TY - RPRT A1 - Krieger, Heike T1 - Populist governments and international law T2 - KFG Working Paper Series N2 - The worldwide populist wave has contributed to a perception that international law is currently in a state of crisis. This article examines in how far populist governments have challenged prevailing interpretations of international law. The article links structural features of populism with an analysis of populist governmental strategies and argumentative practices. It demonstrates that, in their rhetoric, populist governments promote an understanding of international law as a mere law of coordination. This is, however, not entirely reflected in their legal practices where an instrumental, cherry-picking approach prevails. The article concludes that policies of populist governments affect the current state of international law on two different levels: In the political sphere their practices alter the general environment in which legal rules are interpreted. In the legal sphere populist governments push for changes in the interpretation of established international legal rules. The article substantiates these propositions by focusing on the principle of nonintervention and foreign funding for NGOs. T3 - KFG Working Paper Series - 29 Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-426863 IS - 29 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Krieger, Heike T1 - Rights and Obligations of Third Parties in Armed Conflict T2 - KFG Working Paper Series N2 - This paper will turn into a contribution to a book on community obligations. It focusses on third parties' rights and obligations in armed conflict. It is often said that international law has developed from a legal order which is designed to protect sovereignty to a system which also promotes community interests. This shift is said to be reflected in structural changes of the legal system. The creation of rights and obligations for third parties is generally seen as a part of this perceived paradigmatic shift. Community interests can be furthered either by negative duties of abstention, by an entitlement for third states, or even by duties to take positive measures. Since the shift towards protecting community interests apparently requires some form of cooperation, positive rights and duties to protect and to promote appear to be indispensable. Authors relying on a community perspective often dismiss duties of abstention as an expression of indifference in the face of a violation of a fundamental norm. Solidarity seems to require that third states take a more proactive role in actively enforcing community interests. The paper aims to test this understanding on the basis of an analysis of rights and obligations of third states in armed conflict. In order to argue that duties of abstention of third states are a central instrument for promoting community interests in relation to armed conflicts, the paper will first trace pertinent structural changes in international law. In particular, it will question the extent to which positive rights and obligations of third states have been firmly established in international law. In a second step, this contribution will evaluate the overall tendencies in the ongoing lawmaking process for promoting community interests in relation to armed conflict. T3 - KFG Working Paper Series - 5 Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-420732 SN - 2509-3770 SN - 2509-3762 IS - 5 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Krieger, Heike A1 - Liese, Andrea Margit T1 - A Metamorphosis of International Law? BT - Value changes in the international legal order from the perspectives of legal and political science T2 - KFG Working Paper Series N2 - The paper aims to lay out a framework for evaluating value shifts in the international legal order for the purposes of a forthcoming book. In view of current contestations it asks whether we are observing yet another period of norm change (Wandel) or even a more fundamental transformation of international law – a metamorphosis (Verwandlung). For this purpose it suggests to look into the mechanisms of how norms change from the perspective of legal and political science and also to approximate a reference point where change turns into metamorphosis. It submits that such a point may be reached where specific legally protected values are indeed changing (change of legal values) or where the very idea of protecting certain values through law is renounced (delegalizing of values). The paper discusses the benefits of such an interdisciplinary exchange and tries to identify differences and commonalities among both disciplinary perspectives. T3 - KFG Working Paper Series - 27 Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-426088 IS - 27 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Krieger, Heike A1 - Nolte, Georg T1 - The International Rule of Law – Rise or Decline? BT - Points of Departure T2 - KFG Working Paper Series N2 - The paper undertakes a preliminary assessment of current developments of international law for the purpose of mapping the ground for a larger research project. The research project pursues the goal of determining whether public international law, as it has developed since the end of the Cold War, is continuing its progressive move towards a more human-rights- and multi-actor-oriented order, or whether we are seeing a renewed emphasis of more classical elements of international law. In this context the term “international rule of law” is chosen to designate the more recent and “thicker” understanding of international law. The paper discusses how it can be determined whether this form of international law continues to unfold, and whether we are witnessing challenges to this order which could give rise to more fundamental reassessments. T3 - KFG Working Paper Series - 1 Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-419528 SN - 2509-3770 SN - 2509-3762 IS - 1 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Krieger, Heike A1 - Püschmann, Jonas T1 - Securing of Resources as a Valid Reason for Using Force? BT - A Pre-Emptive Defence of the Prohibition on the Use of Force T2 - KFG Working Paper Series N2 - A growing demand for natural resources embedded in current changes of the international order will put pressure on states to secure the future availability of these resources. Some political discourses suggest that states might respond by challenging the foundations of international law. Whereas the UN Charter was inter alia aimed at eliminating uses of force for economic reasons, one may observe an on-going trend of securitization of matters of resource supply resulting into the revival of self-preservation doctrines. The chapter will show that those claims lack a normative foundation in the current framework of the prohibition of the use of force. Moreover, international law has sufficient instruments to cope with disputes over access to resources by other means than the use of force. The international community, therefore, must oppose claims that may contribute to normative uncertainties and strengthen already existing instruments of pacific settlement of disputes. T3 - KFG Working Paper Series - 31 Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-435738 IS - 31 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Krieger, Heike A1 - Zimmermann, Andreas T1 - Sentenza 238/2014 of the Italian Constitutional Court and the International Rule of Law T2 - KFG Working Paper Series N2 - The German-Italian dispute over the scope of sovereign immunities and claims of reparations for war crimes committed by German armed forces during World War II in Italy is in many ways specific and historically contingent. At the same time, it touches upon a number of fundamental challenges which the international community has to address in the interest of furthering the international rule of law. In this working paper both authors address the question whether the current law of sovereign immunities should be changed or interpreted in a manner as to allow for exceptions from State immunities in cases of grave violations of human rights. While the first part of the paper focusses on the perspective of general international law the second part addresses the question through the lense of European law. Both authors agree that unilateral efforts to push for what many consider a progressive development of international law actually may entail adverse effects for the international rule of law and thus may even contribute to a broader crisis of the international legal order. T3 - KFG Working Paper Series - 15 Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-422140 SN - 2509-3770 SN - 2509-3762 IS - 15 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Kulaga, Julian T1 - A Renaissance of the Doctrine of Rebus Sic Stantibus? T2 - KFG Working Paper Series N2 - Once the “popular plaything of Realpolitiker” the doctrine of rebus sic stantibus post the 1969 VCLT is often described as an objective rule by which, on grounds of equity and justice, a fundamental change of circumstances may be invoked as a ground for termination. Yet recent practice from States such as Ecuador, Russia, Denmark and the United Kingdom suggests that it is returning with a new livery. They point to an understanding based on vital States’ interests––a view popular among scholars such as Erich Kaufmann at the beginning of the last century. T3 - KFG Working Paper Series - 32 Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-435788 IS - 32 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Lange, Felix T1 - Challenging the Paris Peace Treaties, State Sovereignty, and Western-Dominated International Law BT - The Multifaceted Genesis of the Jus Cogens Doctrine T2 - KFG Working Paper Series N2 - The genesis of the jus cogens doctrine in international law for long has been associated with a turn to a more value-laden international law after the Second World War promoted by British rapporteurs in the International Law Commission. This paper builds on this narrative but adds two seemingly contradictory story lines. In the 1920s and 1930s German-speaking international legal scholars like Alfred Verdross developed the concept as a tool to renounce the disliked Paris Peace Treaties in the context of more and more aggressive German revision policies. Furthermore, after 1945 Soviet thinkers of the Khrushchev era used jus cogens to criticize Western economic and military integration, while newly independent states regarded the concept as a promising vehicle for distancing themselves from traditional Western international legal notions in the era of decolonization. Hence, instead of embracing a progress narrative, a dark sides-account or a contributionist reading of the history of international law, this paper highlights the multifaceted origins of the jus cogens doctrine. T3 - KFG Working Paper Series - 19 Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-422510 SN - 2509-3770 SN - 2509-3762 IS - 18 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Lange, Felix T1 - Between Systematization and Expertise for Foreign Policy BT - The Practice-Oriented Approach in Germany’s International Legal Scholarship (1920–1980) T2 - KFG Working Paper Series N2 - German international legal scholarship has been known for its practice-oriented, doctrinal approach to international law. On the basis of archival material, this article tracks how this methodological take on international law developed in Germany between the 1920s and the 1980s. In 1924, as a reaction to the establishment of judicial institutions in the Treaty of Versailles, the German Reich founded the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. Director Viktor Bruns institutionalized the practice-oriented method to advance the idea of international law as a legal order as well as to safeguard the interests of the Weimar government before the various courts. Under National Socialism, members of the Institute provided legal justifications for Hitler’s increasingly radical foreign policy. At the same time, some of them did not engage with völkisch-racist theories, but systematized the existing ius in bello. After 1945, Hermann Mosler, as director of the renamed Max Planck Institute, took the view that the practice-oriented approach was not as discredited as the more theoretical approach of völkisch international law. Furthermore, he regarded the method as a promising vehicle to support the policy of Westintegration of Konrad Adenauer. Also, he tried to promote the idea of ‘international society as a legal community’ by analysing international practice. T3 - KFG Working Paper Series - 8 Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-421895 SN - 2509-3770 SN - 2509-3762 IS - 8 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - McLachlan, Campbell T1 - The Double-facing Foreign Relations Function of the Executive and Its Self-enforcing Obligation to Comply with International Law T2 - KFG Working Paper Series N2 - How does the international Rule of Law apply to constrain the conduct of the Executive within a constitutional State that adopts a dualist approach to the reception of international law? This paper argues that, so far from being inconsistent with the concept of the Rule of Law, the Executive within a dualist constitution has a self-enforcing obligation to abide by the obligations of the State under international law. This is not dependent on Parliament’s incorporation of treaty obligations into domestic law. It is the correlative consequence of the allocation to the Executive of the power to conduct foreign relations. The paper develops this argument in response to recent debate in the United Kingdom on whether Ministers have an obligation to comply with international law–a reference that the Government removed from the Ministerial Code. It shows that such an obligation is consistent with both four centuries of the practice of the British State and with principle. T3 - KFG Working Paper Series - 30 Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-429088 IS - 30 ER -