German Law Journal: GLJ Shorts and GLJ Specials

German Law Journal: GLJ Shorts and GLJ Specials

By Nora Markard, Emanuel V. Towfigh, and the other Editors of the German Law JournalSociety & CultureScienceEducation
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German Law Journal: GLJ Shorts and GLJ Specials episodes

  • GLJ Special - ‘Strategic Litigation in EU Law’: Insights from the Hungarian Helsinki Committee

    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.

    49 min
  • GLJ Short - Trust and the Exchange of EU Classified Information
    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

    7 min
  • GLJ Short - My Body is my Temple? Comparing Sexual Crimes and Property Crimes in a Human Rights Tradition
    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

    7 min
  • GLJ Short: Resistance and Reform as Responses to Human Rights Criticism
    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

    7 min
  • GLJ Special: Environmental Rights Between Constitutional Law and Local Context: Reflections on a Moving Target
    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

    5 min
  • GLJ Special: Lost in Translation? The Promises and Challenges of Integrating Empirical Knowledge on Migrants′ Vulnerabil
    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

    5 min
  • GLJ Short: Sex Must Be Voluntary: Sexual Communication and the New Definition of Rape in Sweden (GLJ 22:5)
    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)

    7 min
  • GLJ Special: Sexual Violence and Criminal Justice in the 21st Century (GLJ 22:5)
    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)

    15 min

About German Law Journal: GLJ Shorts and GLJ Specials

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The German Law Journal has been providing Open Access to Comparative, European, and International Law for over 20 years. Listen to #GLJShorts to find out what our most recent articles are about and to…