Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 March 2019
Lawyers are the engineers of the social sciences, and their doctors. Neither is good for reputation in interdisciplinary exchange. Social scientists often show contempt for a discipline that seems too close to reality to meet hard methodological standards, and too much concerned by pathologies that are beyond the reach of their methodological tools. As with many prejudices, there is a grain of truth in this one. But not all law is about making decisions and judgements in the face of a reality that is at best partly understood. The legal discipline has its own methodological standards. For the sake of internal clarity, it aims at parsimony. But modelling is not the legal path to methodological rigor. The legal equivalent boils down to one simple question: who asks whom for what? The law splits abstract problems into a series of cases. It reaches parsimony via the selection and sequence of cases. These hypothetical cases are like histological cuts through the social tissue. The legal discipline starts cutting at cases for which existing legal tools seem particularly wellsuited. If these cases are understood, the legal discipline then starts again with the more demanding ones. It is hoped that the sequence of cases leads to an understanding of situations that seemed inaccessible at the outset.
1 For a typology see Christoph Engel: Hybrid Governance Across National Jurisdictions as a Challenge to Constitutional Law, in: European Business Organization Law Review 2 (2001) 569-584.Google Scholar
2 Proof of this are, for instance, the following papers: Claire Cutler: Artifice, Ideology and Paradox: The Public/Private Distinction in International Law, in: Review of International Political Economy 4 (1997) 261-285; Christine Chinkin: A Critique of the Public/Private Dimension, in: European Journal of International Law 10 (1999) 387-395); Alfred C. Aman: The Limits of Globalization and the Future of Administrative Law: From Government to Governance, in: Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 8 (2001) 379-400.Google Scholar
3 This was the topic of the Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer at its year 2000 meeting, Ingo Pernice: Europäisches und nationales Verfassungsrecht, in: Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer 60 (2001) 148-193; Peter Huber: Europäisches und nationales Verfassungsrecht, ibid. 194-245; Gertrude Lübbe-Wolff: Europäisches und nationales Verfassungsrecht, ibid. 246-289.Google Scholar
4 See the programmatic account by Jochen A. Frowein: Konstitutionalisierung des Völkerrechts, in: Berichte der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Völkerrecht 39 (2000) 427-448.Google Scholar
5 Lochner vs. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).Google Scholar
6 See below II 4 b.Google Scholar
7 The standard text is George A. Akerlof: The Market for ‘Lemons'. Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism, in: Quarterly Journal of Economics 84 (1970) 488-500.Google Scholar
8 Reality in Germany is different. Public law makes the admission of doctors to practice conditional upon membership in the competent doctors’ chamber. Moreover, the chamber acts under public, not under private law, when it defines good medical practice and sanctions the standards.Google Scholar
9 See below 3 c.Google Scholar
10 See below 4 a.Google Scholar
11 See below 5 a.Google Scholar
12 See below 2 and 4 b.Google Scholar
13 See below 5 b.Google Scholar
14 See below 5 b.Google Scholar
15 See below 2.Google Scholar
16 Comprehensivly Johannes Dietlein: Die Lehre von den grundrechtlichen Schutzpflichten, Berlin 1992.Google Scholar
17 See below 4 b.Google Scholar
18 See below 5 b.Google Scholar
19 See below 3 a.Google Scholar
20 Dogmatically, this case does not pose new questions. It is therefore not explicitly dealt with here.Google Scholar
21 See below 3 b.Google Scholar
22 Again, this duty to protect is not investigated, since it poses no new dogmatic questions.Google Scholar
23 “geeignet”.Google Scholar
24 “erforderlich”.Google Scholar
25 “angemessen”; for a comprehensive overview of the dogmatics of fundamental freedoms as developed by the German Federal Constitutional Court, see Jörn Ipsen, Staatsrecht II Grundrechte, Neuwied 2000 § 3.Google Scholar
26 For a comprehensive overview see Ipsen (note 25) § 4 – 17.Google Scholar
27 Leading cases BVerfGE 6, 32 – Elfes; BVerfGE 80, 137 – Reiten im Walde.Google Scholar
28 For the details see Ipsen (note 25) § 15.Google Scholar
29 For the details see Ipsen (note 25) § 17; intellectual property will usually be more important than physical, but it also falls under article 14, BVerfGE 49, 382.Google Scholar
30 See in detail Wolfram Höfling: Vertragsfreiheit. Eine grundrechtsdogmatische Studie (1991).Google Scholar
31 For the details see Ipsen (note 25) § 10.Google Scholar
32 For the details see Ipsen (note 25) § 9 – I deliberately do not mentioned article 9, Basic Law, at this point, see further below in this section.Google Scholar
33 This is made obvious by the dogmatic figure of “practical concordance” developed by Konrad Hesse, comprehensive Konrad Hesse: Grundzüge des Verfassungsrechts der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Heidelberg20 1995, R 317 – 320.Google Scholar
34 Leading case BVerfGE 50 290 – Mitbestimmung.Google Scholar
35 For the competitive aspect see below 3 c.Google Scholar
36 Jean Jacques Rousseau: Contrat Social, Paris 1762, Book II Chapter III.Google Scholar
37 Basic Michael Thompson/Richard Ellis/Aaron Wildavsky: Cultural Theory, Boulder 1990.Google Scholar
38 Stimulating on both the performance and the possibility conditions Elinor Ostrom: Governing the Commons. The Evaluation of Institutions for Collective Actions, Cambridge 1990.Google Scholar
39 I owe this stimulating comparison to Fritz Scharpf.Google Scholar
40 I have fleshed this idea out in greater detail in Christoph Engel: Freiheit und Autonomie, Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods Bonn 2003/9, http://www.mpprdg.mpg.de/pdf_dat/2003_9online.pdf (2/24/2004).Google Scholar
41 Leading case BVerfGE 61, 82, 105 – Sasbach.Google Scholar
42 BVerfGE 28, 295, 304.Google Scholar
43 BAGE 1, 185, 193; even this court now makes a difference, BAGE 52, 88, 97 s.Google Scholar
44 BVerfGE 15, 256, 262.Google Scholar
45 BVerfGE 31, 314, 321 s.Google Scholar
46 BVerfGE 19, 1, 5.Google Scholar
47 Constitutional lawyers sometimes posit the opposite, see e.g. Kluth (note 40) 28.Google Scholar
48 BVerfGE 13, 174, 175.Google Scholar
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50 The only question may be whether any legitimate aim is sufficient (BVerfGE 30, 227, 243) or whether Article 9, par. 2, Basic Law is limitational, too (von Mangoldt/Klein/Starck-Kempen) 4 Article 9 GG, R 163 s.Google Scholar
51 BVerfGE 79, 127, 146 ss. and in particular 152 ss. – Rastede; for the (small) differences see e.g. Friedrich Schoch: Zur Situation der kommunalen Selbstverwaltung nach der Rastede-Entscheidung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts, in: Verwaltungsarchiv 81 (1990) 18-54 (26 ss.).Google Scholar
52 According to established jurisprudence, this power is not limited to fundamental freedoms that give it explicitly to government. Any fundamental freedom is, in other words, an implicit limitation to any other, BVerfGE 39, I 43. This is the dogmatic effect of the already-mentioned principle of practical concordance, see above at note 33. As long as the contents of private regulation remains unspecified, one cannot determine which freedoms of addressees the government could rely on.Google Scholar
53 This is the main point of Lawrence Lessig: Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, New York 1999, 6, 13 and passim; James Boyle: Foucault in Cyberspace. Surveillance, Sovereignty and Hard-Wired Censors, in: University of Cincinnati Law Review 66 (1997) 177 – 205 (177 and passim).Google Scholar
54 Basic Jack Knight: Institutions and Social Conflict, Cambridge 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
55 Basic George J. Stigler: Theory of Economic Regulation, in: Bell Journal of Economics 2 (1971) 3 – 21.Google Scholar
56 Characteristic A. Michael Froomkin: Of Government and Governance, in: Berkeley High Technology Law Journal: “it is another thing to tolerate private sector leadership when it clothes itself in the guise of ‘bottom-up rulemaking’ but actually seeks to use government or government-like power to lock in advantages enjoyed by established firms, often at the expense of consumers or new competitors”.Google Scholar
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58 Critical for that reason David G. Post: Governing Cyberspace, in: Wayne Law Review 43 (1996) 154 – 171 (at footnote 30).Google Scholar
59 This holds true for many German businesses, which are legally obliged to be a member of the respective business chamber. These chambers usually have some regulatory authority. For an overview of the complicated practice see Rainer Pitschas: Recht der Freien Berufe, in: Reiner Schmidt (ed.), Öffentliches Wirtschaftsrecht Besonderer Teil A 2, Berlin 1996, 1 – 126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
60 See again Akerlof Quarterly Journal of Economics 1997 (note 7).Google Scholar
61 This position is not unquestioned, and the constitutional jurisprudence is not fully clear. For the details see Stern, Klaus: Das Staatsrecht der Bundesrepublik Deutschland III Allgemeine Lehren der Grundrechte § 86 (897 – 899) on constitutional jurisprudence.Google Scholar
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63 Albert O. Hirschman: Exit, Voice and Loyalty (1970).Google Scholar
64 Hesse (note 33) R 317 – 319. Those with a less liberal attitude towards practical concordance (for an overview see Stern [note 61] § 81 IV) do not reach a different result, but they have to use a different dogmatic technique. They have to interpret the conflicting fundamental freedoms in light of corroborating objective constitutional law.Google Scholar
65 From the many doctrinal voices see only the following three: Udo Di Fabio: Verwaltung und Verwaltungsrecht zwischen gesellschaftlicher Selbstregulierung und staatlicher Steuerung: Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer 56 (1997) 235 – 282 (263 – 268); Neil W. Netanel: Cyberspace Self-Governance. A Sceptical View from Democratic Theory, in: 88 Cal. L. Rev. 395 (2000); Walter Leisner: Verfassungsgrenzen privater Selbstregulierung, in: Michael Kloepfer (ed.): Selbst-Beherrschung im technischen und ökologischen Bereich. Selbststeuerung und Selbstregulierung in der Technik-Entwicklung und im Umweltschutz 151 151 (1998): there is a “danger that all anti-power mechanisms of public law fail”.Google Scholar
66 I am grateful to to Kenneth H. Keller for this idea.Google Scholar
67 On the danger of excessive efficacy see below III 1.Google Scholar
68 See above at note 54.Google Scholar
69 BVerfGE 4, 7, 17 s.; 50, 190, 337; from the abundant literature see only Christian Koenig: Die öffentlichrechtliche Verteilungslenkung. Grund und Grenzen einer Deregulierung am Beispiel der Vergabe von Konzessionen, Kontingenten und Genehmigungen zur unternehmerischen Nutzung öffentlich verwalteter Güter (Schriften zum öffentlichen Recht 655) Berlin 1994, 51 – 71.Google Scholar
70 See only art. 4 par.1 EC Treaty, more from Christoph Engel: Europarechtliche Grenzen für die Industriepolitik, in: Hans-Werner-Rengeling (ed.): Europäisierung des Rechts (1996), 35 – 67 (46 – 52).Google Scholar
71 See BVerfGE 17, 306, 314; for a more elaborate treatment under the parallel guarantees of the European Convention on Human Rights see Engel, Christoph: Privater Rundfunk vor der Europäischen Menschenrechtskonvention (Law and Economics of International Telecommunications 19) Baden-Baden 1993, 459 – 461 (with references to the more specific parts of the book).Google Scholar
72 Characteristic BVerfGE 80, 137, 159 ss. – Reiten im Walde.Google Scholar
73 Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem: Effizienz als Herausforderung an das Verwaltungsrecht – Einleitende Problemskizze, in: id./Eberhard Schmidt-Assmann (ed.): Effizienz als Herausforderung an das Verwaltungsrecht (1998), 11 – 59 (31 s.) alludes to this.Google Scholar
74 More on this below 4 b.Google Scholar
75 For greater detail see above b – d.Google Scholar
76 Basic on the importance of the latter for the law Gunther Teubner: Recht als autopoietisches System, Frankfurt 1989; more on the importance for the principle of proportionality from Christoph Engel: The Constitutional Court – Applying the Proportionality Principle – as a Subsidiary Authority for the Assessment of Political Outcomes, Preprint der Max-Planck-Projektgruppe Recht der Gemeinschaftsgüter Bonn 2001/10.Google Scholar
77 BVerfGE 4, 157, 169; for a summary of the literary discussion on the decision see Engel, Christoph: Völkerrecht als Tatbestandsmerkmal deutscher Normen (Tübinger Schriften zum internationalen und europäischen Recht 19) Berlin 1989, 166–175.Google Scholar
78 BVerfGE 92, 26.Google Scholar
79 From the large literature on regulatory competition see only the following three titles: Lüder Gerken (ed.): Competition Among Institutions (1995); Markus Müller: Systemwettbewerb, Harmonisierung und Wettbewerbsverzerrung. Europa zwischen einem Wettbewerb der Gesetzgeber und vollständiger Harmonisierung (2000); Henri I.T. Tjiong: Breaking the Spell of Regulatory Competition. Reframing the Problem of Regulatory Exit, Rabels Zeitschrift für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht 66 (2002) 66-97.Google Scholar
80 For a succinct introduction into systems theory see Luhmann, Niklas: Ökologische Kommunikation. Kann die moderne Gesellschaft sich auf ökologische Gefährdungen einstellen? (1990); another conceptual possibility for making the same point is offered by Gerhard Wegner: Wirtschaftspolitik zwischen Selbst- und Fremdsteuerung. Ein neuer Ansatz (1996), Wegner stresses the possibility that addressees react creatively to governance impulses.Google Scholar
81 Convincing: Teubner (note 76) 81-122.Google Scholar
82 More on this by Christoph Engel: Delineating the Proper Scope of Government – a Proper Task for a Constitutional Court?, in: Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 157 (2001) 187-219.Google Scholar
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88 Cf. Kenneth W. Dam: Self-Help in the Digital Jungle (Chicago John M. Olin Law and Economics Working Paper No. 59) Chicago 1998, 10 s. and passim.Google Scholar
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90 See above 2 a.Google Scholar
91 See again Hirschman (note 63).Google Scholar
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93 BVerfGE 10, 89, 102.Google Scholar
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95 Stimulating Milos Vec: Aushöhlung des Staates? Selbst-Normierung im Staat der Industriegesellschaft als historisches Problem, in: Rechtshistorisches Journal 19 (2000) 517-532.Google Scholar
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101 BVerfGE 1, 97, 101 s. This procedural situation is somewhat unsatisfactory, if the private regulatory body is already dismantled when the Constitutional Court finally decides upon the constitutional complaint of the addressees.Google Scholar
102 Out of the rich literature see only Matthias Schmidt-Preuss: Verwaltung und Verwaltungsrecht zwischen gesellschaftlicher Selbstregulierung und staatlicher Steuerung, in: Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer 56 (1997) 160-234 (172); Di Fabio (note 65) 254.Google Scholar
103 See above 2 a.Google Scholar
104 See BAGE 1, 185, 193.Google Scholar
105 Comprehensive Stern (note 61) 76.Google Scholar
106 BAGE 52, 88, 97 s.Google Scholar
107 Characteristic BVerfGE 88, 203.Google Scholar
108 See above 2 a.Google Scholar
109 For an overview see again Dietlein (note 16).Google Scholar
110 See above 2 e.Google Scholar
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137 See above II 1.Google Scholar
138 Or if constitutional law superseded the charter.Google Scholar
139 See above II 2 a.Google Scholar
140 See above II 3 a.Google Scholar
141 See above II 3 b.Google Scholar
142 See above II 3 c.Google Scholar
143 See above II 4 b.Google Scholar
144 See above II 5 b.Google Scholar