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- Lehrstuhl für Volkswirtschaftslehre, insbesondere Wirtschafts- und Verkehrspolitik (Univ.-Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Andreas Knorr) (181)
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Legal acts performed by EU Member States applying Union law come within the scope of the Convention and can give rise to adjudication by the ECtHR. A long series of judgments illus-trate the ECtHR’s approach regarding the application of Union law by the courts of EU Mem-ber States. The Convention and Union law are not two autonomous systems separated by a watertight fence. Both European Courts should therefore adopt a wholistic approach in this area, because only a wholistic view takes full account of the legal reality which is one of inter-action and intertwining. The ECtHR makes abundant use of EU law sources, thereby always explicitly referring to them. Three different categories of cases can be identified in how the CJEU goes about the Convention in its case-law.
Rafał Lemkin (1900-1959): A life-long story of engagement in the development of human rights law
(2023)
This blog post aims to provide a brief overview of the life and work of Rafał Lemkin by ex-ploring his participation in the interwar and post-war international dialogue. It demonstrates a variety of means, including academic activities (research, publications, conferences), as well as diplomacy and personal relationships, which Lemkin used to disseminate his ideas and research. Despite having limited resources and being a refugee for much of his life, Lemkin drew upon his linguistic abilities and showed himself to be an extraordinary “constant negotiator”. His varied work experience, gained in the early stages of his career in Lviv and Warsaw, likely aided him in developing an inclusive perspective on law and human rights that later informed his ground-breaking work on genocide.
Trade relations face unprecedented challenges, which has led to an increased politicisation and contestation of trade rules. In response, the EU has changed its trade policy under the motto ‘Open Strategic Autonomy’ towards a more as-sertive policy. The EU seeks to signifi-cantly expand its room of manoeuvre and to gain more autonomy by strengthening the en-forcement of its trade rights and by ensuring more effectively, including unilaterally, a level playing field. This re-orientation engenders several new or amended trade policy instru-ments, but meets with reservations as the renewed politicisation of EU trade policy will have internal consequences and raise demands for more democratic accountability of the Euro-pean Commission. The new policy instruments will enlarge its leeway in trade policy. The future of the EU's multilateral, rule- instead of power-oriented political stance becomes unclear, which might undermine its negotiation posi-tion in WTO reform and collide with the EU's respect for international law. The tensions of the EU's new hybrid approach with its international commitments even more fuel demands for increased accountability of the Commission as a safeguard against employing the new powers for protectionism and disrespect to international law. The contribution analyses the need for increased Commis-sion accountability in the redirected trade policy.
The purpose of this chapter is to delineate and analyse current adjustments of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in Germany in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on current data and official material, road infrastructure PPP was analysed, as demand for transporta-tion services is highly sensitive to fluctuations of overall economic activity. Accordingly, they do not only offer a good illustration of the challenges encountered by PPP operators in gene-ral but also – as road infrastructure PPP in Germany exist in different designs – important lessons may be learned with respect to their respective resilience in extraordinarily adverse economic conditions. One finding from the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany is that the case for public–private partnerships (PPP) become more compelling, also as an integral element of a large-scale reform package to massively improve the resilience of public service delivery to citizens and companies alike. Another important insight from the pandemic and the politico-administrative countermeasures is that massive pressure – both financial and in terms of the workload on the human resources employed – has been placed upon existing PPP, especially in critical infrastructures. The principal reasons are unforeseen or unexpected changes in user behaviour, affecting demand, and more difficult access to funding. These new insights demonstrate the relevance of anticipation of such events in the PPP contract, and the role of preparation for practitioners on both the private as well as the public side. Moreover, the findings provide leeway for further research on how the public administration, in particular in a federal multilevel system, can strengthen knowledge management and information exchange between single entities and stakeholders, and the role of PPP units as potential gatekeeper within this system.
Influence of "hard" law on national policies still is a central topic in Europeanisation research. One aspect often overlooked is the impact of "soft" law instruments such as the "Open Method of Coordination" (OMC). Through the OMC all member states agree on common goals and exchange "best practices" to improve policy coordination in a certain area without the obligation (how) to design policies. OMC impacts in individual member states have been studied extensively, yet a comparative perspective explaining their variance is lacking. This study by Niclas Beinborn tries to fill this gap by analysing the different impacts of a recent OMC: the European Youth Strategy 2010 (EUYS). His analysis is twofold: in a first step he applies theory-driven fuzzy-set QCA to a novel dataset depicting the variance of national activities around the EUYS. As causalities remain unclear, in a second step he presents an innovative analysis framework encompassing two dimensions - national motivation and relative openness to implement non-binding EU law - to define ideal types of OMC adaptation. Case studies on the EUYS in Germany and Ireland proof the potential of this framework to explain why and how OMCs work (differently).
This book explores how migrants and refugees can revitalise peripheral regions and commu-nities economically. The extent to which migrants stimulate the economic activities of these regions through labour market participation, entrepreneurship, innovation and consumption is examined theoretically and empirically for the EU as a whole, as well as through empirical case studies that highlight the impact of migration at macro, company, and individual levels. A particular focus is given to the economic consequences of Third Country Nationals to places beyond the cities, i.e. the peripheral and remote regions of Europe. This book aims to provide insight into the role of migrations in low productive and labour-intensive regions. The authors provide innovative policy recommendations to stimulate the positive economic con-sequences of immigration to places beyond the cities. It will be of interest to students, re-searchers, and policymakers working within labour economics and migration and integration policies.
The notion of civil service in Europe: establishing an analytical framework for comparative study
(2022)
The aim of this paper is to create an analytical framework for comparative study (FÖV project “The Transformation of the Civil Service in Europe”). It explores the scope and denotation of the terms “civil service” and “civil servant”. Its main argument is that a comparative legal ana-lysis should distinguish the notions of public service and civil service. Public service concerns a type of professional activity related to the exercise of all public power (legislative, executive and judicial). Civil servants are officials employed by the executive; they have special duties and responsibilities and are often subject to specific requirements. The employment regime is not decisive for the status of civil servant, due to the fact that government officials in Europe are employed both under public or private (labour) law. Nonetheless, they should enjoy stability of employment and exercise their competencies on a regular basis, not ad hoc.
The picture regarding the protection of fundamental rights in Europe today increasingly looks like a patchwork, due to a lack of coordination at different levels. Developments reinforcing that picture include the emergence of different methodologies for the application of funda-mental rights, Constitution-based challenges to European law by national Supreme Courts, codifications of existing case-law and the creation of so-called « hybrid » institutions. The resulting complexity is a challenge for domestic courts, a threat to the confidence of citizens and detrimental to the fundamental rights themselves, their special role and authority being gradually eroded by a general relativism. EU-accession could have an anti-patchwork effect and represent a chance for a general coordination of fundamental rights in Europe. Beyond making the Convention binding upon the EU, it would also have a pan-European (re)structu-ring effect by confirming the Convention as the minimum benchmark providing both the bedrock and the framework for any other national or European fundamental rights as well as for the necessary judicial dialogue on the latter. Good progress has been achieved since the resumption of negotiations for EU-accession, justifying cautious optimism as to the possibility to find adequate solutions to the outstanding issues.
‘Killer Flying Robots Are Here. What Do We Do Now?’, ‘A Military Drone With A Mind Of Its Own Was Used In Combat, U.N. Says’ and ‘Possible First Use of AI-Armed Drones Triggers Alarm Bells’ – these are just some headlines to a report issued by the UN Panel of Experts on Libya. What caught the international attention was the panel’s description of the following scene in Libya’s civil war: ‘[Forces] were […] hunted down and remotely engaged by the un-manned combat aerial vehicles or the lethal autonomous weapons systems such as the STM Kargu-2 […]. The lethal autonomous weapons systems were programmed to attack targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition: in effect, a true “fire, forget and find” capability.’
However, the disruptive potential of AI is not limited to out-of-control killer drones or the military context in general – nor does it only have a negative potential. AI and its global trade promote international development and technological innovation, thereby improving lives. Therefore, the efforts to build a legal and policy framework to harness AI’s benefits and thwart its dangers is in full swing. States, the European Union, international organizations, NGOs, and scholars alike come up with ways of achieving that end. The approaches to the issue are manifold. However, most focus either on instating rules on the development of AI, for instance, how to ensure AI is built ethically or on its use, ie, banning its use in lethal auto-nomous weapon systems (LAWS). Whereas all these efforts are important, a further layer of protection has not gained much traction: regulating AI’s global trade so that responsible actors can use it to benefit humankind while preventing it from ending up in the hands of irresponsible actors.
The legal instrument to achieve this end is international export control law. It aims to mitiga-te the risks to international peace and security associated with the proliferation of sensitive items to irresponsible actors while avoiding unreasonable restrictions on global trade, eco-nomic development, and technological innovation. However, the international export control law is not yet suited to fulfill its promise regarding AI. The dual use nature of AI poses signifi-cant risks to international peace and security. Nevertheless, only in limited circumstances applies international export control law to the transfer of AI applications and technology, leaving a gap in the international export control framework. Until this gap is closed, inter-national human rights due diligence might provide fallback protection to address the issue
of mitigating the risks associated with the proliferation of dual use AI.
Academia and practitioners agree that the local level is crucial for EU cohesion. However, further conceptual and empirical development is needed. The paper introduces an under-standing of European cohesion consisting of a horizontal and a vertical dimension, covering individuals' relationships with each other and the polity. We review the predominantly nation-state-focused, interdisciplinary literature on support for the European Union (vertical dimension) and societal Europeanization (horizontal dimension) through a 'local lens', arguing in favour of combining the two dimensions in one framework of cohesion. We derive empirical expectations about the role of local agency for European cohesion and operationa-lise European cohesion, thus designing a coherent framework for analysing the local foundations of European cohesion.
To contribute to the laudable objectives regarding Export Controls the EU – US Trade and Technology Council has set, a multi-disciplinary network of independent experts from research institutes, think tanks, and policy advisory bodies, has joined forces and drafted the following priorities for action.
A further elaboration of the actions recommended below will be performed by the members of this international network in the weeks and months to come, as Working Group 7 of the EU – US Trade and Technology Council will proceed in its work.
Can parliament govern the transport transition? How the German Bundestag scrutinizes rail projects
(2022)
The paper aims to elucidate to what extent the German Parliament exerts control over rail planning. Parliament has the budgetary right, but information asymmetries vis-à-vis the railway company Deutsche Bahn and the Ministry of Transport make parliamentary control difficult.
Recently, Germany has instituted a parliamentary review process that allows the Parliament to take up concerns by the public affected by rail projects. We use the principal-agent theory to model this new institution. Parliament delegates rail planning to the Deutsche Bahn, while the Federal Railway Authority serves as a budget watchdog, and parliament uses input from public participation as a deck-stacking procedure. The paper first situates the institutional innovations—the new parliamentary oversight procedure—against the former logic of rail-way planning. Second, based on the documentation of parliamentary oversight, we analyze for which demands by the affected public the Parliament uses its power to change rail projects.
The paper showed that public participation matters. The German Parliament introduced expensive changes to rail projects. In particular, demands that had been voiced in well-institutionalized public participation (that is, when municipalities, regional associations, etc., were engaged in long-term institutionalized dialogues with the Deutsche Bahn) were more likely to be addressed. An Extra budget was then allocated to, for example, noise-regulating measures.
To sum up, the German Parliament uses information gained in public participation in com-bination with its budget rights to exert control over railway planning for conflictual projects. Thus, Parliament takes a more active role in railway planning. Whether this also leads to more acceptance for rail projects, is an open question.
This chapter analyses the impact of the Internet and the shift in communication processes on the States’ obligations emerging from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It claims that the environment created by the Internet is different from the traditional one; that is, it substantially empowers a range of private actors such as social media and other Internet platforms. That is why in the light of the actual development of the ECHR’s standards, both the strict distinction between positive and negative State’s obligations, and an overall prefe-rence for the latter are anachronistic. This chapter claims that it is crucial to keep developing European minimal safeguards in horizontal online relations when human rights violation is a result of a State’s non-compliance with the positive duty. Against this backdrop, this chapter centers around the influence of the Internet on the exercise and protection of selected human rights and the changing nature of communication processes, as well as the game-changing shift caused by the growing power of private actors. It also includes a detailed analysis of the scope and content of positive State’s obligations emerging from the use of the Internet, focusing on substantive obligations (i.e., the legal framework and the allocation of responsibilities), as well as on the issue of the public guarantees for online pluralism and procedural obligations (the duty to provide responses to allegations concerning online ill-treatment inflicted by private individuals).
Two different States licensed exports of intrusion tools and related items to a third State. That State then used it to spy on human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, activists, opposition politicians, and dissidents. While one of the licensing States is a member of the Wassenaar Arrangement, the other is not but had declared to follow it unilaterally. The legal analysis considers the attribution of the relevant acts and omissions by the States and examines possible breaches of international export control law and international human rights law.
This chapter focuses on the impact of specific “administrative styles,” understood as the everyday routines of the organization, on the reform patterns in international organizations. Consolidators are hence primarily driven by positional rather than policy interests. Entre-preneurs combine the latter two types; they develop administrative routines that entail intensive bureaucratic advocacy in policy-making and a strong orientation toward institu-tional consolidation to strengthen the administration’s position. In contrast, the picture should be completely different for consolidators. Given consolidators’ dominant motivation to secure their institutional status and legitimacy, organizational reforms will to a far greater degree reveal patterns of emulation of dominant reform paradigms and reform ideas in their organizational environment. Public sector organizations adopted these reports from the private sector as a form of communication with external and internal stakeholders. Most reforms have been identified within the area of organizational reforms, for example, institutional adjustments of the directorates.
Health data are sensitive data and must therefore be protected from unauthorised access. However, exchanging individual patient information is crucial for coordinating treatment between different medical professions and for the statutory health insurance schemes. Digitalisation of health data will facilitate all these processes. To promote EU-wide mobility of patients, the European Commission has proposed the establishment of a European Health Data Space. It is intended to trigger technological development in the member states, given that to date digitalisation has been used to different extents throughout the union. It is not guaranteed that patients in all member states will have access to their health data and thus be able to receive treatment or fill prescriptions within the single market. At the same time, the common experiences in the SARS-CoV2-pandemic made clear that there is a vital need for using patient data as a tool for monitoring health threats and for improving the coordination of both preparedness and response measures in times of health crisis.
On Track or Off The Rails?
(2022)
The call for a transport transition has reached political and mainstream attention in Germany during the first decades of the 21st century. A shift from car-based individual transport to rail-based modes of transportation (operated by electricity) is seen as an important building block of a more sustainable transport system and as such also integrated in official sustain-ability strategies. Among other measures, this demands a new focus in transport infrastruc-ture planning. Planning being a task primarily fulfilled by executive and administrative actors, ministerial bureaucracies assume a crucial role in this transition process. Their propensity (or not) to produce outputs that mirror a transition orientation sets the course for or against a modal shift. The preparation of the currently valid Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan (Bundesverkehrswegeplan, BVWP) allows a comparative view into decision-making processes on transport projects for different transport modes.
The BVWP is a national transport strategy outlining which transport infrastructure is sup-posed to be built throughout the next fifteen years. It has no legal character and is the first step within a wider planning framework. Projects newly included in this master plan are usually still in a very early pre-planning stage. Nevertheless, inclusion in the BVWP is an important first step to secure potential federal funding for road, railway and waterway projects.
Even though the BVWP is a national transport strategy, the first steps of its preparation are taken on the sub-national level, as the German Länder prominently propose road projects and take part in proposing other infrastructure projects as well. This presents an opportunity to compare the processes in and outputs of sub-national ministerial bureaucracies when proposing infrastructure projects for different transport modes. Such an analysis provides insights into some determinants of transition-friendly decision-making and improves the understanding of how process characteristics shape ministerial outputs.
This study finds its theoretical framework in actor-centred institutionalism and draws to-gether politics- as well as bureaucracy-centred perspectives in a delegation argument. I follow the argument that ministerial outputs are first and foremost shaped by ministers' programmatic positions. However, I challenge the view that the balance between ministerial and bureaucratic influence would be determined by the salience of the topic at hand in such a way that politicians would take care of their positions being duly executed when the re-spective topic is salient, and bureaucrats being more influential with non-salient topics. Instead, I argue that salient topics require more complex decision-making processes, i. e. processes that involve a greater variety of actors - rather than simply pushing through po-litical preferences - in order to ensure broadly accepted solutions that are in fact imple-mentable. Outputs of complex processes, in turn, are harder to predict.
Building on document analysis and expert interviews with members of the sub-national ministerial bureaucracies, this thesis analyses how decision-making processes within bu-reaucracies shape policy outputs in transport infrastructure planning. Sub-national decision-making processes on which projects to propose for the BVWP 2030 serve as cases. These decision-making processes might either favour the car-dominated status-quo or a shift to-wards more rail-centred mobility, thereby hindering or furthering an overall move towards a systemic change in mobility and transport, referred to as transport transition - without this necessarily being the intention of the actors themselves.
The analysis involves two steps. In a first analytical step, a content analysis serves to struc-ture the material and condense it into categories. I start with some theory-led concepts and then inductively develop sub-categories that capture the procedural steps pointed out in the material. In a second step, Qualitative Comparative Analysis will be employed to distinguish combinations of programmatic, procedural as well as capacity-related characteristics, that are sufficient for arriving at a less car-centred output.
The results address pathways towards a transition-oriented output as well as determinants for the set-up of complex intra-ministerial decision-making processes. They support the view that programmatic positions of ministers can indeed shape ministerial outcomes in the direc-tion of a transport transition. Independently of programmatic positions, decision-making processes that are complex in the above-mentioned sense might also work positively to that end. However, none of these conditions is sufficient on its own. They both only work in con-junction with a transition-friendly behaviour of the respective sub-national ministries towards expectations on higher levels within the multi-level framework. At times, this means that Länder might deliberately act against federal expectations even where the implementation of their decision depends on the federal level. Administrative capacity in sub-national ministries and the salience of the topic for the respective minister shape how ministries design their decision-making processes. Where capacity allows it, complex processes are set up when the topic is perceived as salient. The relevance of capacity in this context points to the impor-tance of a well-resourced bureaucracy for legitimacy-related purposes like setting up and carrying through public participation schemes.
The Competence Centre Youth-Check’s brought together different actors in the field of Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) for young people in Berlin on 09 May 2022 in the International Conference “Regulatory Impact Assessment for the Young Generation”. In this documentation the ComYC presents the results of the conference.
Administrative justice and the rule of law have often been in tension. However, they have converged over time as the scope of administrative justice and the conceptions of the rule of law have shifted. This chapter starts with the historical connections between administrative justice and the rule of law. It then maps ways in which the rule of law is expressed when ad-ministrative justice is embedded within administrative organization and when it is organized as a system external to the administration. This approach highlights the diversity of technical solutions to recurring questions across three major administrative systems (namely England, France, and the United States). This analysis also leads to highlighting two new challenges for the rule of law: first, how the rule of law responds to various forms of increasing administra-tive repression, and second, how the rule of law responds to globalization at a time when no coherent global administrative justice system exists.
This contribution investigates the German response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis highlights the measures taken by the German government in cooperation with subnational units to mitigate the spread of infections, as well as the efforts made to stem the economic consequences of the containment measures. The emergency situation turned out to be a real stress test for the German legal system, and a serious challenge for democratic institutions
The constitutions of the Lander contain similar provisions for the issue of Rechtsverordnun-gen based on Land legal acts. There are only a few rules on the procedure of the adoption of Rechtsverordnungen in the Grundgesetz and the land constitutions. The aim is to enable social groups to settle, under their own responsibility, the matters that concern them. The power to enact Satzungen is, thus, directly linked to the idea of self-government, which ex-plains the importance of Satzungen at local level. The principle of subsidiarity of the constitu-tional complaint as a criterion which may lead to the inadmissibility of a constitutional com-plaint directly challenging a legislative act also has an impact on the interpretation of proce-dural law applicable to regular courts. It has already been said that the BVerfG gives a clear priority to constitutional complaints challenging a judicial decision which leads to an indirect constitutional review of a legal act on which the decision is based via Article 100(1) GG.
This thesis explores the principles of administrative punishment under the European Con-vention of Human Rights (ECHR). Administrative punishment, for its part, is gaining popularity across European legal systems because it is a flexible, speedy and cost-efficient option. More precisely, it allows public authorities to inflict punishment without having to undergo a judi-cial action. The procedural safeguards that the concerned individual can expect are accor-dingly lower. However, whilst at the national and European Union levels the academic atten-tion grew in line with the gradual expansion of the use of administrative punishment, the same cannot be said regarding the legal framework of the Council of Europe (‘CoE’). Compre-hensive scholarly works on the subject matter are still missing and only a few authors are researching administrative sanctions within this framework more profoundly, i.e., in a cross-cutting manner.
This is regrettable because nowadays, one can speak of a rich and congruent body of admini-strative punishment under the CoE’s law. Not only has the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) admitted administrative sanctions within its remit since the famous Engel case in 1976, but it also interprets all relevant terms found in the letter of ECHR such as ‘criminal charge’, ‘penal procedure’, and ‘penalty’ autonomously and in harmony with one another. Autonomous interpretation of these key terms by using Engel criteria means that administra-tive sanctions can, and often are, put under scrutiny (as long as they bear ‘punitive’ and ‘de-terrent’ hallmarks). All in all, the following normative sources can be said to comprise the ius puniendi administrativus within the legal framework of the CoE: First, Article 6 ECHR, which ensures the procedural protection for administrative sanctioning by enshrining the right to a fair trial and its various components, i.e., by laying down a range of participatory and defence rights, as well as the possibility to have access to judicial review and the presumption of inno-cence. Secondly, Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the ECHR, which stipulates ne bis in idem prin-ciple precluding double jeopardy. Thirdly, Article 7 ECHR is essential in giving substantive pro-tection to the subject-matter, and lays down the requirement of legality including regulatory quality, non-retroactive application of administrative sanctions, and no punishment without personal liability. Finally, Recommendation No. R (91) 1 of the Committee of Ministers to the Members States on administrative sanctions of 13 February 1991 as a ‘soft’ yet authoritative legal act creates boundaries for acceptable administrative sanctioning. All of these normative sources form the backbone of the research.
This thesis intends to fill the aforementioned academic gap and contribute to the legal scho-larship. It furthermore aspires to be a useful source for practitioners working within the field of public law who are empowered to regulate on or impose administrative sanctions. For this reason, the following research questions are tackled: What is a sanction? What purposes does it serve in a legal system? What is an administrative sanction in particular? What are its role and idiosyncratic features? What aims does it follow? How can it be differentiated from other types of public admonition, i.e., from criminal law measures? How do the CoE and the ECtHR conceptualize an administrative sanction? What guarantees stipulated by the ECHR are applicable to these sanctions? To what extent do they apply? Are there any limitations? If so, then what are the implications thereof on the individual rights? Is the current level of pro-tection in the field of administrative punishment regarding fundamental rights sufficient?
The thesis has furthermore sought to verify the following hypothesis: “The ECtHR acknowled-ges certain minimum requirements stemming from the ECHR from which the administrative authorities imposing a punitive administrative measure upon the individual, cannot deviate”. The hypothesis was drafted similarly to the wording of Article 6 (3) ECHR, which, together with other paragraphs of this Article, enlists fundamental individual guarantees for (any kind of) punishment (“Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights […]”).
A digital public administration is crucial for providing citizens (especially in times of crisis) with effective access to administrative services. Political leaders in Germany agreed on this principle during the global COVID-19 pandemic. However, the implementation of the Online Access Act - the main German law on administrative digitalisation - and of the Single Digital Gateway Regulation (EU) 2018/1724 has raised considerable (legal) problems. This article therefore not only looks at the current implementation status of the two pieces of legislation, but in particular identifies three challenges for the digital transformation of public adminis-tration in Germany: federalism, legal fragmentation and register modernisation.
Dark patterns steer users into taking decisions they would not have made otherwise. They are widespread in ‘cookie banners’ where they nudge or otherwise lead users into ‘consen-ting’ to intensive and controversial processing of personal data, such as online tracking and behavioural targeting. The prevalence of dark patterns in the privacy context is not only due to an enforcement deficit. It is also due to a lack of legal provisions that effectively implement the principles of privacy by design and by default. The legislator should address privacy dark patterns by ensuring meaningful choice of data subjects.
Decentralized Nations
(2022)
Herr Kolain hielt diesen Vortrag über Zoom auf Einladung der Stipendiatinnen und Stipendiaten der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes am 29. September 2022 an der Humboldt Universität Berlin.
The world of 2022 is globally and digitally connected and disrupted by manifold crises. Questions of power, participation and cooperation arise with particular urgency – and the young generation is asking and searching for clear, effective and participatory solutions. How will we collectively find the best way towards social and climate justice and, ultimately, inner and outer peace?
While internet platforms have taken a dominating influence on how “the internet” is used, there is an ongoing debate on decentralization of the digital world. The idea behind distri-buted systems and computing is to remove powerful intermediaries, make data flows transparent and strengthen the position of the individual. Tackling authoritarian tendencies with the separation of powers and a vivid civil society, is also the core idea of modern democracies. The idea of subsidiarity and federalism is to make political decisions at the lowest possible level.
The presentation focusses on the overarching question: How should digital statehood be structured, both on a constitutional and a technical level? It combines general thoughts on the future of statehood and sovereignty with an analysis of current technology trends, such as blockchain or AI.
The Union legislator has recently amended the Aarhus Regulation with the aim of bringing it more in line with the requirements the Aarhus Convention lays down. EU State aid decisions, however, remain excluded from its scope. This exclusion raises questions that form the object of this contribution. The article argues that the arguments presented to justify the continued exclusion of State aid review are not convincing. By not complying with the re-commendations of the ACCC, the EU is in clear violation of international law. Therefore, the article deliberates over the necessary changes and possible exemptions for a sound im-plementation of the Aarhus Convention against the procedural specificities of State aid review, considering also the Commission´s recently presented options, which contain a number of problematic aspects.
This article takes the proliferation of EU soft law instruments in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to analyse their effects and challenges to democracy and rule of law in the EU posed by the use of EU soft law in the implementation of EU law. A proposal will be made for a general legal framework on the adoption of administrative EU soft law in order to address them. Enhancing the legitimacy of EU governance requires a general legal framework that introduces minimum procedural, transparency and participa-tory safeguards and foresees looser rules for urgent soft measures. The article thus makes an original contribution by reconsidering the debate about EU soft law in the context of COVID-19 soft law with a view to its salience for domestic implementation of EU law and by developing core elements of a general legal framework.