While considerable thought and effort has been put into exploring and fixing the ethical rights and professional responsibilities of private lawyers, little energy has been directed towards defining and defending the role and duties of government lawyers. As a result, the traditional understanding seems to be that government lawyers are to consider themselves as being under the same regimen and restrictions as their private counterparts. After criticizing this default approach, the article offers a fresh evaluation of what is different about the role of government lawyers and develops a more appropriate model for thinking about their professional responsibilities and ethical privileges. The central thrust of the article is the effort to appreciate legal ethics and professional responsibility as part of a larger democratic understanding of law and justice.

This article focuses on the strategy to replace the UK Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) with a home-grown Bill of Rights to lessen the influence of the European Court of Human Rights' case law. Without attempting to disregard the national-specific elements, the discussion of these questions is very relevant for all States confronted with the influence of Strasbourg. The tension between coherence, efficiency and autonomy is overarching. The article therefore approaches the issue not only from an outsider's perspective but also, where relevant, from a comparative constitutional law perspective. Both perspectives seem to be largely absent from the current (academic) debate. Firstly, this article analyzes the current relationship between the UK Supreme Court and the Strasbourg Court, which reveals that the judicial arguments in support of a mirror principle are not so much based on section 2(1) HRA, as they are, in the domestic courts' relationship with Strasbourg, on concerns about international obligations, hierarchy, effectiveness of the Strasbourg Court, coherence and efficiency. Internally, judicial arguments are founded on concerns about separation of powers, limited jurisdiction, and accustomedness to the precedent system. In the second part, this article focuses on the potential impact of a home-grown Bill of Rights on the current relationship between both courts; concluding that a home-grown Bill of Rights will most likely cause domestic courts to receive less latitude by Strasbourg and will not absolve domestic judges from the duty of taking into account the Strasbourg case law.

Like many of the provisions of the German Grundgesetz (Basic Law – GG) the constitutional protection of German citizenship enshrined in Article 16.1 GG is a reaction to the atrocities committed by Nazi-Germany. From early on, the Nazis had abused nationality law not only as a sanctioning device to discipline Germans living abroad but also to ostracize unwanted citizens and confiscate their property, i.e., as a means of large scale political and racial discrimination. This inhuman denaturalization practice culminated in the 11. Verordnung zum Reichsbürgergesetz (11th ordinance of 25 November 1941, issued by virtue of the Reich's Citizenship Law), which stripped Jewish citizens living abroad of their German nationality, aiming inter alia at Jews deported to concentration camps in Eastern Europe. To prevent any kind of political abuse of denaturalization measures in the future, Article 16.1 sent. 1 GG guarantees that no German may be deprived of his nationality. There is a long-standing debate about the precise meaning of this strict ban on any “deprivation” of nationality, because at the same time Article 16.1 sent. 2 GG allows for the loss of German nationality against the will of the person affected if this loss has a statutory basis and the person does not become stateless as a result. Thus, it is unclear whether the constitution permits a revocation of German citizenship, and if so under what conditions. Further, this debate broaches the questions of whether there are, in fact, exceptions to the constitutional protection against statelessness, e.g., in cases of fraud.

Quantitative approaches are gaining popularity in German legal research. The analysis of large corpora of legal text may be supported by text mining methods. In this study, we employ topic modeling—which aims at retrieving the “topics” of a corpus—to identify words related to certain areas of law present in the case law of the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC). This information is then evaluated by legal experts and used to show significant content-related differences between the two most frequent types of proceedings before the FCC. Technical and somewhat unstable areas of law, such as tax law, social law, and civil service law, are significantly overrepresented in referrals for judicial review, whereas areas of law characterized by well-developed case law and judicial doctrine appear substantially more often in constitutional complaints. This insight may come as a surprise due to the fact that the Court’s material scope of review is identical in both types of proceedings. Our considerations do not, however, seem to apply to private law. Though we recognize the methodological and epistemological concerns regarding the heuristic nature of topic modeling, this study exemplifies its productive use in complementing, rather than replacing, more traditional techniques of analysis in legal studies.

The relationship of social morals and laws becomes particularly crucial and problematic with regard to foreign bribery. This is because of three reasons: Foreign bribery is embedded in social actions, has a transnational character, and is mostly committed in business contexts. Therefore, the author reflects on the relationship of social morals and laws. The author argues that even though social morals and laws have to be distinguished on a conceptual level, it is wise to work towards a factual synchronicity. In this context, the author provides some suggestions for linking social morals and anti-bribery laws more closely. However, this linkage becomes especially problematic regarding extraterritorial criminal liability. Nevertheless, after a critical examination the author concludes that the reproach of moral imperialism is not substantial.

Although the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is a technical intergovernmental organization with a limited mandate, it has been entrusted with a panoply of tasks. These include, inter alia, the international harmonization of intellectual property law, the administration of fee-based global intellectual property protection services, and the delivery of dispute resolution services to individuals. While the central role of WIPO in the continuous development of substantive intellectual property law has been questioned by developing countries, the administrative activities of WIPO have remained largely unscathed by critique and, therefore, have not attracted much attention. They revolve around the international filing, registration or recognition of industrial property rights, such as patents, industrial designs and trademarks, and provide an interesting perspective on the law of international institutions.

Police powers of discretion to discontinue criminal proceedings are rather exceptional in Europe, where most Criminal Justice Systems are based on some kind of principle of legality. Germany and England may be regarded as contrasting examples for different decision-making-models on the question whether or not to prosecute an offender. Germany, with a principle of compulsory prosecution theoretically guiding the work of public prosecutors—compared to England, where already the police have significant powers of discretion when deciding about a case. In recent years, however, the differences between the practice of these principles seem to have vanished: Whereas some German federal states have started to involve police in prosecution decisions, policy makers in England try to restrain the traditionally wide discretion of police in dealing with cases of minor crimes. Interesting lessons that might be useful for future harmonization of European criminal justice systems can be drawn from the experiences in both countries.

The ruling of the German Federal Constitutional Court in the Right to be forgotten II case is an example of constitutional pluralism in action. It demonstrates how a pluralist-minded court can elevate itself from and above the constitutional confines of its own legal order. By integrating the material standards of another legal order in its own review of constitutionality a national constitutional court contributes directly to the strengthening of the fundamental rights of individuals against the national authorities within the overall system of European legal order.

In the crusade against organized crime, it has become more and more accepted that the often trans-border crime cannot sufficiently be tackled by enhanced enforcement and cooperation between states alone. An alternative tool may be what can be termed the instrumentalization of the victims to enable the prosecution of organized criminals. This brings to the fore the dilemma that the victims are often themselves offenders, as a rule, breaching provisions of immigration law. Therefore, it is typically not in their interest to bring offences of trafficking and smuggling, of which they are the victims, to the attention of the authorities. Initiatives at the international and EU/EC level, which grant limited residence rights to those victims who collaborate in the prosecution of the offenders, attempt to deal with this conflict of interest. This implies at least a partial recognition of the status of the victim.

The following reflections, that will focus exclusively on the European primacy clause in the light of the Statement by the Constitutional Court no. 1/2004 of 13 December, in particular with regard to its scope as regards the Spanish Constitution itself, may take as a starting point the conclusion contained at the last paragraph of FJ 4 of the Statement, which states as follows:

“In the scarcely-conceivable event that in the ultimate functioning of European Union Law this Law were to result irreconcilable with the Spanish Constitution, and without the hypothetical excesses of European Law with regard to the European Constitution itself being remedied by the ordinary channels provided for in the latter, ultimately the preservation of the sovereignty of the Spanish people and of the supremacy of the Constitution as it provides for itself could lead this Court to tackle the problems that would arise in such a case, and which from the current point of view are considered to be non-existent, by way of the relevant constitutional procedures”.

In Germany, the possibilities of students to participate in and contribute to legal education are generally quite limited. Compared to the legal education systems in the USA and Canada, the course of studies is rather theoretical and quite anonymous. Communication between students, faculty staff and deans is rare, and classes are fairly big. As to the abstractness of the curriculum, several changes have been made to improve the situation. For example, a reform in 2003 was supposed to increase foreign language competence and provide for more specialization and practical relevance. However, the system can still (or again) be considered to be “under construction”. Many important skills are not being taught, and the awareness of the international, social and cultural contexts is largely neglected or lacking reference to the subject matter. There is an ongoing debate about further changes to the legal educational systems especially about the adoption of the Bologna Process. While some consider it inapplicable to the German system, others have already started transferring it at their university. Several federal states have meanwhile started endorsing a basic reform. However the next rulings will not be until 2011. Presently scholars, policy-makers in the field of education and economists face the challenge of devising strategies for legal education that meet the needs and interests of all “stakeholders” while being compatible with the traditional German system. Students are curious and concerned about the future of their curriculum. Their means of participation include a) passively evaluating teachings, b) actively engaging in a student parliament or self-governed student councils of a special field (so-called Fachschaften) and c) actively involving in student organizations.

The Bologna Declaration (1999) started a process of reforming European higher education. The major aim of the declaration was to construct a single European Higher Education Area by 2010,

The article provides a meta-analysis of the structural impact of digitalization on international law. It synthesizes the contributions of this special issue, showing how their findings are interrelated and which cross-cutting trends we can observe. It uses an analytical framework designed to assess structural changes in international law by analyzing the impact that digitalization has on key reference points: Actors, norms, and values. From this assessment, it draws the conclusion that digitalization is changing, and will continue to change structural features of international law.

There is no point in denying the significance of the Right to be forgotten for the state of judicial dialogue in Europe. It vindicates the position of the BVerfG as a court deserving international recognition for advancing the law in the crucial field of data protection. Nevertheless, restricting the scope of analysis to the narrow context of judicial dialogue misses the wider context of the rise of authoritarian constitutionalism in certain EU Member States. In this respect, it is of the highest significance that the decisions on the Right to be forgotten effectively eliminate the imagined normative hierarchy between domestic and EU law that provided the basis for the BVerfG’s jurisprudence ever since Solange I and Maastricht. Moreover, by reasserting the primacy of EU law, the BVerfG strengthens the position of embattled judges in Poland facing disciplinary action for implementing the primacy of EU law. The concern shown by some members of the First Senate for the situation in Poland corroborates this reading.

On February 26, 2020, the German Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) declared—for the first time in its history—a criminal prohibitory law (strafrechtliche Verbotsnorm) from the German Criminal Code null and void.1 The provision in question—Section 217 of the German Criminal Code—dealt with the controversial issue of assisted suicide. This case study will briefly examine the previous regulation pertaining to assisted suicide in Germany under Section 217, before scrutinizing its subsequent unconstitutionality as a consequence of the BVerfG’s landmark decision. In order to do so, this article will explore the legal background of the decision, the fundamental rights which were held to have been infringed by Section 217, and propose potential ways of regulating assisted suicide in Germany in the future.

The case of Carles Puigdemont underlines that European criminal law is in a crisis of confidence. The Higher Regional Court of Schleswig-Holstein has rejected a Spanish European arrest warrant for the criminal offence of rebellion because it lacks double criminality. It applied German law de lege artis without, however, questioning the European legal framework. The case would have provided an opportunity to refer the matter to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling in order to further specify the European law criteria of double criminality. This would have been the adequate legal response to a politically explosive case. In the end, the Spanish judiciary sees itself disavowed and the system of the European arrest warrant called into question.

The accepted approach of competition law to non-horizontal mergers, largely based on the Chicago School of Antitrust Law and Economics paradigms, is criticized on both sides of the Atlantic as too lenient, disregarding developments of economic theory, and no longer adequate in the reality of the digital economy. Current economic research confirms the legitimacy of fears about the effects of non-horizontal concentrations that were raised before the Chicago School put them into doubt. The disbelief in the accuracy of the former US non-horizontal mergers policy resulted in the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice adopting new Vertical Merger Guidelines. The changes introduced were considered insufficient, which led to the unilateral repeal of the guidelines by the FTC and the start of work on new guidelines introducing a stricter approach. The new U.S. 2023 Merger Guidelines introduced far-reaching changes taking into account the modern views of economists and empirical research on vertical mergers. Comparatively, the EU Commission’s Non–Horizontal Merger Guidelines still do not fully correspond to what empirical research and contemporary economic theories say about the possible effects of vertical mergers. Thus, the revision of the EU guidelines seems necessary.

In an international social rights debate disproportionately focused on English-speaking countries, redundant emphasis has been placed on justiciability. While constitutionalization does challenge stable relations between powers, especially in the post-colonial and developing world, solid insights for a workable interpretative method can be derived from continental Europe, where the difficulties typically associated with justiciability have long been settled. The constitutions of Italy, Germany, and Portugal take socioeconomic democracy seriously, tempering socialist claims and refuting libertarian stances, and have managed to spur a legitimate judicial increment of substantive equality. Through a threefold comparison, this paper describes the peculiarities of these fundamental texts across the spectrum of possible constitutional design choices, and draws from comparative constitutional caselaw to highlight a cross-national convergence on a set of interpretative standards. These blend together a strong safeguard of legislative discretion with justiciable minimal guarantees, and a value-assertive orientation of balancing coextensive with the integrationist function of constitutionalized social and economic rights.