einige oder Lockdown für alle?
Noch ehe die erste Impfung verabreicht war, entbrannte die Diskussion um eine Differenzierung zwischen geimpften und nicht geimpften Personen. Dürfen geimpften Personen Möglichkeiten eines „normaleren“ Lebens eingeräumt werden, die man nicht geimpften Personen (noch) vorenthält? Oder muss der Staat jegliche Differenzierung verbieten und den Lockdown damit für alle bis zur (möglicherweise gar nicht erreichbaren) Herdenimmunität, aufrechterhalten? Continue reading >>28 December 2020
On Vaccine Nationalism, the ‘Slowbalisation’ and Zoonotic Diseases – Part II
In part II of the interview, MURATCAN SABUNCU and ANNE PETERS discuss whether states can be held responsible for ineffective responses to the pandemic, the role of the WHO and the future of multilateralism. Continue reading >>On Vaccine Nationalism, the ‘Slowbalisation’ and Zoonotic Diseases – Part I
Although it is impossible to predict all of the current pandemic’s potential consequences, Covid-19 has already acquired a multidimensional nature, affecting all levels of society, and will seemingly become a catalyst of change in many fields, including international relations and international law. In the light of the current developments, MURATCAN SABUNCU discusses with ANNE PETERS the coronavirus, its global effects and transformative potential. Continue reading >>Mandat zu Meinungspflege?
Dem so genannten BDS-Beschluss des Deutschen Bundestags vom Mai 2019 kommt zwar als schlichter Parlamentsakt keine rechtliche Verbindlichkeit zu. Er hat aber eine nachhaltige Kontroverse ausgelöst. In diese Debatte hat sich auch der „Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für jüdisches Leben in Deutschland und den Kampf gegen Antisemitismus“ mit durchaus robusten Stellungnahmen eingeschaltet. Dies wirft ungeklärte verfassungsrechtliche Fragen auf. Continue reading >>26 December 2020
Paradoxes and Dilemmas in Compliance and Enforcement
Scholars have relentlessly argued for tougher EU action against illiberal governments whose actions erode constitutional checks and balances. The panoply of EU tools is large and it comprises mechanisms for compliance via dialogue and engagement, the several infringement procedures and other ECJ cases with RoL implications, and procedures seeking enforcement. Yet, EU action remains inefficient since, to date, none of these mechanisms, jointly or individually, have been able to extract substantial compliance but rather what Agnes Batory called “symbolic and creative compliance” designed to create the appearance of norm‐conform behavior without giving up their original objectives. This poor performance reveals a crucial paradox on rule of law compliance: the EU is a community of law that lacks the last enforcement mechanism; i.e coercion. Continue reading >>
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24 December 2020