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For the United States the ‘international law of global security’ is, in a unique sense, synonymous with the entire project of constructing global legal order. Uniquely preponderant power enjoyed since the end of the Second World War has allowed US preferences to manifest not merely in specific rules and regimes, but in purposive development of the entire structure of global legal order to favour American security interests. Perceptions of a recent decline in this order now find expression in advocacy for a ‘liberal’ or ‘rules-based’ international order, as the claimed foundation for global prosperity and security. This working paper seeks to map out the parameters of US contributions to the global security order by uncovering the strategic and political foundations of its engagement with the international law of global security. The paper begins by reflecting on competing US conceptions of the relationship between national security and global order as they evolved across the twentieth century. The focus then turns to three significant trends defining the contemporary field. First are US attitudes toward multilateral institutions and global security, and the ongoing contest between beliefs that they are mutually reinforcing versus beliefs that US security and global institutions sit in zero-sum opposition. Second is the impact of the generational ‘War on Terror’, which has yielded more permissive interpretation and development of laws governing the global use of violence. The final trend is that towards competitive geopolitical interests restructuring international law, which are evident across diverse areas ranging from global economics, to cybersecurity, to the fragmentation of global order into spheres of influence. Looking ahead, a confluence of rising geopolitical competitors with divergent legal conceptions, and conflicted domestic support for the legitimacy and desirability of US global leadership, emerge as leading forces already reshaping the global security order.
Populism has fatally weakened the world’s ability to respond to COVID-19, by undermining the capacity of the structures and mechanisms of international law to address the pandemic. The pandemic has exposed as a fallacy a key tenet of populism – to protect the ‘people’ of a nation from external forces, including international law. In fact international law, through the principle of self-determination, enshrines the ability of peoples to determine their own political organization. But this does not preclude agreement at the international level on matters of common interest to humanity as a whole that require community action. The prevention of infectious disease is just such a case, which states have long agreed could not remain solely the preserve of national polities, but requires a common international response. This paper, placing the current crisis in light of the development of international health law, critically examines the response of key populist governments to COVID-19 in order to address the larger issue of the implications of populism for the fate of international law.
Numerous studies investigate which sanctioning institutions prevent cartel formation but little is known as to how these sanctions work. We contribute to understanding the inner workings of cartels by studying experimentally the effect of sanctioning institutions on firms’ communication. Using machine learning to organize the chat communication into topics, we find that firms are significantly less likely to communicate explicitly about price fixing when sanctioning institutions are present. At the same time, average prices are lower when communication is less explicit. A mediation analysis suggests that sanctions are effective in hindering cartel formation not only because they introduce a risk of being fined but also by reducing the prevalence of explicit price communication.
Drinking is Different!
(2020)
Unhealthy behavior can be extremely costly from a micro- and macroeconomic perspective and exploring the determinants of such behavior is highly important from an economist’s point of view. We examine whether locus of control (LOC) can explain alcohol consumption as an important domain of health behavior. LOC measures how much an individual believes that she is in control of the consequences of her own actions for her life’s future outcomes. While earlier literature showed that an increasing internal LOC is associated with increased health-conscious behavior in domains such as smoking, exercise or diets, we find that drinking seems to be different. Using German panel data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) we find a significant positive effect of having an internal LOC on the probability of moderate and regular drinking. We suggest and discuss two likely mechanisms for this relationship and find interesting gender differences. While social investments play an important role for both men and women, risk perceptions are especially relevant for men.
We analyze workers’ risk preferences and training investments. Our conceptual framework differentiates between the investment risk and insurance mechanisms underpinning training decisions. Investment risk leads risk-averse workers to train less; they undertake more training if it insures them against future losses. We use the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) to demonstrate that risk affinity is associated with more training, implying that, on average, investment risks dominate the insurance benefits of training. Crucially, this relationship is evident only for general training; there is no relationship between risk attitudes and specific training. Thus, as expected, risk preferences matter more when skills are transferable – and workers have a vested interest in training outcomes – than when they are not. Finally, we provide evidence that the insurance benefits of training are concentrated among workers with uncertain employment relationships or limited access to public insurance schemes.
Stochastic uncertainty can cause difficult coordination problems that may hinder mutually beneficial cooperation. We propose a mechanism of ex-post voluntary transfers designed to circumvent these coordination problems and ask whether it can do so. To test this, we implement a controlled laboratory experiment based on a repeatedly played Ultimatum Game with a stochastic endowment. Contrary to our hypothesis, we find that allowing voluntary transfers does not entail an efficiency increase. We suggest and analyze two main reasons for this finding: First, the stochastic uncertainty forces proposers to accept high strategic uncertainty if they intend to cooperate by claiming a low amount (which many proposers do not). Second, many responders behave only incompletely conditionally cooperative by transferring too little (which hinders cooperation in future periods).
Envy is an unpleasant emotion. If individuals anticipate that comparing their payoff with the (potentially higher) payoff of others will make them envious, they may want to actively avoid information about other people’s payoffs. Given the opportunity to reduce another person’s payoff, an individual’s envy may trigger behavior that is detrimental to welfare. In this case, if individuals anticipate that they will react in a welfare-reducing way, they may also avoid information about other people’s payoffs from the outset. We investigated these two hypotheses using three experiments. We found that 13% of our potentially envious subjects avoided information when they did not have the opportunity to reduce another participant’s payoff. Psychological scales do not explain this behavior. We also found that voluntarily uninformed subjects did neither deduct less of the payoff nor less frequently than subjects who could not avoid the information.
Labor market policy tools such as training and sanctions are commonly used to help bring workers back to work. By analogy to medical treatments, the individual exposure to these tools may have side effects. We study effects on health using individual-level population registers on labor market events outcomes, drug prescriptions and sickness absence, comparing outcomes before and after exposure to training and sanctions. We find that training improves cardiovascular and mental health and lowers sickness absence. The results suggest that this is not due to improved employment prospects but rather to instantaneous features of participation such as, perhaps, the adoption of a more rigorous daily routine. Unemployment benefits sanctions cause a short-run deterioration of mental health, possibly due higher stress levels, but this tapers out quickly.
Interest in evaluating the effects of continuous treatments has been on the rise recently. To facilitate the estimation of causal effects in this setting, the present paper introduces entropy balancing for continuous treatments (EBCT) by extending the original entropy balancing methodology of Hainmüller (2012). In order to estimate balancing weights, the proposed approach solves a globally convex constrained optimization problem, allowing for much more computationally efficient implementation compared to other available methods. EBCT weights reliably eradicate Pearson correlations between covariates and the continuous treatment variable. This is the case even when other methods based on the generalized propensity score tend to yield insufficient balance due to strong selection into different treatment intensities. Moreover, the optimization procedure is more successful in avoiding extreme weights attached to a single unit. Extensive Monte-Carlo simulations show that treatment effect estimates using EBCT display similar or lower bias and uniformly lower root mean squared error. These properties make EBCT an attractive method for the evaluation of continuous treatments. Software implementation is available for Stata and R.
This paper focuses on one particular issue which has arisen in the course of the ongoing debate on the reform of investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS), namely that of the appointment of arbitrators. Taking as its starting point that there now exists tentative consensus that the present system for the appointment of arbitrators either causes or exacerbates certain problematic aspects of the current ISDS system, the paper explores one option for reform, namely the introduction of an independent panel for the selection of investment arbitrators. In doing so, it is argued that a shift in the normative basis of the rules governing appointments is required in order to accommodate the principles of party autonomy and the international rule of law. Such reform, while not completely removing the initiative that parties presently enjoy, is the most efficient way to introduce rule of law considerations such as a measure of judicial independence into the current appointments system. This, it is argued, would in turn help to address some of the problematic features of the appointment of arbitrators in ISDS.
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.
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.
This paper – which is based on the Thomas Franck Lecture held by the author at Humboldt University Berlin on 13 May 2019 – argues that the most likely development of international to be expected will be the coexistence of two “legal worlds”. On the one hand, an inter-State law brutally regulating political relations between human groups whitewashed by nationalism; on the other hand, a transnational or “a-national” law regulating economic relations between private as well as public interests. Further, the paper argues that there are two obvious victims – of very different nature – of this foreseeable evolution: the human being on the one hand, the certainty and effectiveness of the rule of law itself on the other hand.
This article explores, whether domestic judges might be held accountable under international criminal law (ICL). To date, international criminal justice has almost entirely focused on prosecuting political or military leaders. The Justice Case tried before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal in 1946 marks the most prominent exception. Prior to it, the judiciary – otherwise considered the epitome of justice – had mutated into a murderous machinery under Nazi rule. Judicial decisions do have far-reaching implications possibly constituting or contributing to international crimes. This holds true in a wide range of cases, for instance on practices of warfare and torture, on the use of certain weapon technologies, or on policies relating to minorities or racial segregation. I argue that domestic judges are accountable when engaging in international crimes. The article delves into technical aspects of criminal law; as well as the notions of judicial independence and immunity. While guaranteeing the rule of law, these two notions challenge the core idea of ICL: its equal application vis-à-vis all perpetrators of international crimes irrespective of official capacity. In order to differentiate due judicial conduct and its abuse in violation of ICL, I suggest a threshold a judicial act needs to exceed for entailing accountability for an international crime.
Modern rule of law and post-war constitutionalism are both anchored in rights-based limitations on state authority. Rule-of-law norms and principles, at both domestic and international levels, are designed to protect the freedom and dignity of the person. Given this “thick” conception of the rule of law, authoritarian practices that remove constraints on domestic political leaders and weaken mechanisms for holding them accountable necessarily erode both domestic and international rule of law. Drawing on political science research on authoritarian politics, this study identifies three core elements of authoritarian political strategies: subordination of the judiciary, suppression of independent news media and freedom of expression, and restrictions on the ability of civil society groups to organize and participate in public life. According to available data, each of these three practices has become increasingly common in recent years. This study offers a composite measure of the core authoritarian practices and uses it to identify the countries that have shown the most marked increases in authoritarianism. The spread and deepening of these authoritarian practices in diverse regimes around the world diminishes international rule of law. The conclusion argues that resurgent authoritarianism degrades international rule of law even if this is defined as the specifically post-Cold War international legal order.
International courts regularly cite each other, in part as a means of building legitimacy. Such international, cross-court use of precedent (or “judicial dialogue”) among the regional human rights courts and the Human Rights Committee has an additional purpose and effect: the construction of a rights-based global constitutionalism. Judicial dialogue among the human rights courts is purposeful in that the courts see themselves as embedded in, and contributing to, a global human rights legal system. Cross-citation among the human rights courts advances the construction of rights-based global constitutionalism in that it provides a basic degree of coordination among the regional courts. The jurisprudence of the U.N. Human Rights Committee (HRC), as an authoritative interpreter of core international human rights norms, plays the role of a central focal point for the decentralized coordination of jurisprudence. The network of regional courts and the HRC is building an emergent institutional structure for global rights-based constitutionalism.
How to identify customary international law is an important question of international law. The International Law Commission has in 2018 adopted a set of sixteen conclusions, together with commentaries, on this topic. The paper consists of three parts: First, the reasons are discussed why the Commission came to work on the topic “Identification of customary international law”. Then, some of its conclusions are highlighted. Finally, the outcome of the work of the Commission is placed in a general context, before concluding.
This paper assesses the rise and decline of international rule of law in the case of non-state armed actors. Both signs of rise and signs of decline of international rule of law show in the case of non- state armed actors. Signs of rise include the expansion of coverage of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international criminal law, as well as international legal argumentation and rhetoric made by non-state armed groups. Some non-state armed actors express that they are governed by IHL in public statements or bilateral agreements with international actors, partly acknowledging universality of international humanitarian norms, and sometimes act as such. Signs of decline in the international rule of law also show – although some of them can be seen as business-as-usual – privileging of military advantage, instrumental use of international law (as justification and local interpretations), as well as conflicting understanding of IHL between local and global norms. The multiplicity of non-state actors also portends the decline of international rule of law, with the proliferation of many non-organized groups without legitimacy-seeking motivations.
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.
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.
Entrepreneurial persistence is demonstrated by an entrepreneur’s continued positive maintenance of entrepreneurial motivation and constantly-renewed active engagement in a new business venture despite counter forces or enticing alternatives. It is thus a crucial factor for entrepreneurs when pursuing and exploiting their business opportunities and to realize potential economic gains and benefits. Using rich data on a representative sample of German business founders, we investigate the determinants of entrepreneurial persistence. Next to observed survival we also construct a hybrid persistence measure capturing also the motivational dimension of persistence. We analyze the influence of individual-level (human capital and personality) and business-related characteristics on both measures as well as their relative importance. We find that the two indicators emphasize different aspects of persistence. For the survival indicator, the predictive power is concentrated in business characteristics and human capital, while for hybrid persistence, the dominant factors are business characteristics and personality. Finally, we show that results are heterogeneous across subgroups. In particular, formerly-unemployed founders do not differ in survival chances, but they are more likely to lack a high psychological commitment to their business ventures.
While some pronouncements of expert treaty bodies have been considered ‘key catalysts’ for the development of international human rights law, others are only selectively referred to in legal practice. This article argues that the varying normative impact is due to the informal character of pronouncements. In the absence of treaty provisions specifying their legal effect, practitioners tend to rely on different factors and arguments when either drawing on or rejecting certain pronouncements. Scholars in turn face difficulties when trying to identify explanatory patterns within this diverging practice as the informal character confronts both international lawyers and international relations scholars with their respective methodological ‘blind spots’. In light of these intradisciplinary challenges, this article explores the extent as to which an interdisciplinary approach helps to assess the reasons for the varying impact of pronouncements. After analysing the factors determining their legal significance on the basis of State practice and the academic debate, this article identifies the drafting process as a factor which promises to be particularly insightful when explored from an interdisciplinary perspective and sketches out a framework for future research.
From an active labor market policy perspective, start-up subsidies for unemployed individuals are very effective in improving long-term labor market outcomes for participants. From a business perspective, however, the assessment of these public programs is less clear since they might attract individuals with low entrepreneurial abilities and produce businesses with low survival rates and little contribution to job creation, economic growth, and innovation. In this paper, we use a rich data set to compare participants of a German start-up subsidy program for unemployed individuals to a group of regular founders who started from nonunemployment and did not receive the subsidy. The data allows us to analyze their business performance up until 40 months after business formation. We find that formerly subsidized founders lag behind not only in survival and job creation, but especially also in innovation activities. The gaps in these business outcomes are relatively constant or even widening over time. Hence, we do not see any indication of catching up in the longer run. While the gap in survival can be entirely explained by initial differences in observable start-up characteristics, the gap in business development remains and seems to be the result of restricted access to capital as well as differential business strategies and dynamics. Considering these conflicting results for the assessment of the subsidy program from an ALMP and business perspective, policy makers need to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of such a strategy to find the right policy mix.
Being ignorant of key aspects of a strategic interaction can represent an advantage rather than a handicap. We study one particular context in which ignorance can be beneficial: iterated strategic interactions in which voluntary cooperation may be sustained into the final round if players voluntarily forego knowledge about the time horizon. We experimentally examine this option to remain ignorant about the time horizon in a finitely repeated two-person prisoners’ dilemma game. We confirm that pairs without horizon knowledge avoid the drop in cooperation that otherwise occurs toward the end of the game. However, this effect is superposed by cooperation declining more rapidly in pairs without horizon knowledge during the middle phase of the game, especially if players do not know that the other player also wanted to remain ignorant of the time horizon.
Unfolding the history of one of the oldest human val-ues, the freedom of expression, while defining its limits, is a complicated task. Does freedom stop where hate starts? This very old dilemma is -now more than ever before- revealing new dimensions. Politicians and new laws aim at regulating free expression, while disagree-ments over such regulation gradually become a source of endless conflict in newly formed multicultural, inter-connected, and digitized societies. The example of the Network Enforcement Act is used to understand the idea of restrictive legal practices in Germany, but also to enlighten the fact that law is a human construction which was created in order to regulate communication among individuals. Alternative practices, to straight legal ones, are summarized to show other dimensions of regulating hate speech without involving top-down approaches. The article proposes the approach of re-storative justice as a combination of legal and medita-tive practices in cases of hate speech. One advantage of the restorative justice approach elaborated in this arti-cle is the potential to remedy the inner hate and the pain, both of the victim and perpetrator. Finally, reveal-ing parts of history and new aspects of the ‘hate speech-puzzle’, leads to a questioning of contemporary social structures that possibly generate hate itself.
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.
International adjudication is currently under assault, encouraging a number of States to withdraw, or to consider withdrawing, from treaties providing for international dispute settlement. This Working Paper argues that the act of treaty withdrawal is not merely as the unilateral executive exercise of the individual sovereign prerogative of a State. International law places checks upon the exercise of withdrawal, recognising that it is an act that of its nature affects the interests of other States parties, which have a collective interest in constraining withdrawal. National courts have a complementary function in restraining unilateral withdrawal in order to support the domestic constitution. The arguments advanced against international adjudication in the name of popular democracy at the national level can serve as a cloak for the exercise of executive power unrestrained by law. The submission by States of their disputes to peaceful settlement through international adjudication is central, not incidental, to the successful operation of the international legal system.
Underpinning a legal system with certain values and helping to resolve norm conflicts is in domestic legal systems usually achieved through hierarchical superiority of certain norms of a constitutional nature. The present paper examines the question whether jus cogens can discharge this function within the traditionally horizontal and decentralized international legal order. In so doing, it commences with an overview of the historical origins of peremptory norms in legal scholarship, followed by its endorsement by positive law and courts and tribunals. This analysis illustrates that there are lingering uncertainties pertaining to the process of identification of peremptory norms. Even so, the concept has been invoked in State executive practice (although infrequently) and has been endorsed by various courts. However, such invocation thus far has had a limited impact from a legal perspective. It was mainly confined to a strengthened moral appeal and did in particular not facilitate the resolution of norm conflicts. The contribution further suggests that this limited impact results from the fact that the content of peremptory obligations is either very narrow or very vague. This, in turn, implies a lack of consensus amongst States regarding the content (scope) of jus cogens, including the values underlying these norms. As a result, it is questionable whether the construct of jus cogens is able to provide meaningful legal protection against the erosion of legal norms. It is too rudimentary in character to entrench and stabilize core human rights values as the moral foundation of the international legal order.
International women’s rights
(2019)
This paper explores current contestations of women’s rights and the implications thereof for international legislation. While contestation over women’s rights is a far from new phenomenon, over the past two decades opposition to gender equality has become better organized at the transnational level, mobilizing a dispersed set of state and non-state actors, and is becoming more successful in halting the progress of women’s rights. I argue that the position of oppositional actors vis-à-vis women rights activism appears to be strengthened by two recent political developments: democratic backsliding and the closure of civic space. Some preliminary findings show how these interrelated developments lead to an erosion of women’s rights at the national level. Governments use low key tactics to dismantle institutional and implementation arrangements and sideline women’s organisations. Next, I explore the implications of these developments for gender equality norms at the national and international level. The active strategy of counter norming adopted by conservative and religious state and non-state actors, designed to circumvent and also undermine Western norms, is increasingly successful. In addition to this, the threatened position of domestic actors monitoring compliance of international treaties, makes the chances of backsliding on international commitments much higher.
The German start-up subsidy (SUS) program for the unemployed has recently undergone a major make-over, altering its institutional setup, adding an additional layer of selection and leading to ambiguous predictions of the program’s effectiveness. Using propensity score matching (PSM) as our main empirical approach, we provide estimates of long-term effects of the post-reform subsidy on individual employment prospects and labor market earnings up to 40 months after entering the program. Our results suggest large and persistent long-term effects of the subsidy on employment probabilities and net earned income. These effects are larger than what was estimated for the pre-reform program. Extensive sensitivity analyses within the standard PSM framework reveal that the results are robust to different choices regarding the implementation of the weighting procedure and also with respect to deviations from the conditional independence assumption. As a further assessment of the results’ sensitivity, we go beyond the standard selection-on-observables approach and employ an instrumental variable setup using regional variation in the likelihood of receiving treatment. Here, we exploit the fact that the reform increased the discretionary power of local employment agencies in allocating active labor market policy funds, allowing us to obtain a measure of local preferences for SUS as the program of choice. The results based on this approach give rise to similar estimates. Thus, our results indicating that SUS are still an effective active labor market program after the reform do not appear to be driven by “hidden bias”.
Getting a Yes
(2019)
This paper studies how the request for a favor has to be devised in order to maximize its chance of success. We present results from a mini-dictator game, in which the recipient can send a free-form text message to the dictator before the latter decides. We find that putting effort into the message, writing in a humorous way and mentioning reasons why the money is needed pays off. Additionally, we find differences in the behavior of male and female dictators. Only men react positively to efficiency arguments, while only women react to messages that emphasize the dictator’s power and responsibility.
This paper presents an experiment on the effect of retroactive price-reduction schemes on buyers’ repeated purchase decisions. Such schemes promise buyers a reduced price for all units that are bought in a certain time frame if the total quantity that is purchased passes a given threshold. This study finds a loyalty-enhancing effect of retroactive price-reduction schemes only if the buyers ex-ante expected that entering into the scheme would maximize their monetary gain, but later learn that they should leave the scheme. Furthermore, the effect crucially hinges on the framing of the price reduction.
”Thanks in Advance”
(2019)
This paper studies the effect of the commonly used phrase “thanks in advance” on compliance with a small request. In a controlled laboratory experiment we ask participants to give a detailed answer to an open question. The treatment variable is whether or not they see the phrase “thanks in advance.” Our participants react to the treatment by exerting less effort in answering the request even though they perceive the phrase as polite.
The paper extends a static discrete-choice labor supply model by adding participation and hours constraints. We identify restrictions by survey information on the eligibility and search activities of individuals as well as actual and desired hours. This provides for a more robust identification of preferences and constraints. Both, preferences and restrictions are allowed to vary by and are related through observed and unobserved characteristics. We distinguish various restrictions mechanisms: labor demand rationing, working hours norms varying across occupations, and insufficient public childcare on the supply side of the market. The effect of these mechanisms is simulated by relaxing different constraints at a time. We apply the empirical frame- work to evaluate an in-work benefit for low-paid parents in the German institutional context. The benefit is supposed to increase work incentives for secondary earners. Based on the structural model we are able to disentangle behavioral reactions into the pure incentive effect and the limiting impact of constraints at the intensive and extensive margin. We find that the in-work benefit for parents substantially increases working hours of mothers of young children, especially when they have a low education. Simulating the effects of restrictions shows their substantial impact on employment of mothers with young children.
We use panel data from Germany to analyze the effect of population density on urban air pollution (nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and ozone). To address unobserved heterogeneity and omitted variables, we present long difference/fixed effects estimates and instrumental variables estimates, using historical population and soil quality as instruments. Our preferred estimates imply that a one-standard deviation increase in population density increases air pollution by 3-12%.
We estimate the long-term effects of start-up subsidies (SUS) for the unemployed on subjective outcome indicators of well-being, as measured by the participants’ satisfaction in different domains. This extends previous analyses of the current German SUS program (“Gründungszuschuss”) that focused on objective outcomes – such as employment and income – and allows us to make a more complete judgment about the overall effects of SUS at the individual level. This is especially important because subsidizing the transition into self-employment may have unintended adverse effects on participants’ well-being due to its risky nature and lower social security protection, especially in the long run. Having access to linked administrative-survey data providing us with rich information on pre-treatment characteristics, we base our analysis on the conditional independence assumption and use propensity score matching to estimate causal effects within the potential outcomes framework. We find long-term positive effects on job satisfaction but negative effects on individuals’ satisfaction with their social security situation. Further findings suggest that the negative effect on satisfaction with social security may be driven by negative effects on unemployment and retirement insurance coverage. Our heterogeneity analysis reveals substantial variation in effects across gender, age groups and skill levels. The sensitivity analyses show that these findings are highly robust.
Expanding public or publicly subsidized childcare has been a top social policy priority in many industrialized countries. It is supposed to increase fertility, promote children’s development and enhance mothers’ labor market attachment. In this paper, we analyze the causal effect of one of the largest expansions of subsidized childcare for children up to three years among industrialized countries on the employment of mothers in Germany. Identification is based on spatial and temporal variation in the expansion of publicly subsidized childcare triggered by two comprehensive childcare policy reforms. The empirical analysis is based on the German Microcensus that is matched to county level data on childcare availability. Based on our preferred specification which includes time and county fixed effects we find that an increase in childcare slots by one percentage point increases mothers’ labor market participation rate by 0.2 percentage points. The overall increase in employment is explained by the rise in part-time employment with relatively long hours (20-35 hours per week). We do not find a change in full-time employment or lower part-time employment that is causally related to the childcare expansion. The effect is almost entirely driven by mothers with medium-level qualifications. Mothers with low education levels do not profit from this reform calling for a stronger policy focus on particularly disadvantaged groups in coming years.
In 2015, Germany introduced a statutory hourly minimum wage that was not only universally binding but also set at a relatively high level. We discuss the short-run effects of this new minimum wage on a wide set of socio-economic outcomes, such as employment and working hours, earnings and wage inequality, dependent and self-employment, as well as reservation wages and satisfaction. We also discuss difficulties in the implementation of the minimum wage and the measurement of its effects related to non-compliance and suitability of data sources. Two years after the minimum wage introduction, the following conclusions can be drawn: while hourly wages increased for low-wage earners, some small negative employment effects are also identifiable. The effects on aspired goals, such as poverty and inequality reduction, have not materialized in the short run. Instead, a tendency to reduce working hours is found, which alleviates the desired positive impact on monthly income. Additionally, the level of non-compliance was substantial in the short run, thus drawing attention to problems when implementing such a wide-reaching policy.
What Makes an Employer?
(2019)
As the policy debate on entrepreneurship increasingly centers on firm growth in terms of job creation, it is important to better understand which variables influence the first hiring decision and which ones influence the subsequent survival as an employer. Using the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP), we analyze what role individual characteristics of entrepreneurs play in sustainable job creation. While human and social capital variables positively influence the hiring decision and the survival as an employer in the same direction, we show that none of the personality traits affect the two outcomes in the same way. Some traits are only relevant for survival as an employer but do not influence the hiring decision, other traits even unfold a revolving door effect, in the sense that employers tend to fail due to the same characteristics that positively influenced their hiring decision.
A rich literature links knowledge inputs with innovative outputs. However, most of what is known is restricted to manufacturing. This paper analyzes whether the three aspects involving innovative activity - R&D; innovative output; and productivity - hold for knowledge intensive services. Combining the models of Crepon et al. (1998) and of Ackerberg et al. (2015), allows for causal interpretation of the relationship between innovation output and labor productivity. We find that knowledge intensive services benefit from innovation activities in the sense that these activities causally increase their labor productivity. Moreover, the firm size advantage found for manufacturing in previous studies nearly disappears for knowledge intensive services.
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.
Since 2015, the European Union has struggled to deal with the influx of refugees coming into its territories. The number of institutions involved in designing a competent response approach, com-bined with the unilateral and uncoordinated state reactions, have left unclear where to look for when searching for answers and new alternatives. Can the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) take a leading role in solving this and future crises? After a brief recapitulation of the crisis, an analysis of UNHCR’s statue, relationship to international law, and doctrine will put this question to the test while exploring options that are not only available but also feasible in a system where politics trump both legality and morality. If UNHCR is to play an active role in fu-ture refugee policies and become the lead agency it once was, a new daring and innovative approach has to emerge in order to readapt to the power relations that prevail in the twenty-first century.
Seeming consensus has formed among legal scholars and practitioners that a rising China seeks changes in rules and institutions of international law. Yet, attendant accounts of how such changes may and already do restructure global legal order remain relatively underdeveloped. An observed rise in the international rule of law during immediate post-Cold War years has now been disrupted by a confluence of regional shifts in geopolitical power and contestation of law’s normative foundations by newly empowered states. In these circumstances, advocates for stability and continuity in variations of the “liberal international order” or “rules-based order” have sought to defend the authority and resilience of universally defined international legal norms against various regional challenges to the boundary between law and politics. Yet, as both global power and universal conceptions of law fragment, so too will the presumed equilibrium between international law’s political and normative foundations. Signs of fragmentation are now conspicuously playing out in East and Southeast Asia, where the relative rise of China is amplified by alternative Chinese conceptions of foundations and purposes of global legal order. This working paper introduces the concept of “geolegal power” to describe the competitive logic of a territorially bounded leading state restructuring interpretation and development of legal rules and institutions, which is emerging more explicitly within regional subsystems. Fragmentation of the international rule of law by a rising Chinese “geolegal order” is demonstrated by contested maritime rules in three key areas: freedom of navigation; third-party and judicial settlement; and, territorial claims under UNCLOS. Evidence that China is carving out an effective subsystem of rules designated as “law” in the most consequential of security and geopolitical domains poses a critical challenge to the structure of a unified and universal system of international law. Legal scholars and practitioners must better grasp reconfiguring foundations of international law in order to address rising orders of “geolegal power”, in which the regional meaning and operation of law is no longer reconcilable within the terms of an “international” rule of law.
The author discusses the question of authority when determining the content of an international legal rule. Taking Article 38(1)(d) of the ICJ Statute as a point of departure, he determines through meticolous analysis what ranks as judicial decisions as well as teachings within the meaning of the norm. The author then proceeds to a number of factors to determine authoritativeness: objectivity, knowledgeability, depth of analysis, and the presence or otherwise of reasoning and, in particular, the persuasiveness of an opinion. In the case of judicial pronouncements, the author points out that the paradox between Article 59 and Article 38(1)(d) of the ICJ Statute is only an apparent one. While judgments of the Court are binding only between the parties, it is merely the underlying reasoning that can be taken into account in the context of Article 38(1)(d) if considered persuasive. Without central authority, authoritativenes in international law must always be earned which is also the reason for the lack of an hierarchical order between as well as within judicial pronouncements and learned writings though the former are usually more likely to fulfil the criteria of authoritativeness. In both cases, however, previously acquired reputation of a court or even an individual judge as well as of a learned writer can create a presumption of authoritativeness. On a more general level, the author concludes with a call for a more careful differentiation between the determination of law and its application. Putting the issue discussed into perspective, the author argues that situations of law determination arise, contrary to common understanding, in fact far less often than situations of law application.
This paper assesses, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the work of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU) with respect to peace support operations. It seeks to know whether the establishment of the PSC in 2002 is leading or has led to a rise or a decline of collective security in Africa. It is demonstrated that in regard to its relative legal and institutional robustness, the PSC can be perceived as a rise of collective security compared with its predecessor, the Central Organ of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). However, it stagnates in terms of quantity and quality of actions on the ground. The main problem lies in the lack of sufficient operational autonomy from member states and international partners, such as the United Nations. Therefore, the PSC’s contribution to the maintenance of peace and security, and so the rise of the international rule of law in Africa is limited. The continent is still a war-torn region, affected by political crises and the expansion of terrorism in many countries. To solve this problem, AU member states should strengthen the PSC’s capacity, starting with the quick operationalisation of the African Standby Force. The implementation of the 2016 decision on alternative sources of financing AU’s institutions and activities is also a priority. In this regard, the political will of African states that may show that they want to take their organisation more seriously is required. This can further the AU self-reliance policy in collective security though the promotion of African solutions to African problems, and reduce the burden of the United Nations and other non-African actors’ interventions in the continent.
Matters of Interpretation
(2018)
This article analyses, from a methodological and theoretical perspective, how international legal method deals with change. Section 2 sets the stage, develops a legal perspective on change of norms and values in the international legal order and distinguishes between structural change and norm change. This is followed in sections 3 and 4 by an examination of doctrinal categories that provide techniques to process change in international legal practice. International legal method is equipped with several techniques to process—and to conceptualize and evaluate—change: ‘Formal’ norm change is a matter of the doctrine of sources. International law can also change ‘informally’ through the shifting meaning of norm texts. Both formal and informal change is a matter of interpretation. Therefore, section 5 aims at theorizing interpretive change. It examines the relationship between the sources of law and legal interpretation as categories of change and analyses theoretical perceptions of interpretive change.
In challenging times for international law, there might be a heightened need for both analysis and prescription. The international rule of law as a connecting thread that goes through the global legal order is a particularly salient topic. By providing a working understanding of the content and contexts of the international rule of law, and by taking the regime of international investment law as a case study, this paper argues that assessing 'rise' or 'decline' motions in this sphere warrants a nuanced approach that should recognise parallel positive and negative developments. Whilst prominent procedural and substantive aspects of international investment law strongly align with the international rule of law requirements, numerous challenges threaten the future existence of the regime and appeal of international rule of law more broadly. At the same time, opportunities exist to adapt the substantive decision-making processes in investor-State disputes so to pursue parallel goals of enhancing rule of law at both international and national levels. Through recognising the specificities of interaction between international and national sphere, arbitrators can further reinvigorate the legitimacy of international rule of law through international investment law - benefitting thus the future of both.
This paper illustrates the functional and conceptual variances of law in different contexts. Whereas legal actors on the international level might normatively aim for law to have a similar effect to that of domestic law, the way in which international and supranational law can fulfil these potential functions is different. Accordingly, this paper argues that an awareness with regard to the particularities and challenges that the potential functions of law encounter in the international and supranational context is needed. Moreover, it suggests an analytical lens to conceptually frame and locate current developments, offering a broader perspective on, or even an element of explication for, the apparent crisis that law is currently facing on the international and supranational scale. After describing the potential functions of law on an abstract scale and grouping them into analytical categories, the paper uses these categories as a lens in order to assess in which way international law can fulfil these potential functions, where priorities regarding certain functions might differ and where some aspects of these functions are challenged when law is made and applied in the international and supranational sphere.
In light of current efforts at addressing the dangers of fake news, this article will revisit the international law relevant to the phenomenon, in particular the prohibition of intervention, the 1936 International Convention on the Use of Broadcasting in the Cause of Peace, and the 1953 Convention on the International Right of Correction. It will be argued that important lessons can be learned from the League of Nations’ (LON) efforts in the interwar period and the UN’s activities in the immediate post-WWII era, while taking into account the new challenges that arise from modern communication technology.
Taking up the LON’s and UN’s distinction between false and distorted news, the international legal framework will be tested, in particular, against the coverage of the 2016 ‘Lisa case’ by Russian Government-funded media. This coverage is widely considered to be fake news aimed at destabilizing Germany’s society and institutions.
The article argues that false news can be subject to repressive regulation in a sensible manner. Distorted news, however, will have to be tolerated legally, since prohibitions in this regard would be too prone to abuse. A free and pluralist media, complemented by an appropriate governmental information policy, remains the best answer to fake news in all its forms. Due diligence obligations to fact-check, transparency, and remedies that are effective despite difficulties in attribution, and despite a lack of universal acceptance, could likewise be conducive.
Challenging the Paris Peace Treaties, State Sovereignty, and Western-Dominated International Law
(2018)
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.
The present study aims at identifying the main trends in Italian international legal scholarship from 1990 onward. After a brief appraisal of the current situation within the Italian community of international law scholars, it will first focus on the methods and fields of interest of the most recent scholarship. Then, an attempt at contextualization will be made, by offering a brief overview of some current trends in international legal scholarship outside Italy and comparing these trends with the recent developments in Italian scholarship. In conclusion, it will be argued that, despite the greater fluidity of national identities, the persistence of common features still appears to characterize the Italian scholarship of international law. A long, deeply rooted and culturally rich tradition of studies in international law, the use of the Italian language, the dimension of the community as well as the presence of lively scientific institutions, are factors that, taken together, appear to favor a phenomenon of reproduction and perpetuation of certain common patterns of thought, thereby preserving the existence of a national perspective.
The phenomenon of male-to-male sexual assault undoubtedly occurs, both in domestic and conflict contexts. There is a small but growing discourse supporting the analysis of this phenomenon, however it remains significantly limited and its growth disproportionate to the concerns it warrants. The international law, NGO and State actors are largely responsible for this inhibition, predominately attributable to their intent in preserving the feminist and patriarchal values on which their institutions are founded. The strength with which the feminist discourse has embedded itself into the agendas of relevant actors is obstructing attempts at unbiased analysis of gender-based violence and the development of a discourse dedicated to understanding male sexual assault. It appears to be a prevailing sector-wide perception that females are the only victims of sexual violence and that creating space for a discussion on male-sexual assault will detract worth from the feminist discourse on female sexual assault. This paper discusses the means in which the sectors ignorance towards male sexual assault manifests and the harmful implications of ignoring this phenomenon. The author uses contextual analyses from development, international law, and cultural examples.
During its sessions in 2016 and 2017 the UN International Law Commission (ILC) debated the question whether the immunity of State officials from foreign criminal jurisdiction is subject to exceptions for international crimes and provisionally adopted a Draft Article 7 on immunity ratione materiae. The following analytical presentation classifies and documents the reactions of States to draft article 7, paragraph 1, as they have been expressed in the Sixth (Legal) Committee of the General Assembly in 2017.
Draft Art. 15 CCAH attempts to strike a balance between State autonomy and robust judicial supervision. It largely follows Article 22 CERD conditioning the jurisdiction of the ICJ on prior negotiations. Hence, the substance of the clause is interpreted in light of the Court’s recent case law, especially Georgia v. Russia. Besides, several issues regarding the scope ratione temporis of the compromissory clause are discussed. The article advances several proposals to further improve the current draft, addressing the missing explicit reference to State responsibility, as well as the relationship between the Court and a possible treaty body, It also proposes to recalibrate the interplay of a requirement of prior negotiations respectively the seizing of a future treaty body on the one hand and provisional measures to be indicated by the Court on the other.
In its Burmych and Others v. Ukraine judgment of October 2017 the European Court of Human Rights has dismissed more than 12.000 applications due to the fact that given that they were not only repetitive in nature, but also mutatis mutandis identical to applications covered by a previous pilot judgment rendered against Ukraine. This raises fundamental issues as to the role of the Court within the human rights protection system established by the ECHR, as well as those concerning the interrelationship between the Court and the Committee of Ministers.
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.
This paper narrates the changes in the Indian policy towards foreign investment and analyses them in the backdrop of overall changes in the field of international law and particularly within the framework of the international rule of law. The policy changes that have taken place in India can be categorised into three periods. The first period commences after independence from colonial rule. This period is intriguing. At the international level, India insisted on national treatment for foreign investment and supported the New International Economic Order. Domestically, however, nationalisation was not pursued, and even when pursued, was not applied to foreign investors. This period continued until the 1990s when India faced serious economic problems and this coincided with the high point of the Washington consensus, often seen as the rise of the international rule of law. During this time, national treatment was abandoned and innumerable investment treaties granting liberal protection were entered into. This process ended abruptly after India lost the first investment case. This turn of events comments the third period, where efforts were made towards balancing between investor protection and conserving regulatory freedom. Although this period may appear to be a decline of the international rule of law, a nuanced approach shows that it is rather a rise. India has not withdrawn from the system of investor protection, as has been done by some other States. This period is characterised by extensive and detailed treaties to replace the prior sketchy treaty provisions. This is a move towards a more rule based investment protection.
Berlin – New York
(2018)
Beginning in January 2019, the new German government will face a particular new responsibility for world affairs: provided the elections in June 2018 lead to the desired result, Germany will be an elected member of the UN Security Council for two years from January 2019 until December 2020. However, Germany has been a respected and highly relevant member of the United Nations not only during its terms on the Security Council but also in “normal” times. The present article attempts to shed light on a few aspects of Germany’s role in the UN during Merkel’s chancellorship with an emphasis on her third term (2014-2017), such as the cooperative relationship between Germany and the UN Secretary-General in important policy fields, Germany’s financial contributions to the UN, the impact of Germany’s EU membership on its UN membership and the country’s efforts with regard to the reform of the Security Council. The paper further provides context for Germany’s abstention in the vote on Security Council Resolution 1973 on Libya in 2011. It concludes by ascertaining that Germany with its approach of active multilateralism has taken its place as one of the leading nations in Europe and is ready to take on responsibility with its partners to achieve a peaceful and stable world order.
Over the last few decades, the methodology for the identification of customary international law (CIL) has been changing. Both elements of CIL – practice and opinio juris – have assumed novel and broader forms, as noted in the Reports of the Special Rapporteur of the International Law Commission (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016). This paper discusses these Reports and the draft conclusions, and reaction by States in the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), highlighting the areas of consensus and contestation. This ties to the analysis of the main doctrinal positions, with special attention being given to the two elements of CIL, and the role of the UNGA resolutions. The underlying motivation is to assess the real or perceived crisis of CIL, and the author develops the broader argument maintaining that in order to retain unity within international law, the internal limits of CIL must be carefully asserted.
The paper looks at community interests in international law from the perspective of the International Law Commission. As the topics of the Commission are diverse, the outcome of its work is often seen as providing a sense of direction regarding general aspects of international law. After defining what he understands by “community interests”, the author looks at both secondary and primary rules of international law, as they have been articulated by the Commission, as well as their relevance for the recognition and implementation of community interests. The picture which emerges only partly fits the widespread narrative of “from self-interest to community interest”. Whereas the Commission has recognized, or developed, certain primary rules which more fully articulate community interests, it has been reluctant to reformulate secondary rules of international law, with the exception of jus cogens. The Commission has more recently rather insisted that the traditional State-consent-oriented secondary rules concerning the formation of customary international law and regarding the interpretation of treaties continue to be valid in the face of other actors and forms of action which push towards the recognition of more and thicker community interests.
The rule of law is the cornerstone of the international legal system. This paper shows, through analysis of intergovernmental instruments, statements made by representatives of States, and negotiation records, that the rule of law at the United Nations has become increasingly contested in the past years. More precisely, the argument builds on the process of integrating the notion of the rule of law into the Sustainable Development Goals, adopted in September 2015 in the document Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The main sections set out the background of the rule of law debate at the UN, the elements of the rule of law at the goal- and target-levels in the 2030 Agenda – especially in the SDG 16 –, and evaluate whether the rule of law in this context may be viewed as a normative and universal foundation of international law. The paper concludes, with reflections drawn from the process leading up to the 2030 Agenda and the final outcome document that the rule of law – or at least strong and precise formulations of the concept – may be in decline in institutional and normative settings. This can be perceived as symptomatic of a broader crisis of the international legal order.
The right to privacy in the digital age generates new challenges for the international jurisdiction. The following article deals with such challenges. Therefore it firstly defines the term of privacy in general and presents an international legal framework. With whisteblower Snowden a huge political discourse was initiated and the article gives insights into its further development. In 2015 the Human Rights Council for the first time announced a special rapporteur on the right to privacy. However, the discourse is not only taking place on a political level, also civil society organizations advocate more stringent regulations and prosecutions against violations of the right to privacy. Moreover the importance of the technology sector becomes clear. Companies like Microsoft are increasingly taking responsibility to protect digital media against unjustified data misuse, surveillance, collection and storage. But whereas the IT sector is developing very quickly, legislative processes do so rather slowly. Lastly, the individual is also hold to account. To protect oneself against data misuse is to a great extent acting self-responsible. Still, therefore information on protection must be clear and accessible for everyone.
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.
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.
This article re-examines the relationship between Africa and the International Criminal Court (ICC). It traces the successive changes of the African attitude towards this Court, from states' euphoria, to hostility against its work, to regional counter-initiatives through the umbrella of the African Union (AU). The main argument goes beyond the idea of "the Court that Africa wants" in order to identify concrete reasons behind such a formal argument which may have fostered, if not enticed, the majority of African states to become ICC members and actively cooperate with it, when paradoxically some great powers have decided to stay outside its jurisdiction. It also seeks to understand, from a political and legal viewpoint, which parameters have changed since then to provoke that hostile attitude against the Court's work and the entrance of the AU into the debate through the African Common Position on the ICC. Lastly, this article explores African alternatives to the contested ICC justice system. It examines the need to reform the Rome Statute in order to give more independence, credibility and legitimacy to the ICC and its duplication to some extent by the new "Criminal Court of the African Union". Particular attention is paid to the resistance against this idea to reform the ICC justice system.
Caribbean States organised in CARICOM recently brought forward reparation claims against several European States to compensate slavery and (native) genocides in the Caribbean and even threatened to approach the International Court of Justice. The paper provides for an analysis of the facts behind the CARICOM claim and asks whether the law of state responsibility is able to provide for the demanded compensation. As the intertemporal principle generally prohibits retroactive application of today’s international rules, the paper argues that the complete claim must be based on the law of state responsibility governing in the time of the respective conduct. An inquiry into the history of primary (prohibition of slavery and genocide) as well as secondary rules of State responsibility reveals that both sets of rules were underdeveloped or non-existent at the times of slavery and alleged (native) genocides. Therefore, the author concludes that the CARICOM claim is legally flawed but nevertheless worth the attention as it once again exposes imperial and colonial injustices of the past and their legitimization by historical international law and international/natural lawyers.
This paper develops a spatial model to analyze the stability of a market sharing agreement between two firms. We find that the stability of the cartel depends on the relative market size of each firm. Collusion is not attractive for firms with a small home market, but the incentive for collusion increases when the firm’s home market is getting larger relative to the home market of the competitor. The highest stability of a cartel and additionally the highest social welfare is found when regions are symmetric. Further we can show that a monetary transfer can stabilize the market sharing agreement.
Irrwege der Klimapolitik
(2012)
Inhalt I. Einleitung II. Es gibt kein Normalklima III. Folgen des Klimawandel IV. Folgen der Klimapolitik V. Schlußfolgerungen
This paper develops the incentives to collude in a model with spatially separated markets and quantity setting firms. We find that increases in transportation costs stabilize the collusive agreement. We also show that, the higher the demand in both markets the less likely will collusion be sustained. Gross and Holahan (2003) use a similar model with price setting firms, we compare their results with ours to analyze the impact of the mode of competition on sustainability of collusion. Further we analyze the impact of collusion on social welfare and find that collusion may be welfare enhancing.
Looking at smoking-behavior it can be shown that there are differences concerning the time-preference-rate. Therefore this has an effect on the optimal schooling decision in the way that we appear a lower average human capital level for smokers. According to a higher time-preference-rate additionally we suppose a higher return to education for smokers who go further on education. With our empirical findings we can confirm the presumptions. We use interactions-terms to regress the average rate of return with IV. Therefore we obtain that smokers have a significantly higher average return to education than non-smokers.
In the first part of the report of the GTZ expert group an overview on the basics of integration and tax harmonisation within a common market is given. Chapter II. concentrates on the problems of national and international tax law regarding double taxation before the harmonisation process within the EU is described in detail. This process is not a best practice example but at least the experiences made in the course of the last five decades are interesting enough and might contribute important information for regions, which more or less recently have started a similar endeavour. The harmonisation needs are discussed for value added taxation (VAT), excise taxation, and income taxation. The problems of tax administrations, procedures laws, taxpayers’ rights and obligations as well as tax compliance are also taken into consideration. The second part of the study reviews the national tax systems within the EAC member countries. Before the single taxes are described in more detail, the macroeconomic situation is illuminated by some basic figures and the current stand of the inner-community integration analysed. Then the single tax bases and tax rates are confronted to shed some light on the necessities for the development of a common market within the near future. Again the value added tax laws, excise taxes and income taxes are discussed in detail, while regarding the latter the focus is on company taxation. For a better systematic analysis the national tax laws are confronted within an overview. The chapter is closed with a summary of the tax rates applied and a rough estimation of the tax burdens within the Partner States. The third part of this report contains the policy recommendations of the expert group following the same structures as the chapters before and presenting the results for the VAT, the excises and the corporate income tax (CIT). Additionally the requirements for tax procedures and administration as well as problems of transparency and information exchange are discussed in detail before the strategic recommendations are derived in close relation to the experiences made within the EU harmonisation process. The recommendations are based on the following normative arguments: (1) Tax harmonisation is a basic requirement for economic integration. (2) Equality of taxation is an imperative of tax justice and demands the avoidance of double taxation as well as the combat of tax evasion and corruption. (3) The avoidance of harmful tax competition between the Partner States. (4) The strengthening of taxpayers’ rights in tax procedures. Hence, all kinds of income, goods and services should be taxed once and only once.
In this paper we develop a spatial Cournot trade model with two unequally sized countries, using the geographical interpretation of the Hotelling line. We analyze the trade and welfare effects of international trade between these two countries. The welfare analysis indicates that in this framework the large country benefits from free trade and the small country may be hurt by opening to trade. This finding is contrary to the results of Shachmurove and Spiegel (1995) as well as Tharakan and Thisse (2002), who use related models to analyze size effects in international trade, where the small country usually gains from trade and the large country may lose.
The paper sheds some light on the education returns in Germany in the post war period. After describing higher education in Germany the current stand of higher education financing within the single states is presented. In six states tuition fees will be introduced in 2007/08 and discussions are going on in even some more. In the second part of the paper an empirical analysis is done using longitudinal data from the German social pension system. The analysis over the whole lifecycle renders results which proof that the higher education advantages are quite remarkable and might be a justification for more intensified financing by tuition fees. But all this has to be embedded into an encompassing strategy of tax and social policy, especially to prevent a strengthened process of social selection, which would be counterproductive for an increased and highly qualified human capital in Germany.
The paper describes the exchange program in between the University of Wisconsin/ Milwaukee and the University of Potsdam in the field of economics. It discusses in detail the development of the program, including the problems and challenges. Additionally a brief description of the curriculum is presented. Then the future possibilities of the Transatlantic Degree Program (TDP) are discussed and the influences and problems of the Bologna process analysed.
Real costs of freight transportation have strong increased in Russia particularly during the period of price liberalization 1992–93. This paper investigates possible connections between rising transport costs and the evolution of the size structure of the system of cities in the Russian Federation and its federal subjects. Empirical findings suggest that under conditions of a closed system agglomeration processes according to the predictions of the model of Tabuchi et al. (2005) would have taken place especially in the periphere regions of the North and Far East.
This paper gives a review on the theoretical foundation for fiscal decentralisation and a status quo analysis of the intergovernmental relations in Mongolia. It consists of two parts. Part I briefly reviews the theories of fiscal decentralisation and its impact on the nations’ welfare considering the major challenges for a transition economy. Part II of the paper describes the general structure and scope of the government and examines the current fiscal autonomy in Mongolia focusing on the four main areas of intergovernmental relations. This paper concludes that local governments in Mongolia are still far away from having the political, administrative and fiscal autonomy. New approaches for the assignments of expenditures and revenues in Mongolia are urgently needed.
A casual look at regional unemployment rates reveals that there are vast differences, which cannot be explained by different institutional settings. Our paper attempts to trace these differences in the labor market performance back to the regions' specialization in products that are more or less advanced in their product cycle. The model we develop shows how individual profit and utility maximization endogenously yields higher employment levels in the beginning. In later phases, however, employment decreases in the presence of process innovation. Our model suggests that the only way to escape from this vicious circle is to specialize in products that are at the beginning of their "economic life". The model is based on an interaction of demand and supply side forces.
Do institutions matter?
(2006)
Contens 1 Introduction 2 Institutions and the Institutional Change 2.1 Institutions and Theoretical Concepts in Economics 2.2 Path Dependence 2.3 Inconsistence of Institutional Development 2.4 Determinants of Effectiveness 2.5 Efficiency of New Institutions 3 What is “Competition Policy”? 4 The Competition Policy in Russia as an Institution 4.1 Establishment of the Competition Policy as an Institution 4.2 Market Structure and Competition Policy 4.3 Measures of Competition Policy 4.3.1 Prohibition of Competition Restrictive Agreements or Concerted Actions 4.3.2 Abuse of Dominance 4.3.3 Merger Control 4.3.4 Restrictive Action to Competition of Administrative Bodies 4.4 Violations of the Competition Law 4.5 Problems of the Russian Competition Policy 5 Which Mistakes Russia has made with the Implementation of theCompetition Policy? 6 Is a Lacking Effectiveness of Transplanted Institutions Inevitable? 7 Concluding Remarks
Textbook wisdom says that competition yields lower prices and higher consumer surplus than monopoly. We show in two versions of a simple location-product differentiation model with and without endogenous choice of products that these two results have to be qualified. In both models, more than half of the reasonable parameter values lead to higher prices with duopoly than with monopoly. If the product characteristics are exogenous to the firms, consumers may even be be better off with monopoly in average.
Instability in competition
(2005)
In this paper we show that Puu (2002) does not provide a stable solution to the location game, according to his own definition of stability. If the usual two-stage game is considered, where in the first stage a location is chosen once and forever, and in the second stage prices are determined, the equilibrium proves stable for a sizeable interval of parameters, however. Even though this procedure is most common in analyzing Hotelling's location problem, it is not satisfying because it exhibits an inconsistent informational structure. The search for a better concept of stability is imperative.
This paper analyses the structural change in Russia during the transition from the planned to a market economy. With regard to the famous three sector hypothesis, broad economic sectors were formed as required by this theory. The computation of their shares at GNP at market prices using Input-Output tables, and the adjustment of results from distortions, generated as side effects of tax avoidance practices, shows results that clearly reject claims that Russia would be on the road to a post-industrial service economy. Instead, at least until 2001, a tendency of "primarisation" could be observed, that presents Russia closer to less-developed countries.
Many European countries have experienced a significant increase of unemployment in recent years. This paper reviews several theoretical models that try to explain this phenomenon. Predominantly, these models claim a link between the poor performance of European labor markets and the high level of market regulation. Commonly referred to as the Eurosclerosis debate, prominent approaches consider insider-outsider relationships, search-models, and the influence of hiring and firing costs on equilibrium employment. The paper presents empirical evidence of each model and studies the relevance of the identified rigidities as a determinant of high unemployment in Europe. Furthermore, a case study analyzes the unemployment problem in Germany and critically discusses new reform efforts. In particular this section analyzes whether the recently enacted Hartz reforms can induce higher employment.
Public pensions in the U.S.
(2005)
Contents: The Public Old Age Insurance of the U.S. -Historical overview -Technical details -Individual equity and social adequacy The Economic Problem of Old Age -Risks and economic security -Old age, retirement, and idividual precaution -Insurance markets, market failures, and social insurance -Options for public pension systems The Problems of Social Security -The financial balance of OASDI -Causes of the long-run problems -Rates of return -Conclusion - The case for Social Security reform Proposed Remedies -Full, partial, or no privatization? -The President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security -Kotlikoff's Personal Security System -The Diamond-Orszag Three-Part plan
Contents: Actors, Markets and Interest Groups in Health Services Private and Social Health Insurance in a Simple Model Misallocation and Malpractice in Social Health Care and Insurances -The UK Health Care System -The German Social Health Insurance System -Current Discussions: Intertemporal Perspective and Fundamental Change Interplay of Public and Private Health Insurance: Lessons for Countries in Transition Summary: The Necessary Steps to a Fundamental Reform
Revisiting public investment
(2004)
The consumption equivalence method is the theoretical basis of public cost-benefit analysis. Consumption equivalence public capital prices are explicitly introduces in order to sufficiently care for the opportunity cost of public expenditure. This can solve the dispute about the social rate of discount within public cost-benefit analysis witch was generated on a criterion looking similar to the capital value formula, known as Lind’s approach. The social rate of discount is liberated from opportunity costs considerations and the discounting away of the effects for future welfare vanishes. The corresponding question whether one should accept a positive value of the pure rate of social time preference is an old issue. Its current state between the prescriptive and descriptive view can also be interpreted as a consequence of the oversimplification of standard cost– benefit analysis. But apart from an economic self-process the pure rate of social time preference is also defined as a business-as-usual value of social distance discounting. Hence, a political choice has to be made about this rate which is free in principal.
Social segregation in cities takes place where different household groups exist and when, according to Schelling, their location choice either minimizes the number of differing households in their neighborhood or maximizes their own group. In this contribution an evolutionary simulation based on a monocentric city model with externalities among households is used to discuss the spatial segregation patterns of four groups. The resulting complex spatial patterns can be shown as graphic animations. They can be applied as initial situation for the analysis of the effects a rent control has on segregation.
Table of contens 1 Introduction 2 The concept of sustainability 2.1 Ecological sustainability 2.2 Social sustainability 2.3 Economic sustainability 2.4 The sustainability strategy of the german government 3 Effects of energy use on the enviromment 4 Requirements of the SSGG for energy policy 4.1 Ecological implications of thr SSGG 4.2 Social and economic requirements of the SSGG 5 The German Renewable Energies Act 5.1 Objectives 5.2 Design and mechanisms 5.3 Fees-in tariffs 6 Does the EEG meet the sustainability requirements of the SSGG? 6.1 Management rules 6.2 Social sustainability 6.3 Economic sustainability 6.4 Development tendencis 7 Possible amendments for more sustainability 7.1 Changing the promotional system 7.2 A European regulation
Economy vs. history
(2004)
The aim of this study is to examine in which cases economic forces or historical singularities prevail in the determination of the long-run distribution of firms. We develop a relatively general model of heterogenous firms' location choice in discrete space. The main force towards an agglomerated structure is the reduction of transaction costs for consumers if firms are located closely, whilst competition and transport costs work towards a more disperse structure. We then assess the importance of the initial conditions by simulating and comparing the resulting distribution of firms for identical economic parameters but varying initial settings. If the equilibrium distributions of firms are similar we conclude that economic forces have prevailed, while differences in the resulting distributions indicate that 'history' is more important. The (dis)similarity of distributions of firms is calculated by means of a measure, which exhibits a number of desirable features.
Usually, in monocentric city models, the spatial patterns of segregated ethnic groups are assumed to be ring-shaped, whereas in the 1930ies Hoyt showed that empirically wedge-shaped areas predominate. In contrast to Rose-Ackerman.s discussion of the in.uence within a ring-shaped pattern which the aversion which different households in the context of racism have, Yinger showed that, depending on the population mix, a wedge-shaped pattern may arise if it is border length which causes the spatial pattern. In this contribution, a simulation based on a monocentric city model with two or more different household groups is used to derive spatial patterns. Wedge-shaped segregation is shown to be the result of positive externalities among similar households. Differences between households only lead to ring-shaped patterns if the e¤ect of a city center on spatial structure dominates neighborhood e¤ects. If more than two groups of households are being considered, mixed patterns of concentric and wedge-shaped areas arise.
Optimal spatial patterns of two, three and four segregated household groups in a monocentric city
(2004)
Usually, in monocentric city models the spatial patterns of segregated household groups are assumed to be ring-shaped, while early in the 1930ies Hoyt showed that wedge-shaped areas empirically predominate. This contribution presents a monocentric city model with different household groups generating positive externalities within the groups. At first, border length is founded as a criterion of optimality. Secondly, it is shown that mixed patterns of concentric and wedge-shaped areas represent multiple equilibria if more than two groups of households are being considered. The welfare optimal segregated pattern depends on the relative purchasing power of different household groups.
Table of contents 1 Introduction 2 Ecological regulation and cost effectiveness 2.1 Climate policy 2.2 Promotion of renewable energies 3 Ecological regulation and security of supply 3.1 Climate policy 3.2 Promotion of renewable energies 4 The German Renewable Energies Act (EEG) 4.1 Objectives 4.2 Design and mechanisms 5 The European emissions trading system (EETS) 5.1 Objectives 5.2 Framework 6 The EEG and the EETS: trade off between ecological objectivesand cost effectiveness, innovation and security of supply? 6.1 EEG 6.2 EETS 6.3 Comparison between the approaches of the EEG and the EETS 7 Conclusions and outlook
In the recent years there are many researchs discussing the effects of trade policy (tariffs, subsidies etc.) in international trade. The results are manifold. Some authors show that trade policy has negative effects on welfare, some spatial economists demonstrate that trade policy can have positive effects on welfare. This paper considers the effects of the trade policy made by both countries participating in international trade in a spatial economic model. It can be showed that trade policy of both trade partners (tariffs of one country and export subsidies of the other country) can improve the world welfare in comparison with free trade.
An exhaustive and disjoint decomposition of social choice situations is derived in a general set theoretical framework using the new tools of the Lifted Pareto relation on the power set of social states representing a pre-choice comparison of choice option sets. The main result is the classification of social choice situations which include three types of social choice problems. First, we usually observe the common incompleteness of the Pareto relation. Second, a kind of non-compactness problem of a choice set of social states can be generated. Finally, both can be combined. The first problem root can be regarded as natural everyday dilemma of social choice theory whereas the second may probably be much more due to modeling technique implications. The distinction is enabled at a very general set theoretical level. Hence, the derived classification of social choice situations is applicable on almost every relevant economic model.
Existing theoretical literature fails to explain the differences between the pay of workers that are covered by union agreements and others who are not. This study aims at closing this gap by a single general- equilibrium approach that integrates a dual labor market and a two- sector product market. Our results suggest that the so called 'union wage gap' is largely determined by the degree of centralization of the bargains, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, by the expenditure share of the unionized sector's goods.
(De)regulatory interventions frequently have unintended cross- market effects, which may or may not be desirable. We assess the effects of three policies on aggregate variables, in particular real income, from a theoretical perspective. Our results suggest that instruments acting upon wages have only a weak impact on real income, whereas the distribution of income is affected strongly. In contrast, a policy that enhances product market competition is fostering real income, but also impacts strongly on union wages and the distribution of income.
This study examines how the size of trade unions relative to the la- bor force impacts on the desirability of different organizational forms of self-financing unemployment insurance (UI) for workers, firms, and with reference to an efficiency criterion. For this purpose, we respectively nu- merically compare the outcome of a model with a uniform payroll tax to a model where workers pay taxes according to their systematic risk of unemployment. Our results highlight the importance of the bargaining structure for the assessment of a particular UI scheme. Most importantly, it depends on the size of the unions whether efficiency favors a uniform or a differentiated UI scheme.
We examine the effects of regionalising the budget of unemployment insurance (UI) on wages, employment, and on UI parameters, which, for their part, determine the agents’ preferences concerning such a reform. A numerical example shows that, under reasonable assumptions, the intuition that the reform would enhance efficiency and improve the economic situation of agents from the low- unemployment region to the disadvantage of agents from the high- unemployment region is not valid in general.
Our analysis is concerned with the impact of a regionalisation of unemployment insurance (UI) on workers’ preferences, on firms’ profits, and on effciency. The existence and the extent of UI are endogenously derived by maximising an objective function of the state. Three different types of regionalisation are considered which differ with respect to the area the UI objective function is related to, and with respect to the policy variable used to maximise it. It comes to light that workers are always in favour of central UI, while it depends on the type of regionalisation whether or not firms are better off with regional or with central UI. The same somewhat surprising result applies for efficiency.