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Last update: 2026-10-23
2025-02-03
Nora Markard, Emanuel V. Towfigh, and the other Editors of the German Law Journal
In this GLJ Shorts episode, Stefano Bertea presents his article "Searching for Law in Its Own Right: A Fresh Look at the Demarcation Problem" , which appeared as First View in December 2024. Interview by German Law Journal editor in chief Clara Rigoni, editing by Benjamin Veit Weck.
2025-01-27
Nora Markard, Emanuel V. Towfigh, and the other Editors of the German Law Journal
In this GLJ Shorts episode, Carlotta Rigotti presents her, Clare McGlynn's and Franziska Benning's article "Image-Based Sexual Abuse and EU Law: A Critical Analysis" , which appeared as First View in December 2024. Interview by German Law Journal editor in chief Clara Rigoni, editing by Benjamin Veit Weck.
2024-12-23
Nora Markard, Emanuel V. Towfigh, and the other Editors of the German Law Journal
This GLJ Shorts episode accompagnies the Special Issue ‘Strategic Litigation in EU Law’, published in December 2024 and curated by guest editors Pola Cebulak, Marta Morvillo, and Stefan Salomon. In this podcast, guest editor Marta Morvillo engages with Marta Pardavi and Gruzsa Matevcic of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a Budapest-based NGO that provides help to refugees, detainees and victims of state violence through litigation and advocacy. With gripping stories of landmark cases, practical insights into navigating EU law, and a look at the pressures and triumphs of litigation in politically charged environments, this conversation takes you to the ins and outs of strategic litigation in EU law.
2024-09-02
Nora Markard, Emanuel V. Towfigh, and the other Editors of the German Law Journal
With Sofiya Kartalova Link to the article [Sofiya Kartalova, "Trust and the Exchange of EU Classified Information: The Example of Absolute Originator Control Impeding Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny at Europol" German Law Journal vol. 25:1 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1017/glj.2023.104 ) Table of Contents of Volume 25 Abstract Abstract: The absolute implementation of the originator control principle (‘absolute originator control’) allows the EU Member States’ national intelligence services to block the access of the European Parliament to confidential information necessary for the effective exercise of joint parliamentary scrutiny at Europol. This research paper will demonstrate that this is a flawed practice in need of urgent reform, since it violates some of the basic tenets of EU constitutional law enshrined in Article 13 TEU and Article 9 TEU. This legal problem is reframed with the help of trust theory, which reveals that absolute originator control causes the Union to be confronted with a constitutional dilemma that is irresolvable in the EU legal order: the Union is revealed to be a trustee to two trustors – the EU Member States and the EU citizens; to protect the interests of one trustor, the Union would necessarily have to betray the trust of the other trustor. Submit Submitting articles or Special Issue proposals to the German Law Journal
DOI: 10.1017/glj.2023.1042024-07-01
Nora Markard, Emanuel V. Towfigh, and the other Editors of the German Law Journal
With Otava Piha Link to the article [Otava Piha, "My Body Is My Temple? Comparing Sexual Crimes and Property Crimes in a Human Rights Tradition" German Law Journal vol. 25:1 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1017/glj.2023.97 ) Table of Contents of Volume 25 Abstract Abstract: Despite recent criminal law reforms to define rape through the lack of consent, practical questions remain about how to regulate different kinds of violations of sexual autonomy. Many common law scholars have found it eye-opening how much more extensive and easily accepted the protection of property rights is compared to the protection of sexual autonomy. But when the rationale of criminalization resides in human rights, such a comparison is alien; protecting human dignity appears separate from protecting instrumental property rights. Considering rape a subversion of our ownership rights to our bodies (the property model of rape) is rightly regarded as problematic. This article argues that comparing sexual crimes and property crimes is not predicated on the property model but rather on autonomy itself. Comparisons based on autonomy could help resolve practical dilemmas of consent-based rape laws while respecting human dignity and thus be fruitful research pursuits within a human rights tradition. Submit Submitting articles or Special Issue proposals to the German Law Journal
DOI: 10.1017/glj.2023.972024-06-03
Nora Markard, Emanuel V. Towfigh, and the other Editors of the German Law Journal
With Shubham Jain Link to the article [Shubham Jain, "Resistance and Reform as Responses to Human Rights Criticism: Relativism at FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022" German Law Journal vol. 24:9 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1017/glj.2023.119 ) Table of Contents of Volume 24 Abstract Abstract: The language of human rights is a prominent tool of choice to push for moral principles such as justice, equity, and fairness in the social, economic, and political spheres. Simultaneously, the concept and practice of human rights have attracted critiques. Relativism is one such enduring critique. Relativists advocate due and reasonable consideration towards cultural diversity and specificity of diverse human communities, within the limits allowed by universality of human rights. The relativist critique featured prominently in the debates surrounding Qatar’s hosting of the FIFA World Cup 2022. Commentators have spoken about Qatar’s scrutiny often moving beyond legitimate human rights criticism, uninformed activism being counterproductive; and the appropriateness of, largely, Western and maximalist ideals of human rights being applied without accounting for local needs and peculiarities. In this Article, I bring together the literature on the relativist critique and the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 as a case study, to examine the usefulness and limitation of human rights as a language of critique to achieve meaningful transformative change in sporting contexts. I focus on the debates surrounding the rights of migrant workers and the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community; and argue that while human rights advocacy had a notable impact in relation to FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, it is a tale full of cautions and lessons. Submit Submitting articles or Special Issue proposals to the German Law Journal
DOI: 10.1017/glj.2023.1192023-09-01
Nora Markard, Emanuel V. Towfigh, and the other Editors of the German Law Journal
The article by Dirk Hanschel, Mario G. Aguilera Bravo, Bayar Dashpurev and Abduletif Kedir Idris appeared as part of the Special Issue "Breaching the Boundaries of Law and Anthropology: New Pathways for Legal Research" in September 2022 in GLJ 23:7. In this video, Abduletif Idris explains how the members of the Environmental Rights in Cultural Context research group at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology combine legal studies and anthropology to tackle the concept of environmental rights. Drawing on empirical evidence from case studies in Ethiopia, Mongolia, and Ecuador, the researchers see how constitutionally enshrined environmental rights are moving targets that often fail to live up to their promise. Link to the article: https://doi.org/10.1017/glj.2022.68 Table of Contents of the Special Issue: https://germanlawjournal.com/volume-2… GLJ Editorial for the Special Issue: https://germanlawjournal.com/editoria… Submitting an article or a Special Issue Proposal to the German Law Journal: https://germanlawjournal.com/submissi… Credits: Production & Color Grading - Media & Communications MPI for Social Anthropology Editing - Emma Eder
DOI: 10.1017/glj.2022.682023-09-01
Nora Markard, Emanuel V. Towfigh, and the other Editors of the German Law Journal
The article by Luc Leboeuf appeared as part of the Special Issue "Breaching the Boundaries of Law and Anthropology: New New Pathways for Legal Research" in September 2022 in GLJ 23:7. Luc Leboeuf is the coordinator of the EU-funded VULNER project, which examines the application of the concept of vulnerability in the adjudication of asylum cases. There is still no common legal understanding of “vulnerability”; it takes on different meanings in different contexts, and is becoming a tool of selection and exclusion as it evolves as a legal instrument. In this short, Leboeuf focuses on the methodological framework that he and the VULNER consortium developed to study how asylum seekers actually experience the way “vulnerability” is applied to their specific cases. The methodology combines doctrinal legal analysis based of ECtHR case law with an ethnographic approach to how the concept is being implemented by public servants in their daily practices of dealing with asylum seekers. Link to the article: https://doi.org/10.1017/glj.2022.62 Table of Contents of the Special Issue: https://germanlawjournal.com/volume-2… GLJ Editorial for the Special Issue: https://germanlawjournal.com/editoria… Submitting an article or a Special Issue Proposal to the German Law Journal: https://germanlawjournal.com/submissi… Credits: Production & Color Grading - Media & Communications MPI for Social Anthropology Editing - Emma Eder
DOI: 10.1017/glj.2022.622021-08-24 · Criminal law
Boris Burghardt, Leonie Steinl, Nora Markard
With Boris Burghardt and Leonie Steinl The Special Issue Table of Contents of the Special Issue "Sexual Violence and Criminal Justice in the 21st Century" GLJ Editorial for the Special Issue Link to the editorial article Boris Burghardt & Leonie Steinl: Sexual Violence and Criminal Justice in the 21st Century, German Law Journal 22:5 (2021) Abstract: In recent years, no area of criminal law has received more public attention than the laws on sexual violence. Discussions about the need for reforms have exhibited a mobilizing force extending far beyond the legal community. From a legal perspective, these discussions concern intricate normative questions regarding the content of the right to sexual autonomy and the suitability of the consent paradigm to establish the limitations of its protection under criminal law. At the same time, they ultimately concern the question of gender-related societal power hierarchies. Acknowledging these broader socio-political dimensions allows us to comprehend the highly contentious manner in which this debate is often conducted. This Special Issue attempts to analyze from a transnational perspective both the fundamental legal and socio-political questions in the current discussions on sexual violence and criminal justice. A recurring theme is the question as to whether criminal law can be used not only as an instrument of repressive social control, but also as a means of power-critical – even emancipatory – social policy. Submit Submitting an article or a Special Issue Proposal to the German Law Journal Photo credit "metoo" by 7C0 on Flickr , 2020 – (CC-BY 2.0)
DOI: 10.1017/glj.2021.422021-08-24 · criminal justice
Linnea Wegerstad, Nora Markard
with Linnea Wegerstad Link to the Article Linnea Wegerstad, Sex Must Be Voluntary: Sexual Communication and the New Definition of Rape in Sweden, German Law Journal 22:5 (2021), 734-752 The Special Issue Introduction to the Special Issue by editors Boris Burghardt and Leonie Steinl Table of Contents of the Special Issue "Sexual Violence and Criminal Justice in the 21st Century" Abstract Abstract: Many countries are in the process of replacing outdated sex offense regulations with laws that accurately correspond to late modern ideas about gender equality, sexual self-determination, and consensual sex. One example is Sweden, where a law that defines rape based on a criterion of nonvoluntary participation entered into force in 2018. This article analyzes the representation of rape in the new law and legal discourse in Sweden, and shows that rape is represented as a matter of choice and communication in sexual situations. Further, the new rape law is coupled to an emerging problem within such disparate spheres as public health, social media campaigns, sexual education, and gender studies; namely, the problem of sexual communication and gray zones in sexual encounters. To understand this new representation of rape, further exploration is suggested both into the effects of sexual violence being framed as a matter of individual choice, consent, and communication in late modernity and into the role of criminal law in the era of thin normativity. The article concludes that the new rape law sends a clear message about what sex should be—namely, something voluntary—but does not accurately describe the crime and the conduct that deserves criminal censure. Submit Submitting an article or a Special Issue Proposal to the German Law Journal Photo credit "metoo" by 7C0 on Flickr , 2020 – (CC-BY 2.0)
DOI: 10.1017/glj.2021.322021-04-06 · Law
Matthias Goldmann, and the other Editors of the German Law Journal
With Matthias Goldmann Article from Issue 21:2 (February 2020): The Question of Legitimacy Article from Issue 21:3 (April 2020): Privatized Migration Control – Special Issue "Border Justice: Migration and Accountability for Human Rights Violations" Article from Issue 21:4 (May 2020): Crime in Germany as Portrayed by the AfD Article 1 from Issue 21:5 (July 2020): PSPP by Feichtner – Special Section on the PSPP judgment Article 2 from Issue 21:5 (July 2020): PSPP by Schorkopf – Special Section on the PSPP judgment Article from Issue 21:6 (August 2020): Limiting the Protection of Large-Scale Investment in Farmland Article from Issue 21:7 (October 2020): Gender in Socio-Legal Teaching and Research – Special Issue "Socio-Legal Studies in Germany and the UK: Theory and Methods" Article from Issue 21:8 (December 2020): Law on Police Use of Force in the US
2020-10-18 · Law & Society
Jen Hendry, Naomi Creutzfeldt, Christian Boulanger, Nora Markard
With Jen Hendry, Naomi Creutzfeldt, and Christian Boulanger The Special Issue Table of Contents of the Special Issue "Socio-Legal Studies in Germany and the UK: Theory and Methods" GLJ Editorial for the Special Issue Link to the editorial article Jennifer Hendry, Naomi Creutzfeldt & Christian Boulanger: Socio-Legal Studies in Germany and the UK: Theory and Methods, German Law Journal 21:7 (2020) Abstract This Special Issue considers the situated and contextualized development of socio-legal, or law and society, scholarship within two materially different legal and academic cultures, namely Germany and the United Kingdom, with a view to achieving a better understanding of why and how such differences in understanding and practice have arisen. The contributions are grouped into three themes. The first reflects upon the influence of institutional contexts and scholarly traditions in terms of the development of those approaches that come under the banner of socio-legal studies. The second features contributions that adopt a comparative perspective in terms of selected areas of law, pointing to notably different approaches taken in Germany and the UK, and considering the development of these respective situations. The third looks at the key contemporary trends, theoretical applications, and methodological approaches taken within both countries’ socio-legal academic contexts. Submit Submitting an article or a Special Issue Proposal to the German Law Journal Photo credit "Pints" by Matt Brown on Flickr , 2014 – (CC-BY 2.0)
DOI: 10.1017/glj.2020.832020-10-04 · migration
Melanie Fink, Lilian Tsourdi, Nora Markard
With Melanie Fink and Lilian Tsourdi Links to the articles Evangelia (Lilian) Tsourdi: Holding the European Asylum Support Office Accountable for its role in Asylum Decision-Making: Mission Impossible?, German Law Journal 21:3 (2020) Melanie Fink, The Action for Damages as a Fundamental Rights Remedy: Holding Frontex Liable, German Law Journal 21:3 (2020) The Special Issue Table of Contents of the Special Issue "Border Justice: Migration and Accountability for Human Rights Violations" Abstracts Abstract Lilian Tsourdi: The Common European Asylum System (CEAS) seeks to harmonize national asylum procedures. The initial implementation design of the CEAS, reflective of the theory of executive federalism, foresaw that national authorities were to conduct asylum processing and implement the harmonized norms. The implementation design of the EU asylum policy has, nevertheless, started to shift. An integrated European administration is emerging. One area this is pronounced in is asylum decision-making, where patterns of joint implementation have surfaced. This term broadly refers to staff and experts deployed by the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), an EU agency, working alongside national administrators, including on the processing of asylum claims. This Article scrutinizes the emergence of joint implementation patterns in EU asylum policy and the resulting accountability challenge, drawing both from legal analysis and political science theories. I also refer to administrative practice as documented in secondary sources. EASO is currently subject to a mosaic of accountability processes. Two main pitfalls emerge: the intricate balance between accountability and independence; and accessibility for the individual. Against this backdrop, I focus on extra-judicial accountability through the European Ombudsman which, combined with the envisaged internal “individual complaints mechanism” within EASO, could go some way in ensuring applicants’ procedural rights. Abstract Melanie Fink: Frontex has become one of the major players in European external border management. As its powers and resources have increased, so have the challenges surrounding its compliance with fundamental rights. A major concern continues to be how to ensure legal accountability for fundamental rights violations that occur in the context of its activities. While Member States can be held accountable before their own national courts and before international courts, neither of these options are available in relation to Frontex. But it can be brought before the Court of Justice of the European Union to account for the conformity of its conduct with EU law. This Article explores the potential of the EU action for damages to offer a remedy for fundamental rights violations committed by Frontex. It identifies where public liability law falls short of providing a remedy for fundamental rights violations committed by EU bodies, explores the possibilities to close that gap, and assesses the implications this has for Frontex’s liability. The Article argues that the action for damages may be the means to close the accountability gap in the specific case of Frontex, but also more generally in circumstances where EU administration is delivered in the form of informal or factual conduct. If it is to fulfill that role, the CJEU would have to lower the threshold for EU liability where fundamental rights are concerned. Submit Submitting articles or Special Issue proposals to the German Law Journal
2020-10-04 · migration
Başak Çalı, Cathryn Costello, Nora Markard
With Başak Çalı and Cathryn Costello Link to the article Başak Çalı, Cathryn Costello & Stewart Cunningham: Hard Protection through Soft Courts? Non-Refoulement before the United Nations Treaty Bodies, German Law Journal 21:3 (2020) The Special Issue Introduction to the Special Issue "Border Justice: Migration and Accountability for Human Rights Violations" by editors Cathryn Costello and Itamar Mann Table of Content of the Special Issue Abstract Abstract: This Article comparatively analyses how the prohibition of refoulement is interpreted by United Nations Treaty Bodies (UNTBs) in their individual decision-making, where we suggest they act as “soft courts.” It asks whether UNTBs break ranks with or follow the interpretations of non-refoulement of the European Court of Human Rights. This investigation is warranted because non-refoulement is the single most salient issue that has attracted individual views from UNTBs since 1990. Moreover, our European focus is warranted as nearly half of the cases concern states that are also parties to the European Convention on Human Rights. Based on a multi-dimensional analysis of non-refoulement across an original dataset of over 500 UNTB non-refoulement cases, decided between 1990–2020, as well as pertinent UNTB General Comments, the Article finds that whilst UNTBs, at times, do adopt a more progressive position than their “harder” regional counterpart, there are also instances where they closely follow the interpretations of the European Court of Human Rights and, on occasion, adopt a more restrictive position. This analysis complicates the view that soft courts are likely to be more progressive interpreters than hard courts. It further shows that variations in the interpretation of non-refoulement in a crowded field of international interpreters present risks for evasion of accountability, whereby domestic authorities in Europe may favor the more convenient interpretation, particularly in environments hostile to non-refoulement. Submit Submitting articles or Special Issue proposals to the German Law Journal
DOI: 10.1017/glj.2020.282020-10-04 · migration
Nora Markard, Emanuel V. Towfigh, and the other Editors of the German Law Journal
With Cathryn Costello and Itamar Mann The Special Issue Table of Contents of the Special Issue "Border Justice: Migration and Accountability for Human Rights Violations" GLJ Editorial for the Special Issue Link to the editorial article Cathryn Costello & Itamar Mann: Border Justice: Migration and Accountability for Human Rights Violations, German Law Journal 21:3 (2020) Abstract This introductory Article sets out the premise of the Special Issue, the entrenched and pervasive nature of human rights violations in the context of migration control and the apparent lack of accountability for such violations. It sets out features of contemporary migration control practices and their legal governance that contribute to this phenomenon, namely the exceptional treatment of migration in international law; the limited scope of international refugee law; and the pervasive use of externalized, delegated migration controls, in particular by the EU and its Member States. The roots of the current condition are traced back to the containment practices that emerged at the end of the Cold War, with the 2015 “crisis” framed both as an illustration of the failures of containment, and a source of further stasis. Following an overview of the contributions that make up the Special Issue, this Article identifies five emergent themes, and suggests further lines of inquiry. These are: the promise and limits of strategic human rights limitations; the role of both international criminal law, and domestic (and regional) tort law in securing accountability; the turn to positive obligations to challenge entrenched features of containment; and the role of direct action in support of and solidarity with those challenging migration controls most directly, refugees and migrants themselves. Rather than offering panaceas, the Article concludes with the identification of further new challenges, notably the role of new technologies in further dissipating lines of accountability for decisions to exclude. Submit Submitting articles or Special Issue proposals to the German Law Journal
DOI: 10.1017/glj.2020.272020-10-04
Cathryn Costello, Itamar Mann, Nora Markard
With Cathryn Costello and Itamar Mann The Special Issue Table of Contents of the Special Issue "Border Justice: Migration and Accountability for Human Rights Violations" GLJ Editorial for the Special Issue Link to the editorial article Cathryn Costello & Itamar Mann: Border Justice: Migration and Accountability for Human Rights Violations, German Law Journal 21:3 (2020) Abstract This introductory Article sets out the premise of the Special Issue, the entrenched and pervasive nature of human rights violations in the context of migration control and the apparent lack of accountability for such violations. It sets out features of contemporary migration control practices and their legal governance that contribute to this phenomenon, namely the exceptional treatment of migration in international law; the limited scope of international refugee law; and the pervasive use of externalized, delegated migration controls, in particular by the EU and its Member States. The roots of the current condition are traced back to the containment practices that emerged at the end of the Cold War, with the 2015 “crisis” framed both as an illustration of the failures of containment, and a source of further stasis. Following an overview of the contributions that make up the Special Issue, this Article identifies five emergent themes, and suggests further lines of inquiry. These are: the promise and limits of strategic human rights limitations; the role of both international criminal law, and domestic (and regional) tort law in securing accountability; the turn to positive obligations to challenge entrenched features of containment; and the role of direct action in support of and solidarity with those challenging migration controls most directly, refugees and migrants themselves. Rather than offering panaceas, the Article concludes with the identification of further new challenges, notably the role of new technologies in further dissipating lines of accountability for decisions to exclude. Submit Submitting articles or Special Issue proposals to the German Law Journal
2020-10-04 · migrants
Nora Markard, Emanuel V. Towfigh, and the other Editors of the German Law Journal
With Yannis Kalpouzos and Itamar Mann Links to the articles Ioannis Kalpouzos, International Criminal Law and the Violence against Migrants, German Law Journal 21:3 (2020) Itamar Mann, The Right to Perform Rescue at Sea: Jurisprudence and Drowning, German Law Journal 21:3 (2020) The Special Issue Table of Contents of the Special Issue Abstracts Abstract Ioannis Kalpouzos: Should we use the language of international criminal law (ICL) to discuss, analyze, and address Western policies of migration control? Such policies have included or resulted in indefinite and inhumane detention, deportations, including through practices of push- and pull-backs and numerous deaths of migrants attempting to cross land or sea borders. And yet, recourse to ICL's conceptual and rhetorical apparatus, often reserved for “unimaginable atrocities,” may seem ill-fitting and an emotive stretch of doctrine. Drawing from international strategic litigation practice on Australian and European policies, this article examines whether the legal concept of crimes against humanity can apply to the deaths, detention, and deportation of migrants, as part and consequence of Western policies of migration control. As migration control policies involve increasingly sophisticated practices of outsourcing and responsibility avoidance, I further ask whether the tools ICL has developed to describe system criminality can trace individual liability against the distance created by such policies. I also inquire into the potential that the transnational nature of migration and the spreading of anti-migration policies have in activating the jurisdiction of courts and the prioritization of the role of the International Criminal Court. Finally, I consider the danger of fetishizing an international punitive approach, before offering some thoughts that aim to bridge a critical approach to international criminal law with its use in meaningful strategic litigation. Throughout the Article, I argue that applying the categories of ICL to Western policies of migration control can contribute to revealing both the potential and the limits of the regime and its institutions, as well as the structures of asymmetry and injustice present both in anti-migration policies and in international criminal law itself. Abstract Itamar Mann: Framing largescale migrant drownings as violations of international law has so far not been a straightforward task. The failures of doing so, both in scholarship and in activism, have often revealed important limitations of international law, and a form of rightlessness that is hard-wired in it. Through an assessment of arguments about drowning, framed in the vocabularies of the right to life, refugee law, the law of the sea, and international criminal law, difficulties surrounding the notion of jurisdiction persist: The maritime space has often functioned as a kind of “legal black hole.” Considering such difficulties, this Article suggests that shifting the focus from migrant rights to the civil and political rights of volunteers coming to the rescue, may help in closing the accountability gap. It thus seeks to articulate and conceptualize a form of maritime civil disobedience among rescue volunteers, which may provide the link for eliminating migrant rightlessness at sea. Submit Submitting articles or Special Issue proposals to the German Law Journal
DOI: 10.1017/glj.2020.24