Maria Stemmler
Staaten haben Geheimnisse, die sie nach ihren innerstaatlichen Rechtsvorschriften vor einer Veröffentlichung schützen. Besonders problematisch ist die Geheimhaltung, wenn sich das Verfahren um gravierende Menschenrechtsverletzungen dreht, die von staatlichen Stellen verübt worden sind. Hier kann die Geheimhaltung die justizielle Aufarbeitung staatlichen Unrechts beeinträchtigen oder gar ganz verhindern und den individuellen Anspruch auf effektiven Rechtsschutz leerlaufen lassen.
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Tobias Mast
Beauftragte, die sich als ausgegliederte Organisationseinheiten ohne imperative Kompetenzen einem spezifischen Belang widmen, finden sich auf der Parlaments- und auf unterschiedlichen Exekutivebenen. Besonders vielfältig und undurchsichtig erscheint das Ensemble der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung. Je nach Aufgabenbereich stellen sie Fürsprecher:innen einer Sache oder einer Personengruppe dar, bilden Institutionen der externen Verwaltungskontrolle, koordinieren zwischen Hoheitsträgern und/oder beraten die Regierung aufgrund ihrer besonderen Expertise.
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Maren Luy
Mit den Worten, es handele sich um „ein[en] Fisch also, der gar kein Fisch ist, aber doch wie ein Fisch behandelt werden soll, obwohl er eigentlich für seine Aufgabe auch gar nicht Fisch sein müsste“ beschrieb ein ehemaliger Bundesjustizminister die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (BKM). Er spielte dabei insbesondere auf das Gesetz über die Rechtsverhältnisse der Parlamentarischen Staatssekretäre an, in dem das Bundestagsmandat als Ernennungsvoraussetzung abgeschafft werden sollte. Seine Worte beschreiben aber auch die Organisationsstrukturen und Aufgabenwahrnehmung der BKM zutreffend.
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Michael Koß
Die Beauftragten der Bundesregierung gehören naturgemäß zu dem, was Walter Bagehot, der erste Theoretiker des Parlamentarismus, als den „ehrwürdigen Teil der Verfassung“ bezeichnet hat. Bagehot grenzte die „ehrwürdigen“ von den „effizienten“ Institutionen ab. Während in letzteren die politischen Entscheidungen getroffen und umgesetzt werden, übernehmen die „ehrwürdigen“ Teile der Verfassung repräsentative Aufgaben und müssen ihre politische Agenda symbolisch verfolgen.
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Karoline Haake
Die Ernennung der Greenpeace-Aktivistin Jennifer Morgan zur Sonderbeauftragten der Bundesregierung für internationale Klimapolitik im Auswärtigen Amt erzeugte zuletzt ein großes Echo in der deutschen Medienlandschaft. Das öffentliche Interesse an den Beauftragten der Bundesregierung ebbt jedoch meist schnell nach der medienwirksamen Schaffung eines neuen Amtes ab und hat das Verfassungsrecht ebenfalls noch nicht nachhaltig beschäftigt. Dabei wäre ein Bundesbeauftragten-Gesetz wünschenswert.
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Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri
Nigeria's transition to a digital economy is in full swing. As terrorism and violent extremism are ravaging certain parts of the country, the mounting insecurity has necessitated huge budgetary allocations to national security, giving way to a new kind of digital authoritarianism. Serious concerns have been raised regarding the misuse of collected data and arbitrary surveillance, which undermine human rights and civic freedoms.
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Valsamis Mitsilegas
The expansion of the EU counter-terrorism acquis has signified what I have called the preventive turn in European security policy. Preventive justice is understood here as the exercise of state power in order to prevent future acts which are deemed to constitute security threats. There are three main shifts in the preventive justice paradigm: (i) a shift from an investigation of acts which have taken place to an emphasis on suspicion; (ii) a shift from targeted action to generalised surveillance; and, underpinning both, (iii) a temporal shift from the past to the future.
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Alan Greene
From terrorism and economic crisis, to COVID-19 and climate change; the first decades of the 21st Century have seen democracies lurch from crisis to crisis, implementing legal and political responses to tackle the threat at hand. Many of these ostensibly emergency responses have, however, become permanent, raising profound challenges to the legitimacy of both the constitutional norms impacted by the emergency response, and the emergency response itself. This plea to emergency must, however, be interrogated; Ultimately, what is key to understanding permanent emergencies is not the threat but the decision-maker that claims such an emergency exists.
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Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez
The 9/11 attacks triggered a new practice of and renewed interest in emergency powers. Without doubt, the United States were at the forefront of the enhanced exercise of such powers, but France is a very interesting example of the many issues and challenges raised by states of emergencies' normalization. France has been governed under a state of emergency for more than half of the time that has elapsed since the attacks of 13 November 2015.
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Phil Edwards
The Rule of Law requires that the law be a reliable and non-oppressive guide to how citizens should act: as such, the laws governing every citizen must be rationally knowable and voluntarily followable (and, by extension, open to rational challenge and justification). Tendencies in counter-terrorist legislation clearly run counter to the Rule of Law thus understood. Every move away from knowable and followable laws is a move away from it.
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Christoph Bieber
Parliaments form a structural fixture in government districts around the world, they are the pivotal place where public affairs are negotiated and formulated. The Russian assault on Ukraine has made it abundantly clear that this place no longer exists in Kiev. At least it is no longer available to the representatives, and the parliament is forced to reinvent itself as a "placeless actor“. It is not very surprising that this reinvention is taking place in the digital space.
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Kent Roach
Amid the pandemic and the war in the Ukraine, Canada had a quiet emergency. On 14 February 2022, the federal government used the Emergencies Act to respond to a three week occupation of the Parliament building and various border blockades. This was a mild and quick emergency, as far as emergencies go. Mild emergencies that arguably respect rights are better than severe emergencies that do not, yet there is cause for concern.
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Richard Abel
More than 20 years after the US declared “war on terror” we must assess the damage it inflicted on the core values embodied in the rule of law and the success of efforts to defend them. The fate of the rule of law — whose raison d’être is to restrain the state from abusing its power — itself depends on politics. Party control of the executive and legislature (which in turn shapes the appointment of judges) was the single most powerful determinant of responses to the numerous abuses under all four administrations since 9/11.
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Irina Khmelko
While we frequently hear about Presidents taking the role of a commander in chief in times of war, the legislature, too, can play an important role. Whether a country succeeds in a war depends not least on how well its legislature is able to adjust to face the challenges of war. This blog post takes a closer look at the Ukrainian Parliament – the Verkhovna Rada (the Rada hereafter) – and its roles and activities during the war of the Russian Federation on Ukraine.
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Suzie Navot, Guy Lurie
Israel recently saw a bout of terror attacks, including three assaults in a single week in late March 2022, and more since. The Israeli Government, in an attempt to curb the violence, decided among other steps to administratively detain without trial not only suspected possible terrorists from the Occupied Territories (as it regularly does) but also possible suspects among Israeli citizens. The use of administrative detentions without trial is a good example of the permanent mindset of emergency, as they are utilized as a regular means of government: when in doubt, the Israeli government detains.
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Martin Kovanič
Solving the dilemma of how much surveillance is needed to maintain security and not crossing the threshold of its excessive interference with rights is not easy. It is an ongoing process, also in Slovakia, influenced by many factors - the fight against terrorism, despite not being a prominent threat for the country, has been one of the major drivers of invasive state surveillance. When this happens in the context of weak institutions, it leads to the deterioration of democracy.
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Emre Turkut
One particular consequence of the post-9/11-counterterrorism paradigm is there has been a rapid and global expansion of emergency powers, as terrorist threats are viewed as creating a ‘permanent’ emergency. This is not to say that the post-9/11 war on terror was new as far as the issues of states of emergency are concerned, but rather, as aptly put by Dyzenhaus, "all that is new is the prevalence of the claim that this emergency has no foreseeable end and so is permanent.”
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Rivka Weill
Not enough attention has been devoted to Russia’s demands that Ukraine amend its constitution to recognize Crimea as Russian territory as well as accept the independence of the separatist regions in eastern Ukraine – Donetsk and Luhansk. Though it may not seem intuitive, constitutional law and its accompanying methods of holding referenda to amend constitutions is at the heart of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Is constitutional amendment the way to achieve a breakthrough? What conditions must be met to legitimize secession, which includes the breaking apart of citizens along with the state’s territory, on which they reside?
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Samuel Issacharoff
Ukraine is engaged in an existential war for survival. One need not accept the full role of the exception from Carl Schmitt to acknowledge that the struggle to withstand a brutal assault on civilians transcends all other issues. Ukrainian constitutional law recognizes the need for exceptional powers during a state of emergency, as does every other constitutional order whether expressly or tacitly. Necessarily, a war for survival shifts authority from parliament to the executive and many of the founding principles of democracy may be suspended during the emergency, even such defining features of democracy as popular selection of the government.
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Yuliia Kyrychenko, Sujit Choudhry
To defend Ukraine is to defend constitutional democracy and the rule of law. But the defence of Ukraine must occur through constitutional democracy and the rule of law. The Verkhovna Rada is a central institution in the Ukrainian constitutional order. The Verkhovna Rada’s legislative authority continues to exist during armed conflict and states of emergency. Indeed, the Verkhovna Rada plays a vital role in such situations. However, the routine operations of the Verkhovna Rada in these extraordinary circumstances have been very challenging.
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Viola Neu
Parteitage sind weit mehr als nur eine Notwendigkeit des Parteiengesetzes zur Sicherstellung innerparteilicher Demokratie. Sie leben von den Teilnehmern und den vielfältigen sozialen Interaktionen. Gerade die Netzwerkbildung, informelle Absprachen bei Wahlen und Abstimmungen, die Suche nach und die Organisation von Mehrheiten oder die Orchestrierung von Debatten sind Prozesse, die hochgradig von persönlicher, oft auch vertraulicher Kommunikation vor Ort bestimmt werden.
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Ralf Poscher, Michael Kilchling
Wir können bislang nicht annähernd quantifizieren, in welchem Umfang sich die „Überwachungslast“ in Deutschland seit 9/11 tatsächlich verändert hat, noch lässt sich deren Gesamtumfang bestimmen. Erst mit der Ausübung der verfügbaren rechtlichen Kompetenzen materialisiert sich der damit verbundene Grundrechtseingriff. Daher ist die Kernfrage nach dem – verfassungsrechtlich vertretbaren – Maß staatlicher Überwachung eben auch eine quantitative.
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Eliza Watt
The past two decades of counterterrorism strategy attest to the fact that the security/privacy trade-off approach is not only outdated, but that it also amounts to a gross oversimplification of the complexities involved in the modern culture of surveillance. Nevertheless, the ECtHR's acceptance of bulk interception regimes as measures that in principle fall within states’ discretion seems to be predicated on this outdated trade-off.
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Eliza Watt
Die vergangenen zwei Jahrzehnte der Terrorismusbekämpfungsstrategie zeigen, dass der Ansatz des 'Trade-Offs' zwischen Sicherheit und Privatsphäre nicht nur überholt ist, sondern auch eine grobe Vereinfachung der komplexen Zusammenhänge der modernen Überwachungskultur darstellt. Nichtsdestotrotz scheint die Akzeptanz des EGMR von Massenüberwachung auf diesem überholten Kompromiss zu beruhen.
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Silvia Steininger
A new national security strategy, as proposed by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and as is the focus of this symposium, must also upend the basic features of Germany’s Ostpolitik. A Bucha Genuflection is not enough to achieve this – but it could be a good place to start. This blog post outlines the possible benchmarks, challenges, and potentials of a regional perspective in the context of the Ukraine crisis. For German foreign policy, this specifically means a change of perspective: Ostpolitik has to be more than just a policy concerning Russia.
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Silvia Steininger
Eine neue nationale Sicherheitsstrategie, wie sie Außenministerin Annalena Baerbock fordert und wie sie im Zentrum dieses Symposiums steht, muss auch die Grundzüge der deutschen Ostpolitik auf den Kopf stellen. Ein Kniefall in Butscha reicht dafür nicht aus – wäre aber ein Anfang. Dieser Beitrag skizziert die möglichen Fixpunkte, Baustellen und Potentiale einer regionalen Perspektive im Kontext der Ukrainekrise. Für die deutsche Außenpolitik bedeutet diese insbesondere einen Perspektivwechsel: Ostpolitik ist mehr als Russland-Politik.
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Uto J. Meier
Interessen können nur dann artikuliert und politisch operationalisiert werden, wenn zuvor eine klare Position über moralische Untergrenzen gefunden worden ist. Diese dürfen nicht individualethisch identifiziert werden, sondern müssen politisch definiert und institutionenrechtlich über klare (neue) Zuständigkeiten verankert werden. Gesinnungsethische Positionen sind, verfassungsgeschichtlich betrachtet, immer schon notwendige, wiewohl nicht unbedingt hinreichende Voraussetzungen von auch menschenrechtlich positivierten Wertorientierungen.
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Cindy Wittke
Viewing Ukraine as an object rather than a subject of negotiations is not an unfamiliar pattern of international security policy. It goes hand in hand with the dangerous tendency to turn Russia’s ‘Near Abroad’ ultimately into a ‘buffer zone’ even in Western political and academic discourses. This pattern has been at work in the course of the annexation of Crimea and the armed conflict in Donbas over the past eight years.
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Cindy Wittke
Der Kreml ist nicht voller Raumtheoretiker und ‚Schmittianer‘ und auch nicht voller beleidigter Geopolitiker mit einer „Russian Angst“-Neurose vor der Erweiterung der NATO. Der russische Staat unter der aktuellen Führung produziert und assimiliert Konzepte und Ideen, die seinen Zielen und seiner tatsächlichen oder angestrebten Stellung innerhalb der regionalen und globalen Ordnung entsprechen. Rechtliche und politische Konzepte in Bezug auf Raum, Souveränität, territoriale Grenzen und Staatsbürgerschaft sind dabei zentrale Themen.
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Sebastian Lutz-Bachmann
The full range of strategic aspects should be taken into account by the Federal Government in developing its „national defence strategy“. Robert Blackwill and Jennifer Harris have already described the strategic importance of economic policy and especially energy policy measures as „war by other means“. Accordingly, redefining security policy must not stop solely at the selection of new weapons systems. Rather, the German government faces the task of also realigning its energy policy with the changed strategic situation in accordance with the European energy policy.
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Sebastian Lutz-Bachmann
Wenn die Bundesregierung eine „nationale Verteidigungsstrategie“ erarbeitet, sollte sie die volle Bandbreite strategischer Aspekte mit in den Blick nehmen. Robert Blackwill und Jennifer Harris haben die strategische Bedeutung wirtschaftspolitischer und insbesondere energiepolitischer Maßnahmen bereits als „war by other means“ beschrieben. Eine Neubeschreibung der Sicherheitspolitik darf daher nicht einseitig bei der Auswahl neuer Waffensysteme stehen bleiben. Vielmehr steht die Bundesregierung vor der Aufgabe, auch ihre Energiepolitik im Einklang mit der europäischen Energiepolitik neu an der veränderten strategischen Lage auszurichten.
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Marcin Rojszczak
The Polish experience demonstrates how a determined populist government, using the tools available in a democracy, can in a relatively short space of time erode legal safeguards established to control state surveillance activity. The understandable secrecy surrounding the work of the security services must not create an opportunity for the abuse of powers. Surveillance without adequate control weakens democracy, leads to a distortion of its principles, and ultimately, as the ECtHR has warned, threatens its very existence.
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Markus Naarttijärvi
Alongside the expansion of surveillance regimes, there is a parallel development of equal importance, through what could be described as safeguard rollbacks. These are different from surveillance creep, in that the aim and purpose of surveillance mandates remains largely the same, but the associated safeguards are gradually weakened. These rollbacks have generally taken place where mandates were initially put in place with strict limits to ensure proportionality and legal certainty, but where the effectiveness of those mandates are later argued to be limited due to the safeguards themselves.
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Nazar Stetsyk
This post will reveal the history of Ukraine's continuing warning to Europe, and in particular to German authorities about the security dangers of the violent Russian regime and politics. It will demonstrate how the ignorant and weak reaction of German politics to these threats (given the prevalence of economic interests over security and European values) indirectly supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and how the Russian regime abused European languidness and neutrality to launch a large-scale war in Europe. This blogpost is not so much about condemning the mistakes of European politicians, but about suggesting ways to solve these problems, taking into account the experience with obvious mistakes.
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Anna von Gall
Military armament has been happening not just since the so-called “turning point”. Ultimately, a better equipped Bundeswehr alone cannot lead to sustainable peace. The concept of human security and a national security strategy raised by the Foreign Minister must not be based on a purely militarised concept of security. The Federal Government ought to align its actions accordingly.
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Anna von Gall
Militärisches Aufrüsten wird nicht erst seit der sogenannten „Zeitenwende“ betrieben. Eine besser ausgestattete Bundeswehr kann nicht allein zu einem nachhaltigen Frieden führen. Der von der Außenministerin aufgegriffene Begriff der menschlichen Sicherheit und eine nationale Sicherheitsstrategie dürfen nicht auf einem rein militarisierten Sicherheitsbegriff basieren. Die Bundesregierung sollte ihr Handeln entsprechend ausrichten.
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Pika Šarf
One crisis after another has been offered as a justification for the establishment of a comprehensive surveillance apparatus throughout the past 20 years, while third country nationals were gradually stripped of their rights to privacy and data protection, transforming the movement of innocent individuals into suspicious, potentially terrorist activities. Among the most significant changes in information management in the area of freedom, security and justice, interoperability – the ability of information systems to exchange data – will have the most profound effects on the right to data protection and as such marks the “point of no return”.
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Christian Schliemann-Radbruch
Der von Russland geführte Angriffskrieg in der Ukraine hat ein Thema in die öffentliche Debatte gebracht, welches seit langem nicht mehr so intensiv und kontrovers diskutiert wurde: den Export von Rüstungsgütern. Das ist gut und sollte ein Dauerthema sein, denn Rüstungsgüter sind per se gefährliche Güter, ihr Export ist hochpolitisch und betrifft die Sicherheitsbeziehungen zu anderen Staaten. Sie bedrohen Leib und Leben und ihre Produktion und ihr Export ist strengen Regeln zu unterwerfen. Die derzeit anlaufende sicherheitspolitische Debatte in Deutschland muss daher den Aspekt der Rüstungsexportkontrolle umfassen.
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Anushka Jain, Vrinda Bhandari
India has overhauled its surveillance architecture in a manner which calls into question the separation of powers and accountability mechanisms for the government. The Executive, through orders, has put into place invasive systems which do not have provisions for judicial review or oversight. This absence of oversight raises concerns about potential illegal mass surveillance, as well as the constitutionality of these systems itself.
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Nicole Deitelhoff
The German chancellor’s speech on February 27, 2022, stating that changed times also demand changed policies, has been readily interpreted as a plea for a primarily military-focused policy aimed at deterrence, which may now finally once again be oriented towards political realities. It is almost breathtaking how, in a very short time, entire traditions of thought are nominally being laid to rest in this debate, without any critical questioning of whether this is justified: Does the war in Ukraine really demonstrate that diplomacy or the approach of interdependence have failed? How wise can a policy be that simply wants to reverse past policy by means of a „turning point“?
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Nicole Deitelhoff
Aus der Aussage des Bundeskanzlers am 27. Februar 2022, dass veränderte Zeiten auch eine veränderte Politik verlangen, wird gern ein Plädoyer für eine primär militärische, auf Abschreckung zielende Politik abgeleitet, die sich nun endlich wieder an den politischen Realitäten orientiere könne, ganz wie es Vertreter des Realismus in den Internationalen Beziehungen, wie etwa John Mearsheimer fordern. Es ist geradezu atemberaubend, wie in kürzester Zeit in dieser Debatte ganze Denktraditionen mit offenkundiger Begeisterung zu Grabe getragen werden, ohne dass kritisch hinterfragt wird, ob dies gerechtfertigt ist: Zeigt der Ukrainekrieg denn wirklich, dass Diplomatie oder der Interdependenzansatz gescheitert ist? Wie klug kann eine Politik sein, die per „Zeitenwende“ einfach das Gegenteil des Vorangegangenen in Szene setzen will?
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Maria Tzanou
Europe has experienced a significant expansion of state surveillance and counter-terrorism regimes, which demonstrate the increasing appetite of legislators and the executive for the normalisation of surveillance. For long, European Courts offered a powerful pushback against this trend and produced several celebrated victories for fundamental rights over surveillance. However, recent decisions by the CJEU and the ECtHR reveal a different picture, indicating a broader paradigm shift.
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Albert Fox Cahn, Nina Loshkajian
As long as police can continue to exploit the legal fiction of user “consent” to access our private communications, our privacy rights will remain just as fictional. While we’re hopeful that the courts will one-day strike this practice down as violating the Fourth Amendment, more urgent statutory protections are needed. The legislation needn’t be lengthy or complex, it’s not a nuanced question. To the contrary, what we need is a complete and categorical ban on the use of fake accounts by police, letting those who’ve been surveilled sue, and suppressing the evidence that’s obtained at trial.
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Stuart Hargreaves
though 9/11 did not immediately result in a dramatic expansion of the surveillance state in Hong Kong as was often seen in the west, twenty years later a similar process is now well underway. Though Hong Kong’s surveillance and privacy laws have long been relatively deferential to the needs of law enforcement, the dramatic legal changes occasioned by the introduction of a new ‘national security law’ in 2020 suggest that the population will be under increasing forms of surveillance in the coming years.
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Malcolm Jorgensen
Die Zeitenwende vom 27. Februar 2022 ist faktisch das Eingeständnis einer Kluft zwischen den lang anerkannten Interessen an Multilateralismus und Völkerrecht einerseits und den außen- und verteidigungspolitischen Strategien zu deren Durchsetzung andererseits. Ein Bekenntnis zum Multilateralismus und den zugrunde liegenden rechtlichen Verpflichtungen reicht nicht mehr aus — wenn das überhaupt jemals der Fall war. Deutschlands künftige Nationale Sicherheitsstrategie muss sich mit den beschwerlicheren politischen und militärischen Verpflichtungen befassen, die notwendig sind, um ein solches System zu ermöglichen.
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Malcolm Jorgensen
The "Zeitenwende" of 27 February 2022 is, in effect, an admission of a gap between long-recognised interests in multilateralism and international law, on the one hand, and the sufficiency of foreign and defence policy strategies for upholding them on the other. A primary commitment to the modes of multilateralism and underlying legal obligations is no longer sufficient—if indeed it ever was—and Germany’s forthcoming National Security Strategy must address the more arduous political and military obligations necessary to make such a system possible. The turning point is, in short, the realisation of commitments deeply embedded in national foreign policy identity, which emerges as the foundation for broad legitimacy in the policy revolution.
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Felix Lange
The postulated „Zeitenwende“ should not be understood simply as a historic opportunity to quickly pass the proposed reform in parliament. Even beyond the specific occasion of the Russian attack on Ukraine, the substance of the constitutional provisions on defence appears to be in need of reform. According to the opinion expressed here, the Basic Law should tie Bundeswehr missions abroad to their compliance with international law.
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Felix Lange
Die postulierte „Zeitenwende“ in der Sicherheitspolitik sollte nicht bloß als historische Chance verstanden werden, die vorgeschlagene Reform schnell durchs Parlament zu bekommen. Auch jenseits des konkreten Anlasses des russischen Angriffs auf die Ukraine erscheinen die materiellen verfassungsrechtlichen Grundlagen der Wehrverfassung reformbedürftig. Nach hier vertretener Auffassung sollte das Grundgesetz Auslandseinsätze der Bundeswehr an deren Völkerrechtsmäßigkeit binden. Denn wie die Initiatorinnen dieses Symposiums betonen, besteht für die deutsche Sicherheitspolitik auch eine Verantwortung für die internationale Ordnung und die Wahrung und Durchsetzung des Völkerrechts.
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Li-ann Thio
Die singapurische Regierung verfolgt einen proaktiven, ganzheitlichen Ansatz, um die nationale Sicherheit, Einheit und Solidarität durch die Rehabilitation von Terroristen zu bewahren. Sie betont die Verantwortung aller Bürger, wachsam zu sein und aktiv die ethnische und religiöse Harmonie durch soziale Interaktion und Solidarität als Teil des Gemeinschaftspakts zu bewahren. Ein geeintes Volk zu bleiben, würde das Ziel der Terroristen vereiteln, einen scharfen Keil zwischen "uns" und "sie" zu treiben.
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Achilles Skordas
The available options for the German and Western policy towards Russia have to be based on the correct diagnosis of the causes of the conflict. The purpose of this analysis is to shed some light on the structural reasons for the Russian expansionism and make some projections on the possible long-tern consequences. The rivalry between the Russian-dominated space (Großraum – greater space) and the EU/NATO systems fuels an intense geopolitical antagonism in Europe, which can be transformed into actual conflict. I understand the Großraum in the sense of Carl Schmitt as a tightly managed sphere of interests, under the direct or indirect control of an authoritarian Great Power (infra II).
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Li-ann Thio
The Singaporean government adopts a proactive, holistic approach in seeking to preserve national security, unity and solidarity through rehabilitation, emphasising the responsibilities of all citizen to be vigilant and to actively preserve racial and religious harmony through social interaction and building relationships, as part of the communitarian compact. Remaining a united people would thwart the terrorist goal of driving a sharp wedge between ‘us’ and ‘them.’
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Ilya Somin
Migranten auszusperren, um das ohnehin schon sehr niedrige Terrorismusrisiko geringfügig zu senken, könnte gerechtfertigt sein, wenn die Beschränkungen nur wenige oder gar keine moralisch bedeutsamen Kosten verursachen würden. Tatsächlich aber ist es ein großes Unrecht, Migranten, die vor Unterdrückung und Krieg fliehen, auszusperren. Die Ausgrenzung fügt enormen Schaden zu, verletzt die Menschenrechte gegen ungerechte Diskriminierung und steht auch im Widerspruch zu den Konzepten der Würde, die in der modernen europäischen und internationalen Rechtsprechung eine wichtige Rolle spielen.
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Ilya Somin
Barring migrants for the sake of achieving marginal reductions of already very low risks of terrorism might be justified if restrictions imposed few or no morally significant costs. But, in fact, barring migrants fleeing oppression and war is a grave wrong. It inflicts enormous harm, violates human rights against unjust discrimination, and is also inimical to concepts of dignity prominent in modern European and international law jurisprudence.
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Stefan Mair
The “Zeitenwende” in German foreign policy continues to require justification and facilitation, strategic and material underpinning, as well as structural and procedural changes. But time and again, it will require critical reflection. After years of partial denial of reality and misinterpretation of behavioural patterns of key international actors, there is a risk that everything will now be pressed into the scheme of great power and systemic rivalry, and that a new bipolarity between the Western world and the authoritarian states centred around China and Russia is conjured.
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Stefan Mair
Die Zeitenwende in der deutschen Außenpolitik bedarf weiterhin der Begründung und Vermittlung, der strategischen und materiellen Unterfütterung sowie struktureller und prozessualer Veränderungen. Sie bedarf aber auch immer wieder der kritischen Reflektion. Die Gefahr ist groß, dass nach Jahren der partiellen Realitätsverweigerung und der Fehlinterpretation von Handlungsmustern zentraler Akteure der internationalen Politik nunmehr alle Vorkommnisse in das Schema der Großmacht- und der systemischen Rivalität gepresst werden, gar eine neue Bipolarität zwischen der westlichen Welt und den sich um China und Russland scharenden autoritären Staaten heraufbeschworen wird.
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Carolyn Moser
What does the “paradigm shift” (Zeitenwende) – as Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the readjustment of German security and defence policy – mean for the Franco-German couple? Relations between Paris and Berlin had cooled down in recent years, particularly in relation to security and defence dossiers. Can we now expect that the ice between the two countries will melt? By no means. Even though Germany has sent a first signal that it no longer wants to close its eyes to the geopolitical realities of the 21st century, a number of touchy security and defence issues remain on the table.
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Carolyn Moser
Was bedeutet die „Zeitenwende“ – wie Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz sie nennt – für die deutsch-französischen Beziehungen? Insbesondere im Bereich Sicherheit und Verteidigung war es zwischen Paris und Berlin in den vergangenen Jahren frostig geworden. Ist nun Tauwetter angesagt? Mitnichten. Auch wenn Deutschland ein erstes Signal gesendet hat, dass man die Augen nicht länger vor den geopolitischen Realitäten des 21. Jahrhunderts verschließen möchte, bestehen einige sicherheits- und verteidigungspolitische Themen mit Sprengkraft fort. Drei davon werden im Folgenden näher unter die Lupe genommen.
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Roderich Kiesewetter
The handling and development of the war in Ukraine will be a test of the effectiveness of Germany's role in the EU and the world. The most important part of the turning point must be a return to Realpolitik and the development of a national security strategy based on smart power. The turning point in Germany concerns four areas in particular: 1) German armed forces (Bundeswehr) 2) strategic culture 3) National Security Strategy 4) strengthening crisis prevention and the development of a "civilian reserve".
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Roderich Kiesewetter
Der Umgang mit und die Entwicklung des Krieges in der Ukraine wird zum Lackmustest für Deutschlands Rolle in der EU und der Welt. Wichtigster Teil der Zeitenwende muss die Rückkehr zur Realpolitik und zudem auch die Entwicklung einer Nationalen Sicherheitsstrategie sein, die auf Smart Power setzt. Die Zeitenwende in Deutschland betrifft dabei insbesondere vier Bereiche: 1) Bundeswehr 2) Strategische Kultur 3) Nationale Sicherheitsstrategie 4) Stärkung der Krisenprävention und die Entwicklung einer „Zivilen Reserve“.
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Matthew Specter
What the US and Germany face today with Russia is evidently not a peaceful competition of rivals that can be managed by the pursuit of equilbrium and balance, the leitmotifs of 19th century Realpolitik. Nor is the Russian invasion a result of Western failure to heed realist caution about the project of NATO enlargement in Eastern Europe.
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Maxim Bönnemann, Lina-Marie Dück
There is no doubt: climate law is about to become one of the most important issues in comparative constitutional and international law. The institutional and legal questions are tricky, the number of cases exploding, and, more importantly: the stakes are high. On the very day we kicked off this blog debate the world was hit by the news of an “impossible” and “unthinkable” temperature surge in the Arctic and Antarctic, with climate journalists stating in shock that “Antarctic climatology has been rewritten”. On the day this blog debate concluded we learned of an “unprecedented sixth mass coral bleaching event” in the Great Barrier Reef, with scientists demanding immediate action yet again.
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Ulrich K. Preuß
Could it be that even Russia’s current political leadership is in truth not necessarily interested in conquering the land and people of Ukraine, but in proving Russia’s great power status? If so, the classification as a „regional power“ would be a violation of Russian self-esteem and status consciousness, for the healing of which Russia is starting a war that is contrary to international law, morally reprehensible, economically absurd and cruel, and devoid of any pragmatic rational explanation.
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Ulrich K. Preuß
Könnte es sein, dass es selbst der gegenwärtigen politischen Führung Russlands in Wahrheit gar nicht unbedingt um die Eroberung von Land und Leuten der Ukraine geht, sondern um den Beweis des russischen Großmachtstatus? Dann wäre die Einstufung als „Regionalmacht“ eine Verletzung russischen Selbstgefühls und Statusbewusstseins, für dessen Heilung Russland einen völkerrechtswidrigen, moralisch verwerflichen, ökonomisch widersinnigen und grausamen Krieg bar jeder realpolitisch-rationalen Erklärungsfähigkeit vom Zaune bricht.
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Sam Bookman
The legacy of colonialism suggests a shared affinity between climate litigation in the Global South, and climate litigation brought by Indigenous peoples in the settler-colonial states of the Global North. This blog post focuses on claims brought by Indigenous peoples in the Anglophone settler-colonial states of Australia, Canada, the United States and Aotearoa/New Zealand. I begin by setting out the disproportionate impact of climate change experienced by Indigenous peoples, as well as Indigenous movements of resistance and adaptation. In doing so, I draw on claims brought by various Indigenous groups and individuals in the course of climate litigation. Framing climate litigation as part of this response, I then survey Indigenous climate litigation across the four jurisdictions. I end with some notes of caution regarding the essentializing and exploitation of Indigenous peoples by the climate litigation movement, cautions which may be applicable to litigation in the Global South.
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Elizabeth Donger
Adaptation litigation is not only a tool to better prepare infrastructure through tort and administrative law. It is a more ambiguous and creative category, drawing on everything from refugee law to human rights and legal provisions recognizing the rights of nature. While adaptation litigation in the Global North has largely focused on infrastructure, litigation in the Global South has addressed a broader range of factors that contribute to adaptive capacity, from environmental factors like deforestation, to human governance and resourcing systems like disaster response and migration systems.
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Carlotta Garofalo
The Amazon Forest – el pulmón del mundo – has been at the center of four recent rights-based climate lawsuits in the region. Interestingly, the existence of solid legal grounds for environmental litigation has not stopped petitioners and courts from using some degree of creativity in shaping new rights. I argue that any evaluation of the potential benefits and impacts of (new) rights strategies must consider their limitations in setting clear legal boundaries and achieving immediate political change. Nonetheless, rights-based climate lawsuits play an important symbolic role, as they recognize the vulnerability of certain groups to climate change.
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Lorenzo Gradoni, Martina Mantovani
The strategy of challenging a plurality of states directly before international adjudicating bodies has been, so far, a youth’s distinct move in the field of climate litigation, and it is by far the largest vehicle for transnational complaints. Our contribution provides an overview of the relevant cases, many of which still pending, and tries to pinpoint the drivers and possible trajectories of a global phenomenon which could go some way towards redressing the injustice the Global South is suffering as a result of global warming.
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Manuela Niehaus
One year ago, the First Senate of the German Federal Constitutional Court (GFCC) has issued a landmark decision on the rights of future generations and their (legal) entitlement to solidarity. This blog post compares this decision to the 2018 ruling of the Colombian Supreme Court (CS) that was also concerned with the rights of future generations. I argue that while the idea of solidarity with people threatened by climate change is central to both judgments, the courts have taken very different approaches to whom this solidarity extends to.
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Klaus Naumann
The sudden announcement of a „special fund“ for the, admittedly, lagging overhaul of the German armed forces, and the permanent increase in the defense budget (the „2 percent“ target of the NATO agreements of 2002) should be understood for what they are – a grasping for the emergency brake and not an „arms race.“
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Klaus Naumann
Die plötzliche Ankündigung eines „Sondervermögens“ für die, man muss schon sagen: nachholende Instandsetzung der Bundeswehr, und die dauerhafte Aufstockung des Verteidigungsetats (das „2-Prozent“-Ziel der Nato-Vereinbarungen von 2002) sollten als das verstanden werden, was sie sind – als ein Griff nach der Notbremse und nicht als eine „Rüstungsspirale“. Gleichwohl sollten „strategische Projekte“ der Beschaffung mit entsprechenden Laufzeiten im Zentrum der Maßnahmen stehen.
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Eklavya Vasudev
I argue that courts can locate the transformative potential of law not only through the explicit text of a constitution (although that is one of the main drivers), but also through extra constitutional drivers such as international law. In doing so, courts are able to challenge pre-existing structures of tradition, legality and culture. I will demonstrate this through a brief analysis of key climate cases from both the Global North and the Global South, namely from the Netherlands, Pakistan, Colombia, and Germany. In addition, I also aim to show that considerations usually associated with TC can emerge in both Global North and South contexts.
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Sathiabama. S, Vedavalli. S
This review of climate cases in the Global South reflects the potential of the right to a healthy environment in climate justice. Countries in the Latin American region are already leading the fight against climate change through successful judicial battles, relying on the established right to a healthy environment.
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Christian Marxsen
I argue that there should be a greater separation of powers with regard to foreign deployments than has been the case to date. In addition to the actors who have so far been primarily involved in decisions on foreign deployments – the German Federal Government and Bundestag – the German Federal Constitutional Court should also be given a clearer basis of responsibility for clarifying constitutional issues that have arisen. In this way, the constitutional framework can be made more concrete and strengthened in the long term.
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Christian Marxsen
Ich plädiere dafür, dass im stärkeren Maße als bisher auch im Hinblick auf Auslandseinsätze eine Gewaltenteilung erfolgen sollte. Zu den bisher in die Entscheidung über Auslandseinsätze primär eingebundenen Akteuren – Bundesregierung und Bundestag – sollte zur Klärung aufgeworfener verfassungsrechtlicher Fragen auch das Bundesverfassungsgericht eine klarere Zuständigkeitsgrundlage erhalten. Hierdurch kann der verfassungsrechtliche Rahmen konkretisiert und langfristig gestärkt werden.
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Thalia Viveros-Uehara
As rights-based climate litigation continues to proliferate as a means to tackle perceived deficiencies in climate governance and regulation, new opportunities emerge for claimants and courts to acknowledge the inextricable link between climate change, inequalities, and health. Crucially, by ensuring the protection, respect, and fulfillment of all the normative components of the right to health of poor and socially marginalized persons and groups, courts can help overcome the Executive and Legislative branches’ failures to address climate change in contexts of high social and health inequalities.
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Reut Yael Paz
This contribution briefly unpacks the relevancy of the East/West intersectionality Finland represents for us today. The pragmatic manner in which the Finns have dealt with Russia – in all its previous versions, white, red or “federal” – is instructive in understanding the limits of moral, economic and physical power when facing a neighboring country that will most probably never be trusted, loved or changed, by outsiders.
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Melanie Murcott, Maria Antonia Tigre, Nesa Zimmermann
Climate change is increasingly recognized as an issue of justice. In response to climate injustice, climate litigation in domestic and regional tribunals – pursued primarily by non-state actors such as non-governmental organisations and youth movements – has emerged as a global phenomenon. In this article, we explore two potential lessons for the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) when adjudicating climate cases. These lessons arise from the expansive understanding of standing under South Africa’s transformative constitutional regime, and the recognition of extraterritorial jurisdiction in the Inter-American System of Human Rights (IASHR).
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Tatenda L. Wangui, Cathrin Zengerling, Oliver Fuo
This post gives an overview of climate litigation in Kenya and South Africa, tracing litigation objects, plaintiffs, defendants, key legal bases and arguments. We explore whether there are signs of an emerging trend in climate litigation in both countries and identify key supportive conditions in social movements and media coverage.
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Helene Bubrowski
„Wir sind in einer anderen Welt aufgewacht“, sagte die grüne Außenministerin Annalena Baerbock wenige Stunden, nachdem Russland den Überfall auf die Ukraine begonnen hatte. Baerbock hatte sich über den russischen Präsidenten keine Illusionen gemacht. Deshalb spricht aus ihrem Satz nicht Naivität, die einige Kommentatoren ihr vorwarfen. Während des Bundestagswahlkampfs forderten nur die Grünen, die Pipeline Nord Stream 2 nicht in Betrieb zu nehmen. Die russlandfreundlichen Anwandlungen von einst, die sich vor allem aus antiamerikanischen Ressentiments speisten, hat die Partei abgelegt.
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Agung Wardana
The experience of Indonesia shows that in a country where the government pursues economic development based on a carbon-intensive economic growth model, climate litigation appears to be more challenging because it potentially shakes the foundations of the existing political and economic model; the model that has caused the climate crisis in the first place.
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Helene Bubrowski
„We woke up in a different world,“ Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stated a few hours after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. Baerbock had no illusions about the Russian president. Hence, her words do not bespeak the naiveté some commentators accused her of. During the parliamentary election campaign, only the Greens had demanded that the North Stream 2 pipeline should not start operations. The Party has shed the pro-Russia tendencies of the past, which were primarily fed by anti-American resentment.
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Jelena von Achenbach
The intergovernmental political mode of EU defense policy is no longer appropriate for the level of European integration in this policy field, the development of which will significantly shape the European project in the coming years. In particular, it is necessary that the European Parliament and the national parliaments be informed of upcoming political decisions in a substantive and timely manner: They should be informed as long as the political process is still open, and their position should be a constituent part of decision-making at the EU level.
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Jelena von Achenbach
Dass das militärpolitische Integrationsgeschehen außerhalb der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung und Debatte stattfindet, bedeutet letztlich für die politischen Akteure geringe Rechtfertigungslasten und größere Handlungsspielräume. Es ist also alles andere als ein Selbstläufer, dass über die Fortentwicklung der EU-Verteidigungspolitik jetzt die breite, allgemeine Meinungs- und Willensbildung stattfindet, die bislang fehlt. Dies ist jedoch dringend angezeigt, um die „hard power“, die die Union in der Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik entwickelt und entfalten will, demokratisch und rechtsstaatlich einzubinden – und das ganze Unterfangen der militärischen Ermächtigung der Union überhaupt seiner Bedeutung entsprechend politisch zu behandeln.
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Maxim Bönnemann, Meike Krakau, Anna-Julia Saiger
If the catastrophe we face is one “for the world and humanity”, isn’t it time to rethink some of our core beliefs regarding institutional roles and the role of the judiciary? If current institutional arrangements fail when addressing the global climate catastrophe, aren’t we in dire need of alternative approaches when thinking about the role of law and courts? We as editors of the forthcoming blog debate neither can nor want to provide answers to these questions here. Instead, we argue that we should look to the Global South for lessons when reflecting on the role of law and institutions in tackling the climate crisis.
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Arnold Wallraff
The analysis of Germany’s strategic restraint to date is of double importance for German arms export policy. First, what has been and continues to be apparent here is a strategic reticence in the sense of a strategy deficit and, above all, a deficit in the culture of debate – both with regard to parliament and to the general public and the media. Additionally – and here lies the difference to Germany’s general military restraint – Germany, and all German governments in recent years and decades, have supplied war weapons and other armaments to all regions of the world on a very substantial scale, without such a basis for discussion, strategy or action.
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Arnold Wallraff
Der Analyse der bisherigen strategischen Zurückhaltung Deutschlands kommt auch für die deutsche Rüstungsexportpolitik eine doppelte Bedeutung zu: Zu diagnostizieren war und ist auch hier einerseits eine strategische Zurückhaltung im Sinne eines Strategiedefizits und vor allem eines Defizits in der Debattenkultur – sowohl mit Blick auf das Parlament wie auch auf die allgemeine und mediale Öffentlichkeit. Andererseits – und hierin liegt ein Unterschied zu Deutschlands allgemeiner militärischer Zurückhaltung – hat Deutschland, haben sämtliche deutsche Regierungen der letzten Jahre und Jahrzehnte in ganz erheblichem Umfang in alle Weltregionen Kriegswaffen und sonstige Rüstungsgüter geliefert, ohne dass eine derartige Diskussions-, Strategie- und Handlungsbasis vorhanden gewesen wäre. Der Export von Kriegswaffen in z.T. höchst problematische Drittländer ist entgegen der abstrakten gesetzlichen Vorgaben und selbstgesetzten Grundsätze zur Regel statt zur Ausnahme geworden.
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Thomas Kleinlein
The Federal Republic’s previous policy of ‘strategic restraint’ has been justified mainly - and rightly - on historical grounds; however, it also has to do with the legal parameters set by international security law and the German constitutional law on military affairs. We should take this legal framework into account when we explore the options for a fundamental reorientation of security and defence policy and a departure from ‘strategic restraint’.
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Joachim Wieland
Die Verfassung steht Vorstandswahlen und Satzungsänderungen auf digitalen Parteitagen nicht entgegen. Die Annahme eines rechtlichen Zwangs zur Briefwahl nach einem elektronischen Parteitag scheint jedenfalls überprüfungsbedürftig. Die Digitalisierung macht auch vor dem Parteienrecht nicht halt.
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Thomas Kleinlein
Die bisherige „strategische Zurückhaltung“ der Bundesrepublik ist sicherlich maßgeblich und zu Recht historisch begründet; sie hat aber auch mit den durch das internationale Sicherheitsrecht und das Wehrverfassungsrecht gesetzten Rahmenbedingungen zu tun. Diese Rahmenbedingungen muss man einbeziehen, wenn man die Chancen für eine grundsätzlichere sicherheits- und verteidigungspolitische Neuausrichtung und eine „Abkehr“ von der „strategischen Zurückhaltung“ ausloten will.
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Isabelle Ley
In a special session of the German Bundestag on February 27, 2022, on the occasion of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the federal government announced nothing less than a realignment of the Federal Republic of Germany's long-standing security and defense policy principles. The decisions taken by the Government replaced the "culture of strategic restraint" that had for decades characterized German decision-making in foreign, security and defense policy with a more active, independent and robust foreign policy role.
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Isabelle Ley
In der Sondersitzung des Deutschen Bundestags am 27. Februar 2022 anlässlich des russischen Überfalls auf die Ukraine hat die Bundesregierung nichts weniger als eine Neuausrichtung der überparteilich konsentierten, langjährigen sicherheits- und verteidigungspolitischen Grundsätze der Bundesrepublik Deutschland verkündet. Damit wurde ein deutliches Signal gesetzt, die „Kultur strategischer Zurückhaltung“, die jahrzehntelang deutsche Entscheidungen in der Außen-, Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik prägte, durch eine aktivere, eigenständigere und robustere Rolle zu ersetzen.
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Alexandra Kemmerer, Isabelle Ley
Under the shock of the Russian invasion, what the security community has long been calling for in vain is now taking shape: a security strategy through which Germany takes on more responsibility in the field of security and defense policy. The decisions taken by the German government on 27 February 2022, which are widely regarded as a Zeitenwende or „turning point“ in security policy, marked a first step.
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Alexandra Kemmerer, Isabelle Ley
Unter dem Schock der russischen Invasion gewinnt Kontur, was von der sicherheitspolitischen Community seit langem vergeblich gefordert wurde: eine Sicherheitsstrategie, mit der Deutschland verteidigungspolitisch mehr Verantwortung übernimmt. Die Beschlüsse der Bundesregierung vom 27. Februar 2022, allseits als sicherheitspolitische "Zeitenwende" eingeordnet, markierten einen ersten Schritt. Jetzt ist zu fragen, was diese Beschlüsse für die zukünftige sicherheits- und verteidigungspolitische Positionierung Deutschlands, für Bündnisse, Auslandseinsätze, Rüstungsexportpolitik und vieles mehr bedeuten.
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Armin von Bogdandy, Luke Dimitrios Spieker
The anti-Fidesz coalition could win the next Hungarian elections. That, however, is only one step on a long path back to a full democracy. Fidesz has skilfully entrenched its power, personnel, and policies. How could a new majority overcome this, align the Hungarian legal order with European standards, and allow for democratic governability?
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Danny Schindler
Seit einigen Jahren zeichnet sich ein Trend zur konsultativen Mitgliederbeteiligung bei der innerparteilichen Entscheidungsfindung ab, der unter anderem bei der Bestimmung der Parlamentskandidaten und der Parteiführung zum Tragen kommt. Betrachtet man das gesamte Verfahren der Parteivorsitzenden- und Parlamentsbewerberauswahl, zeigt sich, dass dem Parteitag vorausgehende Mitgliederbefragungen nicht dazu dienen (sollen), den demokratischen Charakter der Entscheidungsfindung zu verfälschen. Sie tragen vielmehr dem Verfassungsgebot innerparteilicher Demokratie Rechnung.
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Raffaela Kunz
The Budapest Open Access Initiative is celebrating its 20th anniversary and today it seems that we are closer than ever to finally concluding the “access revolution” predicted by many since the arrival of the internet. Yet, developments in the publishing system increasingly suggest that the access revolution is much less revolutionary than expected. Reports gradually bring to light the extent to which publishers started to use the data tracking tools developed by “pioneers” such as Google and Facebook. This development could not only be the final blow for the Open Access movement’s potential to more radically and structurally change the way knowledge is being disseminated in the digital age but pose a systematic threat to the autonomy of the science system and academic freedom in the digital age.
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Isabelle Borucki
Die Corona-Pandemie brachte eine neue Form der Beteiligung und Entscheidungsfindung in Parteien hervor: Den digitalen Parteitag, der nun im dritten Pandemiejahr scheinbar unaufgeregt im "neuen Normal" durchexerziert wird. Doch sind digitale Parteitage eine neue Form der Entscheidungsfindung? Stellen digitale Parteitage eine Bereicherung der politischen Willensbildung innerhalb von Parteien dar oder führen sie eher zu einer Zentralisierung von Entscheidungen? Was passiert darüber hinaus mit den grundlegenden Prinzipien der Präsenz und Repräsentation in Parteien?
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Martin Morlok
Digitalgestützte Entscheidungen unter Abwesenden stellen eine Verarmung gegenüber der Entscheidungsfindung und Anwesenden dar. Sie haben zusätzliche Kosten und Gefahren in mehreren Hinsichten. Die Hoffnungen auf eine Demokratisierung durch digitale Teilhabe der Mitglieder sind doch eher eine Illusion. Die Erweiterung auf digitale Mitgliederentscheide und auch die Durchführung von Parteitagen lediglich im Internetmodus stärkt die Leitungsebene der Parteien.
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Niko Switek
Parteitage können durchaus zentrale Richtungsgeber für Parteien sein, aber sie sind es nicht so automatisch oder selbstverständlich, wie es die Lektüre des Parteiengesetzes insinuieren mag. Es gilt dabei weitere Kontextfaktoren heranzuziehen und diese Gremien im Gefüge der verschiedenen formalen und informalen Einflusszentren in einer Partei zu situieren. Zugleich verändern sich diese über Zeit, radikale Außenseiter nähern sich etablierten Mustern an, bestehende Parteien wiederum lassen sich in ihren Organisationsreformen von den Innovationen neuer Herausforderer inspirieren.
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Sofia Galani
Following the 9/11 attacks, it became more obvious that states are ready to sacrifice the human rights of victims in the fight against terrorism. This became particularly clear in hostage-taking situations, in which states face the dilemma of succumbing to terrorist demands for the sake of hostages or appearing defiant and ready to stop terrorists from attacking more civilians. This has prompted a debate on whether states are allowed under international human rights law to balance the human dignity of hostages with national security or the rights of future victims.
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Fabian Michl
Die innerparteiliche Demokratie ist durch Kompromisse gekennzeichnet. Parteitage befördern in ihrem traditionellen Format die Kompromissfindung: durch Repräsentation und Präsenz. Digitale Parteitage erweisen sich nicht in gleicher Weise als kompromissaffin. Darin liegt eine Verlockung für diejenigen, die kein Interesse am Kompromiss haben. Verfassungswidrig ist die Einführung des Digitalformats deswegen nicht, seine demokratischen „Kosten“ müssen aber eingepreist werden.
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Emanuel V. Towfigh
Die rechtlich sanktionierte, robuste Grenzsicherung markiert heute eine fundamentale Ungleichheit in der Welt, sie ist Reflex und Zeichen ungleich verteilter Ressourcen (wie Wohlstand und Sicherheit) – und perpetuiert gleichzeitig diese Ungleichheit. Dennoch ist Grenzen – wie sich in diesen Tagen angesichts des fürchterlichen Kriegs in der Ukraine in dramatischer Weise zeigt – auch eine Schutzdimension immanent. Grenzregime können daher in einer Gesellschaft von Freien und Gleichen nur als rechtliche Ordnungsinstrumente interpretiert und legitimiert werden, ihre Abschottungsfunktion ist gemessen an fundamentalen Gerechtigkeits- und Gleichheitserwägungen nicht zu rechtfertigen.
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Bernd Grzeszick
Parteitage erfordern nicht stets und zwingend eine Repräsentation durch physisch präsente Repräsentanten. Die Freiheit und Eigenständigkeit der Parteien, die Ablösung vom „Vorbild“ der Parlamentswahl sowie die Erfahrungen mit der digitalen Teilnahme an Sitzungen kommunaler Gremien legen vielmehr nahe, dass Pateitage für Online-Beteiligungen geöffnet werden können und sollten.
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Thomas Poguntke
Die durch digitale Technik leichter mögliche Ausweitung des Teilnehmerkreises an Entscheidungsprozessen ist nicht gleichbedeutend mit einer Erhöhung ihrer demokratischen Qualität. Vielmehr ändert sich die inhärente Logik des Entscheidungsprozesses.
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Sophie Schönberger
Parteitage sind das Herzstück der innerparteilichen Demokratie. Wenn das Grundgesetz den Parteien abverlangt, dass ihre innere Ordnung demokratischen Grundsätzen entsprechen muss, dann sind Parteitage das zentrale Instrument, mit dem dieses verfassungsrechtliche Gebot, das gleichzeitig Teil eines demokratischen Versprechens ist, eingelöst wird.
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Joan Barata
Many states have used these general stipulations contained in international law to introduce in their counterterrorism legislation specific provisions criminalizing the dissemination of ideas or opinions that might incite, endorse, or stimulate the commission of terrorist acts. With social media platforms, a new set of actors have begun setting the thresholds of what speech they will host, complicating governance.
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Daniel Sprick
China did not need 9/11 to further restrict civil and political rights, but it jumped onto the bandwagon in using the legitimizing force of counterterrorism to intensify its repressive policies. China’s so-called “People’s War on Terror” has had a stifling impact on the ability to practice Islam in China (and especially in Xinjiang) and is, when discussed in the context of counterterrorism and human rights, therefore best be characterized as a significant encroachment of religious freedoms, bringing China’s human rights record to a new low point in the 21th century.
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Florence Namasinga Selnes
Freedom of the media just like freedom of expression are provided for in the 1995 Constitution of Uganda, but spaces for exercising these rights are growing narrower by the day. The use of anti-terrorism regulation to suppress dissenting views reflects growing intolerance of criticism of President Yoweri Museveni’s regime. Foremost, legal and physical harassment from the authorities threaten privately funded media institutions and deter journalists from covering and interrogating certain issues.
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Quinta Jurecic
Shortly before Trump’s inauguration in 2016, I suggested that the president-elect might prove to be a chief executive in the mode of Carl Schmitt. Trump, though, represented something different. If the early Bush years were characterized by legal interpretations that pushed the edges of executive and sovereign power, Trump’s vision of the presidency was that of a man who had no interest in legal interpretation whatsoever. As he later said of the portion of the Constitution that spells out the details of presidential power, “I have an Article II, which allows me to do whatever I want.”
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Charles Fried, Gregory Fried
Verfassungen legen die Regierungsbefugnisse fest, aber sie verleihen an sich keine Legitimität, geschweige denn bilden sie die politische Körperschaft, die allein Legitimität verleihen kann. Liberal-demokratische Verfassungen verankern den Respekt vor dem Einzelnen auf unterschiedliche Weise, aber einige Grenzen sind fest und fast universell gezogen. Wenn jedoch eine Regierung, die ihre eigene, ordnungsgemäß konstituierte Rolle als Vertreter der Gesellschaft verrät, stößt sie an eine absolute Grenze der Moral, des Anstands und der Achtung der menschlichen Person und untergräbt sich selbst.
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Charles Fried, Gregory Fried
Constitutions establish governmental powers, but they do not in themselves confer legitimacy, let alone constitute the body politic that alone can grant legitimacy. Liberal democratic constitutions institute respect for individuals in different ways, but some lines are firmly and almost universally drawn. Torture and mutilation, however, are almost universally condemned in properly liberal societies. But when government, betraying its own duly constituted role as agent of society, turns to torture as a tool to inquire into, protect against and punish even the severest threats to itself and to individual persons, it runs up against an absolute limit of morality, decency, respect for the human person, and undermines itself.
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Sophie Duroy
Despite their extraordinary character, Western responses to terrorism failed to bring the security Western populations demanded. Our fear, however, led us to support the erosion of our values, institutions, and laws beyond repair.
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David Dyzenhaus
Während russische Panzer in die Ukraine rollen, sollten wir uns vor den "Träumern des Absoluten" in unserer Mitte in Acht nehmen. Sie verehren die Exekutive, weil nur eine starke Exekutive in der Lage ist, die kosmopolitischen und menschenrechtlichen Errungenschaften der zweiten Hälfte des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts zurückzudrehen. Diese Anbetung hängt jedoch davon ab, dass an der Spitze der Exekutive eine Person steht, die zumindest die wichtigsten Grundsätze ihrer Version des "Gemeinwohls" teilt. Dies erfordert die Befreiung der Exekutive von den Zwängen der Rechtsstaatlichkeit, sowohl international als auch innerhalb des Nationalstaates.
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David Dyzenhaus
As Russian tanks roll into the Ukraine, we should be wary of these ‘dreamers of the absolute’ in our midst. They worship the executive because only a strong executive is capable of rolling back the cosmopolitan, human rights achievements of the latter half of the twentieth century. But such worship depends on maintaining in power the person at the head of the executive who shares at least the most important tenets of their version of the ‘common good’. That requires not only freeing the executive from the constraints of the rule of law, both internationally and within the nation state. It also requires that democracy be hollowed out in order to ensure that periodic elections return the right person to power.
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Charles Girard, Pierre Auriel
The threat created by jihadist terrorism for freedom of expression is a particularly serious one in that it operates on several levels. It provides an incentive to sacrifice freedom of expression to the fight against terrorism, it impels people to avoid forms of expression that the killers condemn, and it provides political actors with an effective pretext for silencing or censuring certain voices. Genuinely defending this freedom means not giving ground on any of these fronts.
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Kriszta Kovács
How can democratic constitutional reformers overcome the obstacles put in place by authoritarian constitution-makers? What are the foundational values that could compete for the attention of the constitution drafters? This question is a new iteration of the same old problem of law, democracy, and disagreement.
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Cem Abanazir
In sport, the fine line between ‘political’ and ‘non-political’ expression is vital because certain expressions could potentially result in disciplinary sanctions. Dubbed as the ‘supreme court of world sport’, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (‘CAS’) is pivotal in interpreting and adjudicating cases involving freedom of expression in international sports. Currently, the CAS jurisprudence tends to fail to provide clear and consistent reasoning.
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Antonio Di Marco
The relationship between sports and neutrality belongs to the most hotly debated topics in international sports law. This blog post illustrates the application of the neutrality principle in practice and argues that the athletes’ freedom of expression in sports is emerging as a ‘concession’ rather than as a ‘right’, suggesting that a reform of the regulations imposed by the Olympic Movement is urgently needed.
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Faraz Shahlaei
While Sport Governing Bodies can regulate freedom of expression for athletes in sports, the current approach of the IOC seems to fail to abide by the standards required under international human rights law. In particular, the lack of clarity on the content and forms of expression banned under Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter seems to conflict with the foreseeability expected by international human rights law.
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Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Columbia Global Freedom of Expression
A conversation with Catalina Botero-Marino, Martin Eifert, Matthias Kettemann and Erik Tuchtfeld. Hosted by Alexandra Kemmerer.
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Jillian C. York
Maßnahmen, die die Möglichkeiten terroristischer Gruppen, sich zu organisieren, zu rekrutieren und aufzuwiegeln einschränken sollen, wurden in den letzten Jahren ausgeweitet und führen häufig dazu, dass nicht nur extremistische Äußerungen, sondern auch Menschenrechtsdokumente, Gegenrede und Kunst gelöscht werden. In allen Bereichen der Moderation kommt es zu Fehlern, unabhängig davon, ob die Moderation von Menschen, künstlicher Intelligenz oder einer Kombination aus beidem durchgeführt werden.
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Jillian C. York
Policies intended to limit the ability of terrorist groups to organize, recruit, and incite — as well as for individuals to praise such groups — have been expanded in recent years via content moderation efforts online, and often result in the erasure of not only extremist expression, but human rights documentation, counterspeech, and art.
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Mark James
Expressions in support of social justice, inclusion, anti-discrimination and LGBTQI+ rights no longer appear to breach Rule 50. Where Rule 50 could still come into play is where athlete activists seek to demonstrate their support for overtly political causes. The guidance states unequivocally that expressions must not be targeted at people, organisations, or countries. At Beijing 2022, any expression/gesture aimed at an individual politician, the Communist Party of China, or the Chinese state will remain a breach of Rule 50.
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Jörg Krieger
Throughout history, the IOC always faced tough choices when it dealt with freedom of speech. It attempted to act within the framework of international human rights law whilst it continuously promoted the autonomy of sport from all political interests. At this point, it does not seem that the IOC will move away from its general, apolitical stance.
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Cem Tecimer
The 9/11 attacks exposed the precariousness of the public sphere, however, they did not result in a dramatic shift in the Turkish public sphere. Rather, the coup attempt of 2016 turned out to be Turkey’s “9/11 moment.”
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Antoine Duval, Daniela Heerdt
The Beijing Winter Olympics might constitute a boiling point for the ongoing debate on the freedom of expression of athletes and fans participating in international sporting competitions. This blog symposium brings this debate to a more general audience interested in issues related to human rights, constitutionalization of transnational legal processes and private governance. As an introduction to the contributions, our blog highlights a number of fundamental points which will be at the heart of this discussion.
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Jacob Rowbottom
The horrifying nature and unpredictability of terrorist attacks in the past two decades meant that in the UK, the extensions of state power had considerable public support in the years following 9/11. While useful to authorities dealing with an unpredictable threat, there are several factors in the laws that provide a potent recipe to erode expression rights.
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Stef Scagliola
Today, there appears to be more consensus about the unjust nature of the Dutch/Indonesian war. As a scholar who has studied the evolution of the discourse on this topic, being asked to contribute to a symposium about the relation between decolonisation and human rights, is the perfect occasion to look back.
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Imran Parray
India's complex interlocking of securitization and freedom of expression poses a serious challenge to democratic ideals of free speech. Today, we witness increased targeting of journalists and activists across the country. In particular, conflict-ridden regions have presented a more serious situation where journalists face accusations of conspiring with the enemies of the state. The growing practice of muzzling the press and forums of public debate has created a culture of fear among the civil society, which directly affects the quality of democracy and free speech.
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Ge Chen
Die Unterdrückung der Meinungsäußerung im Internet durch die chinesische Regierung ist fast schon legendär. Sie bildet einen uneinnehmbaren Eckpfeiler dessen, was der Oxford-Professor Stein Ringen die "perfekte Diktatur" des Parteistaates nannte. Chinas Herangehensweise an terroristische Äußerungen muss im Gesamtbild von Chinas sich entwickelnder Agenda zur Zähmung von Äußerungen im Internet verstanden werden.
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Ge Chen
The Chinese government’s suppression of Internet speech is almost legendary. It forms an impregnable cornerstone of what Oxford professor Stein Ringen dubbed the Party-state’s “perfect dictatorship”. China's approach to terrorist speech must me understood within the entire picture of China’s developing agenda of taming speech online.
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Jayson Lamchek
Twenty years after 9/11, the definitive problems of democracy globally relate to disinformation and illiberal intolerance. The Philippines, an illustration of post-truth politics that has engulfed the world, is wracked by tensions in society, resulting in attacks on journalists reporting on disfavoured issues and events. The global War on Terror considerably contributed to a turn towards authoritarianism in the Philippines, vis-à-vis the limits of public discourse, and that law reform offers a very limited kind of remedy.
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Ash Bhagwat
In the United States the actual impact of 9/11 and the subsequent “War on Terror” on speech and press freedoms has been complex, and in many ways much less than expected. In fact, free speech rights vis-à-vis the government remain largely robust in the United States; the real conflicts and issues today concern the role of private Internet companies, notably social media, in restricting free speech.
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Merel Dinkla
Being able to reunite with family from abroad falls under the right to family life, one of the fundamental rights every individual is entitled to. Despite this, some Dutch family reunification requirements are potentially at odds with international human rights law standards and the EU Directive 2003/86/EC on the right to family reunification. This problematic state of affairs reflects the ongoing racialization of European borders, and that of Dutch borders in particular.
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Stefan Salomon
The principal function of borders in immigration law is to distinguish between persons and goods which are permitted to enter a territory and those which are not. I call this the filtering function of the border. In this short contribution, I enquire into how this filtering function of the border operates in the context of border controls in the Netherlands. More specifically, I argue that the way border controls are performed in the Netherlands structurally produces racialized subjects.
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Thomas Spijkerboer
In European human rights law, it is taken for granted that states have the sovereign right to regulate migration. A right to be admitted to a country of which one is not a national, or a right not to be expelled, exists only in exceptional cases. In this blogpost, I look at the origins of “the right to control the entry of non-nationals”. These are to be found in a shift in the colonial labour system which occurred in the second half of the 19th century. It is this history which explains the inequality represented on the map above.
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Eline Westra, Saskia Bonjour
Can formerly colonized subjects and their descendants be full and equal citizens of the former metropoles – and if so, what would that look like? In this blogpost, we explore these politics of belonging in European postcolonial polities by looking at different conceptualizations of the relationship between the Dutch state and Surinamese-Dutch citizens and immigrants. While Dutch government discourses tend to represent Surinamese-Dutch as too different to belong to the Dutch Nation, Surinamese-Dutch organisations claimed postcolonial citizenship as different and equal.
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Karin van Leeuwen
Colonialism and decolonization have importantly shaped the constitutional trajectories of not only the colonized states, but also those of the colonizers. For the Netherlands, decolonization did not only dictate the pace of various constitutional reforms in the mid-20th century that were ‘needed’ to erase Indonesia (1948) and New Guinea (1963) from the text of the constitution, but also introduced new constitutional documents, such as the 1949 Dutch-Indonesian Union Charter and the 1954 Charter of the Kingdom. While it is necessary to critically analyze the impact of these postcolonial arrangements on former colonies, it is equally urgent to fill the profound gap in knowledge about the impact of colonialism and decolonization on domestic constitutional arrangements.
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Anne-Isabelle Richard
In this post, I would like to shed light on an important, yet generally overlooked aspect of the European Convention of Human Rights, namely that it was drafted at a time when many of the member states of the Council of Europe were still important colonial powers. While European empires in Asia were in decline and the Netherlands was in the process of withdrawing from Indonesia, this was not the case in what was then called New Guinea, Surinam or the Antilles. Colonial empires in Africa, for their part, were still well established and the question of the territorial application of the Convention was hotly debated in the drafting process. What were the implications of this link between human rights and empire?
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Antoon De Baets
The conflict in Indonesia in 1945–1949 was not a police action against insurgents in the context of a colonial territory in which domestic law alone was applicable; it was an international armed conflict in the context of independence in which international law should have played its role. The crimes committed during the conflict from both sides were war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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Boyd van Dijk
The specter of the Indonesian Revolution is still haunting our understanding of Dutch imperial violence. In this blog post, I want to highlight two central issues regarding the conflict’s legal history – one involving the alleged non-application of the laws of war to the conflict which has been a mainstay argument in Dutch official narratives, and the other regarding the ways in which we delineate today our legal-moral reasoning with respect to Dutch transgression.
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Janne Nijman
The self-image of The Netherlands as a nation with a legalist (or Grotian) approach to international affairs has turned a blind eye to how Grotian legal reasonings and arguments have been used to legitimize Dutch colonialism and to shape the post-colonial structure of international law.
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León Castellanos-Jankiewicz, Wiebe Hommes
Human rights and decolonization have a complicated relationship. From their inception in the mid-20th century as normative features of the nation-state, human rights co-existed with imperial colonial systems. As aspirational values molded on the Western philosophical tradition, human rights also served as empowering tools in the moment of decolonization while simultaneously hampering claims to national independence. This is why, in the engagement with the ongoing legacies of colonialism, we have embarked on this symposium to examine human rights both as a language of critique and as a constitutive part of the imperial legacy.
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Maximilian Steinbeis, Mattias Kumm
Regierungsamtliche Diskursteilnahme in Zeiten der Ampel und ihre verfassungsrechtlichen Grenzen: ein Online-Symposium des Verfassungsblogs und des Exzellenzclusters SCRIPTS.
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Cem Tecimer
After what is now almost a two-decade long rule by the governing party, there are strong indications that a strong reshuffling in Turkish politics is in the works. Support for President Erdogan and his party is declining. I argue, firstly, that it is a combination of factors that has led to this moment of changing fortunes in Turkish politics – a combination that sheds light on what tactics may successfully be employed by opposition forces who wish to put an end to autocracies. Secondly, I claim that constitutional restoration in Turkey does not require formal constitutional change.
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Dmitry Kurnosov
The case of Russia teaches us how dangerous extra-constitutional constitution making can be – and that it should always be just a last resort. No substantive institutional changes should be made outside of the constitutional bounds. Otherwise, there will always be the danger that breaking the rule of law will continue even after constitutional change has taken place. This is precisely what Russian intellectuals and jurists, who supported Yeltsin in 1993, learned under the rule of Vladimir Putin. We should try to avoid repeating their mistakes.
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Roberto Gargarella
The questions posed by Professors Andrew Arato and András Sajó in their open letter Restoring Constitutionalism are pressing and of utmost public importance. Many of the issues and controversies raised in the letter arise after “democratic backsliding has taken place” and when the constitution already includes “entrenched authoritarian enclaves”. Taking this context into consideration, I will examine a more basic issue, namely the validity of law in a democratic society.
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Ece Göztepe, Silvia von Steinsdorff, Ertug Tombus
Taking into consideration that the backsliding of Turkish democracy during the last ten to fifteen years happened in a piecemeal and often erratic way, only partially based on constitutional amendments, the reverse process should also be possible by gradual legal and, eventually, constitutional changes. Political pragmatism, based on a clear commitment to basic democratic values and societal reconciliation, might be more important for the sustainable recovery of Turkish democracy than a radical constitutional restart.
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Sanford V. Levinson
From my perspective, the most fundamental question that Arato and Sajó are asking is precisely how committed lawyers and constitutionalists should be to particular political systems that do not, at least on the surface, offer any grounds for optimism that the next election will “vote the rascals out of office” and enable forward movement to achieving the grand aspirations of a liberal constitutional order. Paradoxically or not, one might have more hope about Hungary, Poland, Chile, Brazil, or other countries unafflicted by “veneration” of a constitutional system that, left unreformed, serves as an iron cage, a “clear and present danger” to the actual achievement of liberal constitutional aspirations.
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Michael Meyer-Resende
It seems to me that we are asking two questions: First, is Hungary´s constitutional system so damaged that it no longer reflects the core tenets of democratic constitutionalism? My short answer is, yes, but the case needs to be made comprehensively. The second questions is: Could the current constitution be repaired although it is set-up to impede repair? My short answer is: It depends on the post-election context and we should not jump too easily to leave the current legal framework.
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Beata Bakó
If the constitution-making and amending by Fidesz with their legally obtained two-thirds majority counted as illegitimate, constitutional revision with a simple majority cannot be acceptable. If the sudden redesign of institutions gave reason for serious concern eleven years ago, it cannot be welcomed now.
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Rimdolmsom Jonathan Kabre
The topic of corruption plays a particular role in the international investment regime, as is evidenced by the large number of corruption-based investment cases and the abundant literature on this topic. This blog post discusses the role of arbitral tribunals and local institutions (notably courts and bar associations) in addressing the challenges of corruption by focusing on the so called Piero Foresti, Laura de Carli & Others v. The Republic of South Africa case (hereinafter, the Foresti case). I argue that the reaction of the arbitral tribunal to the allegation of corruption is unsatisfactory and that international and national institutions should operate in complementarity given the transnational nature of the phenomenon of corruption.
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Cengiz Barskanmaz
Almost 20 years after the adoption of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003), open access publications still play a comparatively marginal role in the legal academia. Yet legal scholarship is already benefiting from a public discourse that quality-assured legal scholarship blogs have initiated with their science-communicative opening. Admittedly, particularly the lack of sustainable funding models reinforces the disciplinary reluctance to embrace open access and open science in legal academia.
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Daniel Hürlimann
In der schweizerischen Rechtswissenschaft bewegt sich einiges in Sachen Open Access. Auf der einen Seite sind viele Bottom-Up-Initiativen entstanden, auf der anderen Seite wird der freie Zugang zu rechtswissenschaftlicher Literatur vermehrt Top-Down gefordert – und teilweise auch gefördert. Es bleibt allerdings noch einiges zu tun, bis Open Access zum Standard wird. Dies gilt insbesondere für die Finanzierung von Zeitschriften. Die bisher bestehenden Finanzierungsmöglichkeiten fördern ein System, in dem Quantität mehr zählt als Qualität.
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Paula Baldini
Despite its revolutionary potential, the movement towards amplifying open access can backfire if it does not expand quickly across the world. As it is today, the vast majority of authors who publish open access are based in European research institutions. By making these authors’ works more easily available than others, open access initiatives may end up dictating the terms of the international legal debate around the world.
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Patricia Schiess
In spring 2016, the Liechtenstein Institute launched verfassung.li, the online commentary on the Constitution of the Principality of Liechtenstein. To date, it is the only commentary on the Constitution of Liechtenstein and – to our knowledge – the only open access commentary on a constitution in the German-speaking world.
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Bogdan Iancu
I will, in what follows, seek to answer the overarching question of this symposium, starting from a cautionary Romanian rule of law (RoL) reform tale. Other things being equal, its lessons may be extrapolated to the specific case of hopefully post-Orbánite Hungary. The specific context of Hungary presents, at least apparently, the Romanian problem in reverse, namely, the transition from an authoritarian nationalist regime to a pluralist, European, rule of law order.
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Johannes Rux
Open Access aims to ensure that scientific findings are disseminated as widely as possible and thus reach (and can be further exploited) where they are of greatest use. Open Access assumes that the unrestricted access to research findings will enable further research and boost scientific progress. This is not restricted to STEM-subjects where speed is often essential to find solutions for looming problems but also applies to studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences including Law and Jurisprudence.
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Julia Emtseva, Angelo Jr Golia, Tom Sparks
In 2021, the Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht (also known as the Heidelberg Journal of International Law) was reborn. Though one of the oldest public and international law journals, its editors have taken the decision to embrace a new era and mode of publishing. The ZaöRV is now a Platinum Open-Access journal.
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Richard Holden
The notion that scientific progress depends on access to the existing stock of knowledge is an old one. It dates to the 12th century when the French philosopher Bernard of Chartres observed: “We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size.”
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Marcel Knoechelmann
Without specifying its meaning or context, openness remains an empty category. It commonly evokes a positive sentiment, but what does it mean to say: We are opening up this or that? And what does it disguise? It even compares with excellence in this respect: a word that is en vogue to be thrown into debates about the future of the academy.
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Evin Dalkilic, Georg Fischer
Open Access suggests the absence of gates and gatekeepers – but this is evidently not the case. Who gets to publish what and where is still very much a decision made by certain people in certain positions following certain procedures. Although Open Access carries the promise of removing barriers and democratising access, numerous barriers beyond the obvious ones like paywalls or processing charges exist or are being installed.
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Kim Lane Scheppele
Backsliding democracies around the world all face the problem of how to restore the rule of law. Precisely because it is already embedded in European law, with deep Hungarian roots that have long honored European traditions and its international law obligations, Hungary has the option of simply embracing European law to provide a legal path back to the rule of law
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Johanna Fröhlich
I argue that especially in highly polarized social contexts and in divided societies, triggering a new constitution-making procedure requires certain conditions that are necessarily lacking in such circumstances. Oddly, even though these initiatives are motivated by the idea of constitutional restoration, they could easily fail for the same reasons as the constitution they try to mend. When – against the usual and unusual odds – new constitutions are adopted in socially adverse circumstances, the outcome will unavoidably carry the deep tensions and one-sidedness of its environment.
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András L. Pap
For the first time ever in Hungary, a national primary was held to elect the prime ministerial candidate for the opposition, sparking discussions on constitutional restoration, in particular on amending or replacing the 2011 constitution, the Fundamental Law (FL). Following a brief description of the Hungarian institutional and constitutional landscape, I outline several suggestions as to how the question of constitutional restoration in Hungary might be addressed.
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Till Zimmermann
Criminal law serves as the primary tool of choice in Germany's combat against corruption. Yet, apart from the truism that merely tightening the penal framework to combat corruption is useless anyway, there remain deficits. This blog post argues that some of those deficits are to be found not on the level of law in action, but in the law in the books.
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Sofia Ranchordas
Smart-city surveillance is not always used “for the good.” Instead, the faces of regime opponents or, in other contexts, underrepresented minorities, are often self-incriminating elements. It is clear that smart cities pose important problems to privacy and that technology-infused urban spaces bring as many benefits as challenges. I argue that we should be particularly critical of the employment of surveillance technologies in slums because they are by definition vulnerable places from different perspectives.
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Csaba Győry
The call from Andrew Arato and Andras Sajó starts an important and timely debate. It is indeed a thorny question in which cases a formal breach of constitutional norms is the only way to restore constitutionalism. I make three claims: First, while the potential opposition government’s legislative power will indeed be constrained, it will not be entirely powerless. Second, many of these constraints do not stem from constitutional provisions per se, but from informal practices within constitutional organs, and thus cannot be addressed by only formal constitutional changes, revolutionary or otherwise. Third, in the present situation a calculated formal breach of the constitution will most likely lead to civilian strife, political paralysis and radicalization. It will also have the potential to destabilize the European Union.
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João Victor Archegas, Christian Perrone
For the past twenty years, Brazil has been torn between the paths of public security and mass surveillance, and of reaffirming human rights, especially the right to privacy. An interesting duality has emerged: on the one hand, the creation of a robust regime in terms of data protection and, on the other, a wholehearted acceptance of facial recognition technology.
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Renáta Uitz
In the context of hybrid regimes, where constitutional change is gradual, the search for a magical (if not revolutionary) ‘moment’ of constitutional reset is futile. Instead, constitutional scholarship is better off with envisioning a process of constitutional (re-)settlement through legally imperfect processes of trial and error.
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Markus Naarttijärvi
A closer look at the use of surveillance measures by public authorities in Sweden following 9/11 reveals that once it began, the development can perhaps best be described as displaying a ‘ketchup effect’; where you open the bottle and at first nothing comes out, and then it all comes out at once and you have effectively ruined your dish (which, depending on your view of ketchup, may have been doomed from the moment you picked up the bottle).
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Mark Tushnet
Sometimes, probably often, the new anti-authoritarian majority will not be large enough to satisfy the requirements of the nation’s amendment rule for constitutional change. What can be done under those circumstances? One possibility, of course, is simply to push through constitutional change without regard to the pre-existing amendment rule. Sometimes that will be enough. Sometimes it won’t – particularly where the idea of legality has powerful political support. Where simply bulling ahead with constitutional change seems unlikely to be productive, what can be done? The answer, I believe, combines foundational constitutional theory and practical political reality.
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Monika Zalnieriute
As protest movements are gaining momentum across the world, with Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, and strong pro-democracy protests in Chile and Hong Kong are taking centre stage, governments around the world are increasing their surveillance capacities in the name of “protecting the public” and “addressing emergencies”. Australia is not an exception to this trend.
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Gábor Halmai
Even if the opposition will win the 2022 election in Hungary, it is very unlikely that the new governing parties will reach the two-third majority which according to the current rules is necessary to enact a brand new constitution or even to amend Fidesz’s ‘illiberal’ constitution. Yet, amending Hungary's Fundamental Law by a simple majority would be an unacceptable but also unnecessary break of legality. But it should also be avoided that a new democratic government would have to govern in the long run within the framework of the present ‘illiberal’ Fundamental Law.
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Albert Fox Cahn, Evan Enzer
Throughout the post-9/11 period, we’ve seen the courts fail to check the growth of the surveillance state, inviting and sanctioning new abuses. But we do see reason for hope. The expansion of the surveillance state is increasingly taking center stage in American political discourse. While it’s unclear if America’s political, legal, and constitutional systems will ever fully recover from the post-9/11 moment, it is clear that only mass political movement will be able to edge back us from the precipice of authoritarianism and reassert constitutional checks and the rule of law.
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András Jakab
Revolutionary proponents of instant radical solutions are offering Jacobin moralist arguments about the evilness of the old legal system and enthusiastic political slogans about a bright future under the new Constitution, but they are staying silent about the most likely outcome of their plans: massive armed violence.
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Maria Paula Bertran, Maria Virgínia Nabuco do Amaral Mesquita Nasser
When the anti-corruption systems whistleblowed to a Latin tune recently, the resulting sound was remarkably ugly. It was loud, as the Odebrecht, Petrobras, and J&F cases revealed a wide-spread, refined system of corruption involving prominent politicians and businesspeople in 12 countries from Latin America and Africa named as “Operation Car Wash”. But the sound was also dissonant, as it played tunes that did not represent the patterns of justice expected from the Latin legal systems. That sound had a peculiar U.S. American accent.
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Armin von Bogdandy, Luke Dimitrios Spieker
To restore an independent judiciary and – in a broader perspective – the rule of law, it would suffice to remove the central perpetrators from the judiciary. To achieve this aim, we plead for the criminal responsibility of those judges who severely and intentionally disrespect EU values. Establishing their criminal responsibility in fair proceedings would then justify – in fact: require – their removal from office.
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Winfried Kluth
Die Bundesnotbremse ist aus heutiger Sicht jedoch nicht nur Ende sondern zugleich Beginn eines neuen Staatsversagens gewesen. Tatsächlich war es die Verlagerung der Handlungskompetenz auf die Gubernative, zumal in der föderalen Variante einer informellen ad-hoc-Bund-Länder-Gubernative, die sich als strukturell unpassend und fachlich unangemessen erwiesen hat. Aus diesen Vorüberlegungen lassen sich Eckpunkte für ein Pandemierecht 4.0 entwickeln, das als vorsorgendes und gefahrenabwehrendes Planungs- und Interventionsrecht in organisatorischer und verfahrensrechtlicher Hinsicht über die ersten drei Entwicklungsstufen (Generalklausel, unkoordinierter Maßnahmenkatalog, Bundesnotbremse) nicht nur hinausgeht, sondern zu einer grundlegenden Neuausrichtung führt.
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Rosalind Dixon, David E. Landau
How does one restore a democratic constitutional order that has been eroded through a process of “abusive” constitutional change? The same tools used to achieve abusive change can be used to reverse it. For example, just as formal constitutional amendment is one important way in which abusive constitutional projects are carried out, it is also an important pathway through which abusive change can be reversed.
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András Sajó
It is not out of question that the united Hungarian opposition will obtain Parliamentary majority in 2022, but a constituent supermajority of two thirds remains wishful thinking. Winning the election will not result in actual governmental power. The Fundamental Law was a nice opportunity to purge constitutional institutions. Is another round of purge inevitable with the restoration of the rule of law? The dictates of necessity offer an unappealing perspective and textbook constitutionalism is not prepared for dirty reality.
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Michael Kubiciel
When people talk about the connection between internal and external security, which was occasionally the case during the election campaign for the German Bundestag, they usually mean international terrorism, transnational drug trafficking and organized crime. Yet, various events in the recent months reminded us that rampant corruption in foreign states can also have consequences for our external security.
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Su Bian
In 2018, the Chinese central government professed its determination to combat ‘corruption’ at a new level by promulgating the Supervision Law (SL). Supervisory commissions (SCs) from the national level down to the county level were systematically set up and became the sole supervisory organ, which has largely modified the constitutional division of powers. I argue that the SC shares much in common with the hybrid type of ombudsman but lacks adequate external constraint mechanisms.
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