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For centuries, export control regulations have accompanied the development of new weapon technologies. The revelations of the ‘Pegasus Project’ have put the question of whether and how to regulate the export of the new technology ‘cyberweapons’ in the limelight: Is the current international export control law up to the challenge of sufficiently regulating the proliferation of ‘cyberweapons’ or does it need an update? To answer this question, the blog post will, first, turn to the definition and relevance of ‘cyberweapons’. Secondly, international export control law is introduced as a possible measure to mitigate the risks posed by ‘cyberweapons’ against the backdrop of regulating the use of ‘cyberweapons’ or establishing a moratorium on its trade. Third, the blog post will assess the export of ‘cyberweapons’ in general and the export of Pegasus in particular within the current international export control framework. The current framework seems to touch upon partial aspects of the trade with ‘cyberweapons’. However, it stands to fear that it is not up to the task of sufficiently curtailing the proliferation of ‘cyberweapons’ and the associated risks, as it especially leaves the underlying problem of the trade with zero-day vulnerabilities untouched.
It has become a truism that the Internet gives a range of private actors, such as social media, substantial power. They are thus able to control the communication processes, hold considerable authority over shaping opinions, and become the arbiters of free speech. That is why legal scholars and policymakers are searching for legal tools that would ensure a fair balance between the conflicting rights of these two groups of private actors (platforms and their users).
The aim of this presentation would be to reconsider the relationship between individuals and online platforms, analyze how horizontal online conflicts may be resolved (giving examples of some national legislation and EU proposal concerning digital services), and answer the question if the discretion of the platforms can be limited in order to protect rights and freedoms. The theoretical framework of the analysis would be the doctrine of the State’s positive obligations, as established in the current European Court of Human Rights case law.
The main argument would be that it is necessary to strengthen the public supervision over Internet platforms, in particular the way they resolve horizontal conflicts. The possibility of limiting their discretion, in order to provide individual protection, does not mean however creating the unlimited right of access to the platform in order to express any opinion or view (freedom of forum).
Electoral disinformation has become one of the most challenging problems for democratic states. All of them are facing the phenomenon of - both online and offline - dissemination of false information during pre-electoral period, which is harmful for individual and collective rights. As a consequence, some European countries adopted special measures, including summary judicial proceedings in order to declare that information or materials used in elec-tioneering are false and to prohibit its further dissemination. There are already three rulings of the ECtHR concerning this expeditious judicial examination provided in the Polish law. In December 2018 France passed complex regulation against manipulation of information that include similar mechanisms. This article, basing on the ECtHR’s case law and some national experiences, attempts to define the minimal European standard for measures targeted at electoral disinformation, especially judicial summary proceeding. It contains the analysis of the notion of electoral disinformation, defines the state’s positive obligations in this sphere, and indicates mayor challenges for the legal framework. The principal argument is that summary judicial proceedings – if adequately designed – cannot be questioned from the Convention standpoint and provide a partial solution to the problem of electoral dis-information.
The hybrid EPPO structure is operating under a hybrid set of fundamental rights, thus calling into question the well-established principle of the single set of norms applicable throughout criminal proceedings. Moreover, the system is characterized by a distortion of the commonly applied logical link between liability for violations of fundamental rights and control over the actions entailing those violations. EU Member States risk being held accountable under the Convention for actions on behalf of the EPPO which they did not fully control and which were subject to a different corpus of fundamental rights. The EU, for its part, takes the risk of seeing EPPO prosecutions being invalidated by domestic courts applying a Convention protection level which may be higher than the Union level. The only way to minimize the impact of these distortions is for the EU to become a Contracting Party to the Convention, along with its own Member States. This would do away with the ambivalence of the legal framework characterizing the protection of fundamental rights under the EPPO Regulation. It would also contribute to a better implementation of the principles of the rule of law and procedural fairness, advocated by the Regulation itself. Such a move would seem all the more important in light of the fact that if the EPPO proves successful, its competence might be extended in the future to other areas.
On the way to the customer
(2021)
The notices of Deutsche Rentenversicherung are changing their face. In order to ensure that everybody insured as well as pensioners can better understand the decisions of Deutsche Rentenversicherung, the notices are becoming more comprehensible, clearer and more personal. The poster presentation describes the journey of an interdisciplinary team of Deutsche Rentenversicherung and the most important milestones along the way.
The landmark judgment in the case of Bivolaru and Moldovan v. France, which concerned the execution of a European arrest warrant, provides a good illustration of the effects of the Con-vention liability of EU Member States for their implementation of EU law. These effects touch on such notions as cooperation, trust, complementarity, autonomy and responsibility. The two European courts have been cooperating towards some convergence of the standards applicable to the handling of EAWs. The Bosphorus presumption and its application in Bivo-laru and Moldovan show the amount of trust placed by the Strasbourg Court in the EU pro-tection of fundamental rights in this area. To the extent that their standards of protection coincide, the Luxembourg and Strasbourg jurisdictions are complementary. However, the two protection systems remain autonomous, notably as regards the methodology applied to fundamental rights. Ultimately, the EU Member States engage their Convention responsibility for the execution by their domestic courts of any EAWs.
The present contribution analyses the Opinion 1/17 of the CJEU on CETA, which, in a surprisingly uncritical view of conceivable conflicts between the competences of the CETA Investment Tribunal on the one hand and those of the CJEU on the other hand, did not raise any objections. In first reactions, this opinion was welcomed as an extension of the EU's room for manoeuvre in investment protection. The investment court system under CETA, however, is only compatible with EU law to a certain extent, which the Court made clear in the text of the opinion, and the restrictions are likely to confine the leeway for EU external contractual relations. Due to their fundamental importance, these restrictions, derived by the CJEU from the autonomy of the Union legal order form the core subject of this contribution. In what follows, the new emphasis in the CETA opinion on the external autonomy of Union law will be analyzed first (II). Subsequently, the considerations of the CJEU on the delimitation of its competences from those of the CETA Tribunal will be critically examined. The rather superficial analysis of the CJEU in the CETA opinion is in contrast to its approach in earlier decisions as it misjudges problems and therefore only superficially leads to a clear delimitation of competences (III.). An exploration of the last part of the CJEU's autonomy analysis will follow, in which the CJEU tries to respond to the criticism of regulatory chill (IV). Here, by referring to the unhindered operation of the EU institutions in accordance with their constitutional framework, the CJEU identifies the new restrictions for investment protection mechanisms just mentioned, which takes back the previous comprehensive affirmation of jurisdiction of the CETA Tribunal in one point and which raises many questions about its concrete significance, consequence, and scope of application.
The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020 and its consequences constitute a veritable capacity test for the European Union, challenging not only the single Member States, but also the European Union’s ability to provide policy responses that address pandemic control as a union-wide “public good” in different dimensions related to inter alia public health, but also the freedom of movement or the single market.
Against this backdrop, this article attempts to take stock of the Union’s early reactions to the first wave of the Covid-19 outbreak. After a brief introduction, we reflect on crisis manage-ment theories, power distribution in the EU, and the EU’s institutionalised crisis reaction capacity. Subsequently, crisis reaction in selected policy areas in the European Union is analysed, before we finish with a concluding section. We find some evidence for the pace-making function of the Franco-German tandem in the form of informal, decentralised action, as well as for a relative weak performance of institutionalised crisis management mecha-nisms on the EU level, but instead a centralisation towards the centre in the form of the European Commission.
The lecture explains how some of the well-established institutions of constitutional law are being questioned. It explains also how the experience of the XX-century atrocities and the emergence of the authoritarian regimes in Europe impacted on the State Theory, Political Science and Constitutionalism.