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Globalization and the Law: Deciphering the Message of Transnational Human Rights Litigation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

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On 14 October 2004, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG – German Federal Constitutional Court) voided a decision by the Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Court) Naumburg, finding a violation of the complainant's rights guaranteed by the Grundgesetz (German Basic Law). The Decision directly addresses both the observation and application of case law from the European Court of Human Rights under the Basic Law's “rule of law provision” in Art. 20.III. While there is a myriad of important aspects with regard to this decision, we may limit ourselves at this point to the introductory aperçu contained in the holdings of the case. One of them reads as follows:

Zur Bindung an Gesetz und Recht (Art. 20 Abs. 3 GG) gehört die Berücksichtigung der Gewährleistungen der Konvention zum Schutze der Menschenrechte und Grundfreiheiten und der Entscheidungen des Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte im Rahmen methodisch vertretbarer Gesetzesauslegung. Sowohl die fehlende Auseinandersetzung mit einer Entscheidung des Gerichtshofs als auch deren gegen vorrangiges Recht verstoßende schematische “Vollstreckung” können gegen Grundrechte in Verbindung mit dem Rechtsstaatsprinzip verstoßen

Type
Special Issue
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

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80 This is the basic motivation for the creation of the ICT (International – Transnational – Comparative) Curriculum Stream at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, a two-year program that allows for a specialization in the named larger disciplinary fields with a strong focus on the national-international ‘interface’ as students are invited to reflect on the interpenetration of globalized fields of legal doctrine: http://www.yorku.ca/osgoode/streams/#ict.Google Scholar

81 Ongoing Comparative Curriculum Overview Study at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, on file with author.Google Scholar

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84 The same applies, however, certainly in jurisdictions where law is a so-called First Degree of study, such as Germany or France; see Windel, Scheinspezialisierung und Verzettelung als mögliche Folgen der Juristenausbildungsreform, Jura 79-82 (2003).Google Scholar

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86 Wiethölter, Begriffs- oder Interessenjurisprudenz. Falsche Fronten im IPR- und Wirtschaftsverfassungsrecht, in: Internationales Privatrecht und Rechtsvergleichung im Ausgang des 20. Jahrhunderts. Festschrift für Gerhard Kegel 213 (A. Lüderitz/J. Schröder eds. 1977), at 234: “Es hilft nicht weiter, unsere Vergangenheit vor 1945 als positivistisch’ und nach 1945 als ‘nichtpositivistisch’ zu würdigen. Einen Positivismus, der diesen Namen aus heutiger Sicht verdiente, hat es in der jüngeren Rechtsgeschichte (noch) nicht gegeben. Eine brauchbarere und zukunftsträchtigere Fragestellung ist es wohl, wie ‘positives’ Recht als zugleich ‘richtiges’ Recht denn zu gewährleisten sei.” See also Wiethölter, Recht-Fertigungen eines Gesellschafts-Rechts, in: Rechtsverfassungsrecht 13-21 (C Joerges/G Teubner eds. 2003); see hereto, Zumbansen, Das soziale Gedächtnis des Rechts, oder: Juristische Dogmatik als Standeskunst, in: (C Joerges/G Teubner eds. 2003), 151, 154.Google Scholar

87 See, e.g., Cutler, Artifice, Ideology and Paradox: the Public/Private Distinction in International Law, 4 Review of International Political Economy 261-285 (1997); Zumbansen, Sustaining Paradox Boundaries: Perspectives on the Internal Affairs in Domestic and International Law, 15 European Journal of International Law [EJIL] 197-211 (2004).Google Scholar

88 Schiff Berman, The Globalization of Jurisdiction, 151 U. Pa. L. Rev. 311-545 (2002), at 323.Google Scholar

89 Philip Jessup, Transnational Law 7 (1956), citing Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 127 (1921).Google Scholar