08 May 2026
The BMW and Mercedes Climate Cases
The Bundesgerichtshof – Germany's highest court of civil jurisdiction – has handed down its first ruling on private climate liability and dismissed the widely discussed lawsuits against BMW and Mercedes. These strategic lawsuits were based on a very specific claim that is hard to replicate in other legal systems. Nevertheless, the rulings contain general considerations that, from a comparative law perspective, reveal a remarkable degree of judicial restraint. Continue reading >>
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08 April 2020
Towards Constitutionalizing Global Value Chains and Corporations
There exists a private state of exception that is shaping the current Coronavirus crisis. This private state of exception is negotiated within the doctrines of private law, but this pandemic also reveals how global private orders consisting of contracts allow lead firms in global commodity production to act as private sovereigns that can declare independently the presence of an exceptional situation. Continue reading >>
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