With the increasing environmental degradation in spaces most affected by climate change such as the Arctic, and the extension of anthropogenic environmental problems even into the Earth’s orbit, international law is confronted with some unprecedented challenges. Much of the legal dialogue surrounding this question is taking place in the abstract, such that there are no exact proposals for methodological and practical applications in lawmaking. In this Article, I argue that current governance relevant to the Arctic and outer space precedes an understanding of these spaces. Critical posthumanism, and other approaches, point out the continuation of strict boundaries that have been set up between the human body and the environment. International law’s formalist doctrinal deductions exacerbate these boundaries. I propose an approach to lawmaking under a broad term: the cosmolegal. The cosmolegal proposal challenges distinctions between human-made and non-human “laws”—scientific and social laws—and questions the foundational determination of both. The framework I suggest in this Article, therefore, requires a new approximation to accuracy in lawmaking, which could be achieved by greater interdisciplinarity and acceptance of ontological pluralism. This Article is divided into two broader sections. The first section focuses on two environmental problems: A) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the Arctic and B) orbital debris. The second section argues for a different ontology of law and human self-understanding in the context of the unknown. It proposes “cosmolegality” in an attempt to approximate the inclusion and representation of ‘everything considered to be non-human.

This Article undertakes the conceptual analysis of the right to breathe clean air, concentrating predominantly on the perplexities of this highly important environmental right. In its first part, this Article brings forward a few aspects illustrating general ambiguity and imprecision of the right. As will be shown, it is quite troublesome to firmly indicate which foundations (legal v. moral) or character (individual v. collective) the right to breathe clean air has, as well as to which category (generations of human rights) it belongs to. Similarly, its temporal determination (present-day v. future) is uncertain, and it is easy to confuse or conflate the substantive right with procedural rights. In the second part, this Article identifies and describes more serious and specific difficulties surrounding the right, which negatively influence conceiving the right to breathe clean air as a legal right. In the beginning, the reference is made to its nonautonomous character. Subsequently, this Article explores the issues of the content of the right, outlining problems with the meaning, the indeterminacy of the subjects of the said right, and its absence at the international level. Finally, this Article highlights hurdles concerning the enforceability of the right. This Article concludes that, at present, it is troublesome to conceptualize the right to breathe clean air as hard law, however, the situation may change in the future.

This Article frames the precautionary principle as an inner limit to the EU institutions’ broad discretion in the field of EU risk regulation, contextualizing recourse to the principle against the more encompassing backdrop of socially acceptable risk approaches. On these grounds, it inquires to what extent the precautionary principle may be successfully invoked in challenges to acts which are deemed insufficiently protective. The opening sections set the ground for the analysis. The third section analyzes challenges to regulatory acts, arguing that the Court has followed a quantitative threshold approach. This is legally tenable and appropriate; however, it cannot do justice to the true nature of the precautionary principle. The following sections analyze cases involving legislative acts. This includes an in-depth examination of the recent Blaise case, which has put judicial review of compliance with the precautionary principle under the spotlight. Against this overall background, this Article concludes that judicial review can hardly do justice to the precautionary principle, as applicable to the risk management process and underpinning EU legislative frameworks. It will ultimately rest on EU risk managers and EU legislators to ensure that the principle is applied and that its overarching goals are pursued.

Constitutional amendment difficulty or rigidity has generated extensive literature in recent times, both conceptually and empirically. Although constitutional scholars seem divided about the importance and significance of amendment limits, there has been a proliferation of indicators and statistical analysis. In this Article, while recognizing the normative debate, we provide an empirical exploration for thirty-seven countries based on factor analysis of both formal procedural rules—usually the focus of empirical work—and substantial amendment rules—which are less developed in the quantitative literature. We discuss the existing contradictions across available indicators. Implications for the literature are derived.

Challenging the assumption of perfect legal knowledge, this Article employs social psychology to better understand how individuals make decisions about legal compliance under imperfect information conditions. It adapts the informational aspects of “social influence conception of criminal deterrence” to regulatory compliance at large. However, it conceptualizes social influence as more than just “visible deterrence.” Social Psychology helps us to understand who, how many, and what kind of behaviors constitute adequate social proof to guide an individual’s decision on compliance. Additionally, the interaction of social proof and legal compliance is considered within a dynamic framework in relation to specific rules and across the system. Within this framework, compliance/non-compliance cascades across different rules and can create a perception about legal compliance at large, which in turn guides initial expectations with respect to new laws. Over time, this can create high/low compliance equilibriums within which societies operate. Understanding this informational role that social influence plays in legal compliance can further our understanding of what motivates compliance, the potency of the expressive functions of law in societies operating within different compliance equilibriums, and inform policy discussions on how to improve compliance—both voluntary and through sanction/incentives.

In contrast to traditional extradition law, the political offense exemption has been abolished within the framework of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). Notwithstanding its overall success, the EAW does not constitute an adequate instrument with regard to political offenses. In light of the recent case of the former Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, the abolition has proven to be too hasty and the justificatory force behind the principles of mutual trust and recognition is, with respect hereto, rather limited. The damage caused to these principles by upholding the exemption would be negligible, given the small number of cases—Puigdemont being the first political offender requested under the aegis of the EAW. However, the potential benefits are substantial, given that the exemption provides for a higher level of human rights protection—analogous to the values of European Union (EU). Solely relying on the double criminality requirement in order to properly take into account the specificities of the Member States’ legal systems essentially positions the judges at the forefront of where mutual trust and constitutional identity collide. Moreover, the exemption prevents states from intervening in other states’ internal political conflicts, through the medium of criminal law.

As a reaction to the killing and beheading of two soldiers in the Syrian Civil War, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) set a milestone in the interpretation of § 8(1) no. 9 of the German Code of Crimes against International Law (VStGB). The judges confirmed the conviction of a young German citizen with Syrian roots, Aria L., who had been tried and convicted before the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main (Oberlandesgericht (OLG) Frankfurt am Main). Within the certiorari, the BGH reviewed whether the statute conformed with the principle of legality found within the Grundgesetz (GG), Germany’s constitution. The Court held that the corpse of a person killed is protected from desecration under humanitarian law pursuant to § 8(1) no. 9 VStGB, the equivalent to Article 8(2)(b)(xxi) and (3)(ii) of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court (ICC). Reviewing this particular decision, it was determined that under the circumstances of a non-international armed conflict, beheading someone, placing the head on a metal rod, and taking pictures afterward in order to upload them onto social media is gravely humiliating and degrading. The head is incomparably the part of the body that identifies a person. Furthermore, it is irrelevant whether the perpetrator had any physical influence over the person. In addition, war crimes can be committed in a non-international conflict, which should, however, be treated equally as an international conflict. This outcome triggered diverse reactions amongst legal scholars, especially due to the extension of the understanding of a “person” who is to be protected under humanitarian law.

The Regional Court of Berlin (Landgericht (LG) Berlin) was the first court in Germany to mete out a life sentence for murder—pursuant to § 211 German Criminal Code (StGB)—to two men convicted of killing an uninvolved driver whose car they hit while they were participating in an illegal car race on a public highway. Upon their convictions, the defendants appealed to the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof; BGH) claiming that they did not intend to kill the person and were thus acting without the necessary mens rea for murder. The question whether or not the case could be qualified as murder, and thus whether or not the existence of a killing with intent had been sufficiently proven by the LG Berlin, was the subject of several appeals and retrials. In its latest decision, the BGH confirmed the murder conviction of one of the defendants, while quashing the other defendant’s conviction and issuing a retrial. This case caused ripples amongst legal scholars as it called for the toughest possible sanctions to be imposed. However, whether the conduct qualifies as murder remains questionable. As a reaction to several similar cases of illegal car races in recent years, the German parliament subsequently passed a new law—§ 315d StGB—proscribing illegal vehicle races, thereby penalizing the participation, organization, or carrying out of an illegal vehicle race. Until that point there had been no provision criminalizing illegal racing.

Freedom is one of the fundamental rights enshrined in Art. 2(2)(2) of the German Constitution. However, nearly 30,000 remand prisoners were incarcerated in pre-trial detention in Germany in 2017 pending trial. Due to the presumption of innocence, remand prisoners are subjected to a flagrant violation of their constitutional right to freedom. After outlining the legal pre-requisites of pre-trial detention under German law, this article addresses various legal areas of conflict arising from periods of prolonged pre-trial detention by examining a case brought before the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany in 2018. At the same time, the article demonstrates how severely pre-trial detention affects the personal lives of remand prisoners. The longer any such period of pre-trial detention lasts, the more important the question is whether this deprivation of liberty can be justified. Over the past few years, the number of cases involving protracted pre-trial detention has increased dramatically due to overworked courts. By emphasizing that a lack of judicial resources cannot justify lengthy terms of pre-trial detention, this article highlights the importance of the fundamental right to freedom of each and every one of us.