Weit verbreitet ist zurzeit das Argument, liberale Demokratien befĂ€nden sich in einer AutoritĂ€tskrise. Was aber ist damit gemeint? Ganz grundsĂ€tzlich meint eine solche Krise, dass AutoritĂ€tsbeziehungen erodieren. Das heiĂt, autoritative Behauptungen werden von ihren Adressaten nicht mehr als bindend anerkannt. Dies ist der Fall, wenn etablierte Rechtfertigungen des AutoritĂ€tsanspruchs versagen oder infrage gestellt werden. Die derzeitige AutoritĂ€tskrise kann als eine solche verstanden werden, in zweifacher Hinsicht: als eine Krise der AutoritĂ€t von Experten und als Krise einer spezifischen Form demokratischer AutoritĂ€t, Continue reading
Tag Archives: Human Rights
Tradition and Constitutional Rights Review
Critiques on human rights and comparative law often criticize that an obsession with the universal norm or the âCommon Coreâ erases the diversity and specificity of the local contexts. It is at the same time doubtful, however, that an assertion of âAsian valuesâ could serve as a justification for denying universal human rights to any extent. The ways that tradition or national culture comes into rights practice are more subtle and varied. A constitution is sometimes claimed as an embodiment or representation of national identity and tradition. In other occasions, tradition is challenged as a threat to constitutional rights and principles. This essay examines two illuminating cases adjudicated by the South Korean Constitutional Court Continue reading
Protection and Freedom? Citizenship in Europe in the 20th and 21st Century
Citizenship was the mark of political affiliation in Europe in the twentieth century. While estate, religion, party, class, and nation lost political significance in the century of extremes, citizenship advanced to become the decisive category of political affiliation.
In the centuryâs upheavals and political struggles, the legal institution of citizenship had a decisive influence on the limits of a political community, on in- and exclusion, and thus on an individualâs opportunities in life. Its enfranchisement included the obligation to risk life and limb for the survival of oneâs country in exchange for the right to protection, participation in the expanding political and social rights in the democracies and welfare states of Europe and ultimately access to the new legal status of being a citizen of the European Union. Continue reading
A Matter of Security? Conscientious Objection and State Recognition
Recognition of the right to refuse military service seems at first glance to be inherently paradoxical. Yet over the course of recent decades, with the broadening of democratic discourse, democracies have begun to recognize even opposition to military service on grounds of conscienceâwhether religious or otherwise. Continue reading
Reclaiming Human Rights from Globalisation
Whatever the true historical origins and philosophical foundations of human rights, their protection has taken a distinctive form in the modern state legal order and, by extension, the state-centred conception of international law. From the American and French Declarations of the âRights of Manâ to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the main purpose of human rights was to organize and legitimize the social compact between the state and its citizens. Continue reading
Harte Zeiten fĂŒr Rule of Law – Die Krise des globalen Konstitutionalismus
Die Entwicklung der globalen Rechtsordnung nach dem Ende des Kalten Kriegs vollzog sich unter der Vorherrschaft der Idee eines âliberal peaceâ. Die EuropĂ€ische Gemeinschaft war das Modell: Friede, Gerechtigkeit und ProsperitĂ€t Continue reading