‘Legal Critique’: Elements for a Genealogy

While teachers and students of law tend to take for granted that critical legal campaigning originates in the late 20th century, many historians suggest that the summons of law and its state of accusation before the tribunal of critique dates back to the days of the Enlightenment. I am arguing, in contrast, that, in the West, the history of legal critique is by no means shorter than the history of law; that Western legal evolution embraces and supposes anti-legalism or ‘antinomianism’ since the days of early Christianity and throughout; that, conversely, an adequate assessment of Christianity must stress its character as an anti-institutional, anti-legal, and anti-religious campaign; that the standard view of Humanism, Enlightenment, and Modernity, which tends to foreground their antagonism to Christian institutions and to deny their nature as instantiations of the Christian campaign, misses the crucial point both about them and about Christianity (and, implicitly at least, about geopolitics); that key concepts of political modernity thrust their roots, not only and not most importantly into Political Theology, but rather into Saint Paul’s legal ‘new deal’; that, far from giving rise, as intended, to a deactivation of law, Paul’s action has resulted, instead, in the interlinking build-up of a militant denial of law on the one hand, and an emerging intensification of law on the other hand. Let the reader be warned that the article strings together a bouquet of snap-shots from a work in progress.     

Fall from a Balcony—Accidental or Homicidal? Reconstruction by Numerical Simulation

In the case presented, conflicting witness accounts and the subject's injuries were highly suspicious of an assault that might have caused the balcony fall. For the reconstruction, a simulation software, originally designed for motor vehicle accident reconstruction, was used. Three scenarios were simulated using the PC‐Crash multibody pedestrian model: (S1) Subject was pushed against and fell over balcony rail, (S2) subject fell off from a seated position, (S3) subject fell off from a prone position on the rail. (S1) could be ruled out due to inconsistent results in terms of landing area and minimum velocity. Realistic results were obtained for (S3) with a fall off from a prone position on the rail. After a few months, the comatose subject awoke and gave an account of what had happened being consistent with the simulation results. This case demonstrates the feasibility of multibody simulations also in cases of nontraffic incidents.     

A New Phase of European Integration: Organised Capitalisms in Post-Ricardian Europe

In the past, economic integration in Europe was largely compatible with the preservation of different national varieties of capitalism. While product market integration intensified competition, member states could build on and foster their respective comparative advantage. Today, this no longer unequivocally holds true. This article contends that a new, ‘post-Ricardian’ phase of European integration has emerged in which the Commission's and the European Court of Justice's (ECJ's) attempts to promote economic integration systematically challenge the institutions of organised capitalism. It demonstrates this by discussing recent disputes over the Services Directive, the Takeover Directive, and company law. In the current phase of European integration, the Commission's and the ECJ's liberalisation attempts either transform the institutional foundations on which some of the member states' economic systems rely or they create political resistance to an extent that challenges the viability of the European project.     

EU-Klimapaket als vorläufiger Höhepunkt der EU-Umweltpolitik

Natur und Recht - Als Fortführung des European Green Deal wurde am 14.7.2021 das bisher umfangreichste Klimapaket der Europäischen Kommission vorgestellt: Das Klimapaket “Fit For...