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Full-Text Articles in Comparative and Foreign Law
The Basic Law At 60 - Equality And Difference: A Proposal For The Guest List To The Birthday Party, Susanne Baer
The Basic Law At 60 - Equality And Difference: A Proposal For The Guest List To The Birthday Party, Susanne Baer
Articles
The German constitution, named "Basic Law", has proven to work although many did not believe in it when it was framed. Others emphasize desiderata. Sabine Berghahn commented at the 50th birthday that it has developed "far too slowly and [some] has even gone completely wrong." ' Jutta Limbach, former President of the Federal Constitutional Court, observed that constitutional history was "anything but regal, but very difficult and full of obstacles. '' 2 Former Chancellor Willy Brandt famously called the constitution "a snail on thin ice." So what is missing when we analyze the Basic Law, and what should be finally …
A Closer Look At Law: Human Rights As Multi-Level Sites Of Struggles Over Multi-Dimensional Equality, Susanne Baer
A Closer Look At Law: Human Rights As Multi-Level Sites Of Struggles Over Multi-Dimensional Equality, Susanne Baer
Articles
In many societies, deep conflicts arise around religious matters, and around equality. Often, religious collectives demand the right to self-determination of issues considered - by them - to be their own, and these demands collide with individual rights to, again, religious freedom. These are thus conflicts of religion v. religion. Then, collective religious freedom tends to become an obligation for all those who are defined as belonging to the collective, which carries the problem that mostly elites define its meaning and they silence dissent. Usually, such obligations are also unequal relating to gender, with different regimes for women and for …
The Basic Law At 60 - Introduction To The Special Issue, Susanne Baer, Christian Boulanger, Alexander Klose, Rosemarie Will
The Basic Law At 60 - Introduction To The Special Issue, Susanne Baer, Christian Boulanger, Alexander Klose, Rosemarie Will
Articles
For Germany 2009 was a year of constitutional anniversaries: the first democratic constitution (Paulskirchenverfassung of 1849) was promulgated 160 years ago; the 1919 Weimar Constitution would have turned 90; and finally, the country celebrated 60 years of the Basic Law, which was proclaimed and signed in Bonn on 23 May 1949. Despite its birth in the midst of economic and political turmoil and widespread disillusion with politics, the Basic Law has come to be regarded as a "success story." As is well known, it was never meant to last - the very term "Grundgesetz" (basic law) indicated that it was …
Free Speech And The Case For Constitutional Exceptionalism, Roger P. Alford
Free Speech And The Case For Constitutional Exceptionalism, Roger P. Alford
Michigan Law Review
Embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the evocative proposition that "[e]veryone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression." Beneath that abstraction there is anything but universal agreement. Modern democratic societies disagree on the text, content, theory, and practice of this liberty. They disagree on whether it is a privileged right or a subordinate value. They disagree on what constitutes speech and what speech is worthy of protection. They disagree on theoretical foundations, uncertain if the right is grounded in libertarian impulses, the promotion of a marketplace of ideas, or the advancement of participatory democracy. They …
Impediments To Financial Development In The Banking Sector: A Comparison Of The Impact Of Federalism In The United States And Germany, Khalil Nicholas Maalouf
Impediments To Financial Development In The Banking Sector: A Comparison Of The Impact Of Federalism In The United States And Germany, Khalil Nicholas Maalouf
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Note examines how differences in U.S. and German variants of federalism have contributed to the formation and development of the dual banking system in the United States and the three-pillar banking system in Germany. Specifically, this Note considers the manner in which federalism has informed the respective banking systems' reactions to dynamic changes in the global banking industry and analyzes the role federalism has played in contributing to or impeding reform efforts in the United States and Germany.
Of Power And Responsibility: The Political Morality Of Federal Systems, Daniel Halberstam
Of Power And Responsibility: The Political Morality Of Federal Systems, Daniel Halberstam
Articles
In comparative constitutional discourse, Americans are from Mars and Europeans from Venus; we eagerly tell our European counterparts about the U.S. constitutional experience, but rarely do we listen when they talk to us about their own. Whereas Europeans routinely examine U.S. constitutionalism as an illuminating point of comparison or contrast, as Americans, we seem convinced that we have nothing to learn from looking abroad. This Article challenges that assumption. In particular, it argues that American courts and scholars have overlooked an important alternative to the dominant interpretation of the division of powers in the United States by ignoring the theory …
Takeover: German Reunification Under A Magnifying Glass, Mathias Reimann
Takeover: German Reunification Under A Magnifying Glass, Mathias Reimann
Michigan Law Review
My first personal experience with the unification of my home country was an unlikely encounter in an unlikely place. In July 1990, I was strolling across the Ponte Vecchio in Florence when I saw something so bizarre that it stopped me in my tracks. At the southern end of the bridge, deep in the pedestrian zone - off limits to automobiles - and right in the middle of the tourist crowd, was a lonely car, occupied by four obviously disoriented people. It was not just any car but a small, drab, and amusingly antiquated vehicle puffing bluish smoke from a …
The Unification Of Germany And International Law, Frans G. Von Der Dunk, Peter H. Kooijmans
The Unification Of Germany And International Law, Frans G. Von Der Dunk, Peter H. Kooijmans
Michigan Journal of International Law
What role these rights and obligations could have played is the central theme of this article. However, in view of the enormous complexity of the problems involved, this article can do no more than provide a general overview. Sections II through VII will first sketch the outlines of the rights and obligations confronting the two German States before unification. Section VIII will compare those outlines to the actual political outcome of the unification process. The former six Sections will explore a number of different contexts in which legal rights and obligations could have been found.
German Unification: Constitutional And International Implications, Albrecht Randelzhofer
German Unification: Constitutional And International Implications, Albrecht Randelzhofer
Michigan Journal of International Law
A discussion about the legal problems of German unification, taking into account the realms of German constitutional law, public international law, and the law of the European Communities.
Salient Points In The German Constitution Of 1919, Simeon E. Baldwin
Salient Points In The German Constitution Of 1919, Simeon E. Baldwin
Michigan Law Review
The German Constitution of i919 is the production of the right wing of those belonging to the party known as the Social Democrats, and until the fall of the empire commonly called the International Socialist ,Party.