Suchergebnisse

Dieses Buch gibt Antworten darauf, wie in Zeiten von Facebook und Fake News der verfassungsrechtliche Schutz des freien öffentlichen Diskurses gelingen kann. Es untersucht, wie die Verfassung auf einen nicht mehr nur durch Rundfunk und Presse klassischen Zuschnitts, sondern auch durch eine Vielzahl Einzelner organisierten massenmedialen Diskurs reagiert und wie das Verständnis der den Diskurs prägenden verfassungsrechtlichen Bausteine aktualisiert werden kann. Die technischen und wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen massenmedialer Kommunikation haben sich fundamental gewandelt. Das vorherrschende verfassungsdogmatische Schutzkonzept - ein "Ersatzmodell von Freiheit" - kann diesem Wandel nicht ausreichend Rechnung tragen. Der Einzelne muss heute nicht mehr nur vor, sondern auch in seiner Medienmacht geschützt werden. Ausgehend von kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen wird ein verfassungsrechtliches Verständnis entwickelt, das den Einzelnen wieder ins Zentrum eines freien massenmedialen Diskurses rückt

It seemed that Court of Justice of the European Union wanted to make it short and sweet: It took the Grand Chamber in its Achmea Decision less than fifteen pages to conclude that Investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS), as we know it, shall belong to the past, at least in an intra-EU context. Finito della musica? Not quite!

It seemed that Court of Justice of the European Union wanted to make it short and sweet: It took the Grand Chamber in its Achmea Decision less than fifteen pages to conclude that Investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS), as we know it, shall belong to the past, at least in an intra-EU context. Finito della musica? Not quite!

Currently, we can observe an increasing number of so-called investor-state arbitrations on the basis of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) concluded between Member States. The arbitral awards rendered, binding on the Member State involved, challenge the uniform application of EU law by largely disregarding it. This paper suggests that intra-EU investment tribunals are clearly mistaken in doing so. In principle, they have to apply EU law along with the provisions of the applicable intra-EU BIT. Moreover, in case of conflict, EU law takes precedence over the inter-se treaty of the Member States. It is moreover argued that intra-EU investment tribunals should be allowed (and obliged) to refer questions for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) pursuant to Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) as, like domestic courts, they decide implicitly or explicitly in a binding fashion, inter alia, whether the exercise of governmental powers towards the investor was permissible or even obligatory by EU law standards. If, however, the CJEU should find to the contrary or if the Court perceived investor-state arbitration as a disguised state-to-state infringement procedure within the meaning of Article 259 TFEU, the arbitration clause in an intra-EU BIT cannot be reconciled with the European Treaties and must, hence, be disregarded by the investment tribunal to the extent that the tribunal is confronted with questions relating to the interpretation and application of EU law.

If it is true that territorial coercive governmental force remains the hallmark of governance in the internet age then it should be the territorial constitution that directs but also restrains this force. While already considerable thought has been devoted to the issue of how the reading of certain fundamental rights and constitutional principles and the understanding of their underlying values contained in territorial constitutions might have changed due to the emergence of the internet technology and possible resulting changes in social behavior, this study chooses a different, in respect of the internet so far not sufficiently explored avenue. At the heart of this study lies the question of what internet-related legislation and regulation do to constitutions. More precisely, this study wants to look at whether, where and how fundamental rights and constitutional principles ("constitutional issue areas") have been limited or bolstered by internet-related legislation and regulation ("internet-related norms"). A constitution does not only form governmental legislation and regulation, but governmental legislation and regulation also significantly shape the understanding of principles and beliefs underlying the constitutional issue areas and, in the end, will also alter the reading of the constitutional issue areas itself. This having said it becomes reasonably clear that it is only by identifying such internet- related norms which are able to shape our reading of constitutional issue areas that a society is put in the position to thoroughly discuss underlying principles and beliefs before legislation or regulation tacitly transform, first, our understanding of principles and beliefs and, later on, the reading of the constitutional issue areas. However, this study does not (yet) want to trace how, for example, the incremental expansion of data retention legislation is altering our understanding of the normative constitutional concept of the right to privacy. The primary purpose of this study is a somewhat more ...