Jürgen Bröhmer

Die Meinungsfreiheit steht weltweit unter Druck. Das gilt, wie schon immer, für die Meinungsfreiheit als klassisches Abwehrrecht gegen staatliche Eingriffe. Das gilt aber zunehmend auch mit Blick auf Private, die andere Rechte, Persönlichkeitsschutzrechte oder im weitesten Sinne arbeitsvertragliche oder tarifvertragliche Instrumente gegen die Meinungsfreiheit in Ansatz bringen und die staatlichen Gerichte zu Abwägungsentscheidungen zwingen. Selbst wenn diese zugunsten der Meinungsfreiheit ausfallen, kann dennoch ein erheblicher „chilling effect“ entstehen, denn Gerichts- und Prozesskosten können, je nach wirtschaftlicher Situation der Partei unterschiedliche Belastungen hervorrufen. Am Beispiel des australischen Hochschulbereichs, der zwar ganz vornehmlich aus öffentlichen Hochschulen besteht, aber sich in vielerlei Hinsicht nicht von privaten Unternehmungen unterscheidet, wird gezeigt, wie selbst Institutionen, die der Meinungsfreiheit in besonderer Weise verpflichtet sein sollten, nicht davor zurückschrecken, ihre finanziellen und wirtschaftlichen Interessen gegen Kritik zu verteidigen, auch wenn das als Einschränkung der Meinungsfreiheit gewertet werden kann.

Germany's economy is the fourth-largest economy behind the US, China, and Japan, with a strong industrial base and many energy-intensive industries. Germany has been and continues to be a significant emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG). Germany has also taken on a leadership role in supporting emission reductions internationally, e.g., within the UNFCCC framework and the European Union (EU), which plays a significant role both internationally and domestically. Germany's political intentions and ambitious political goals rested on a somewhat fragmented and relatively thin legal foundation. This changed towards the end of 2019 with the passage of the Federal Climate Change Act (FCCA), which entered into force in December 2019. This framework act spells out the long-term goal of GHG-neutrality by 2050 and a 55% GHG reduction target by 2030. The FCAA must be read in conjunction with the Climate Action Plan 2050 and the Climate Protection Program 2030, which can be regarded as planning tools. Additional challenges arise from the fact that Germany has decided to phase out coal as a fuel for energy generation over the coming two decades and to take all existing nuclear power plants off the grid in the very short term. The paper attempts to explain and critically analyze Germany's legal and political framework dealing with climate change with an emphasis on the difficulties of very long-term policy planning in the volatile political and economic environment with often competing interests.

The relationship between the European Union (EU) and its member states has recently been the subject of several legal proceedings in the German Federal Constitutional Court (GFCC) and the European Court of Justice. The backdrop to the underlying controversies were policies instituted by the European Central Bank (ECB) dealing with the economic and monetary situation in various member states in the context of the sovereign debt crises to influence interest rates, combat deflationary tendencies and keep inflation under but close to the ECB’s 2% inflation target. Especially so-called outright monetary transactions (OMTs) and the corresponding OMT-program and a particular high volume public sector asset purchasing program (PSPP) announced by the ECB have been controversially discussed. Legally, the controversies are about the prohibition for the ECB to finance debt held by the EU or member states (Article 123 TFEU) and about the delineation of economic policy (Article 119 et seq. TFEU), which lies in the hands of the members states, and monetary policy (Article 127 et seq. TFEU), which is exclusively in the hands of the ECB. The GFCC in its decisions propagated a restrictive approach emphasizing the role of the member states and pointing to the doctrines developed by it around ultra vires acts and so-called identity review. This paper attempts to shed some light on this controversy and argues that beyond the legal controversy lies a deeper problem of the relationship between judicial and political decision-making that the GFCC should exercise restraint in exercising its functions and remember its own doctrine of “open constitutional norms” developed in a different context but applicable here as well.

The continued tension between the African Union (AU) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has reached its climax with the African regional body deciding to expand the jurisdiction of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights (ACJHR). The expanded jurisdiction will see the addition of a third tier section with competency to try international crimes. This development appears to have been occasioned by a number of issues that have emerged in Africa relating to international criminal justice in Africa.

Australia and Germany are both constitutionally organized federal states. The Commonwealth Constitution and the German Basic Law approach the distribution of power between the centre and the constituent entities in external affairs matters from opposite directions. In the end, in both cases an institutional modus vivendi has been found in trying to balance the interests of the federation with those of the constituent entities by improving information and communication between the two levels and by involving and listening to the constituent entities. However, the position of the German Länder in external affairs is considerably stronger than that of their Australian counterparts. Whereas Article 23 of the Basic Law indicates the potentially strong position of the Länder in external affairs, it is also an indication of the degree to which European Union matters have evolved into a sui generis relationship and which can no longer be regarded as merely a subset of traditional external affairs even if they cannot be regarded as domestic affairs either.

The free movement of capital is one of the fundamental common market freedoms protected by the European Union (EU). The past decade or so was marked by the privatisation of industries formerly operated as public enterprises. Ownership of such enterprises, ranging from the energy and telecommunications sector to the operation of airports was made available to the broad public, individuals as well as institutionalised investors nationally and internationally. EU-member states have enacted or utilised provisions in their respective regulatory instruments either restricting the amount of shares that may be held by foreign investors or making foreign investment above a certain threshold contingent on the permission by the government or by creating and retaining shares that give its holder, the national government, special voting rights ('golden shares'). The question arises to what extent these measures are, if at all, compatible with the free movement of capital in the EU. The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg (ECJ) has had to deal with a number of these cases in the past and has attempted to develop criteria, which must be met by national regulators. In this article an attempt is made to critically assess the jurisprudence of the ECJ concerning the free movement of capital guarantee and its scope in the light of national attempts to protect national interests. This question is relevant beyond the EU as the free movement of capital is - in principle - applicable also with regard to third countries and non-EU nationals.

Die Menschenwürde hat in der Rechtsprechung des EuGH bisher noch keine große Rolle gespielt. In der vorliegenden Entscheidung hatte der EuGH sich erstmals mit der Frage auseinander zu setzen, ob mitgliedstaatliche Behörden die Dienstleistungsfreiheit unter Verweis auf die öffentliche Ordnung einschränken dürfen, wenn die angeboteneDienstleistung nach dem Rechtsverständnis des Mitgliedstaates die Menschemvürde verletzt. Ähnlich wie im Fall 'Schmidberger' (EuGH, EuZW 2003, 592 m. Anm. 'Koch') - dort ging es um den Konflikt zwischen Warenverkehrsfreiheit und Demonstrationsfreiheit -, hat derEuGH auch hier den Konflikt zu Gunsten der grundrechtlichen Gewährleistung, hier der Menschenwürde, aufgelöst.