about the center

The research center is engaged in fundamental issues of public international law and law in general, including the concept of law, the formation of unwritten norms, the interpretation of treaties and customary law, and the actors involved in them and their interaction with each other.

Neither the concept of law nor the various legal norms refer to fixed objects. Rather, there is a wide array of differing definitions of law and different conceptions of a norm's normative content. Therefore, neither the emergence of legal norms nor their interpretation is about knowledge, but about authoritative processes (law-making) of an ethical, economic and political character, which sheds new light on the phenomenon of soft law and leads to its symbiosis with hard law. These processes are studied in an interdisciplinary manner, involving philosophy, linguistics, political science and sociology.

The research builds on earlier work by the director of the research center, in particular: Ulrich Fastenrath, Lücken im Völkerrecht - zu Rechtscharakter, Quellen, Systemzusammenhang, Methodenlehre und Funktionen des Völkerrechts (Lacunae in Public International Law - on the legal nature, sources, systemic coherence, methods, and functions of public international law), Berlin 1991; Ulrich Fastenrath, Relative normativity in international law, European Journal of International Law 4 (1993), 305-340; Ulrich Fastenrath, A political theory of international law, in Fastenrath et al. (eds), From bilaterlism to community interest - Essays in honour of Jugde Bruno Simma, Oxford 2011, p. 58-78.

The analysis of law-making processes opens deeper insights into the role of the state and other subjects of public international law in law-making and law enforcement. While states remain actors of high auhority, they cannot conclusively determine the content of public international law. Moreover, the conception of the state is generally subject to change, both within the framework of public international law and in the relationship of national law to international law. This must be considered by research. To this end, in particular the case law of the German Federal Constitutional Court is critically examined.

This research expands on earlier work of the director of the research center in an interdiscipinary fashion, inter alia: Ulrich Fastenrath, Kompetenzverteilung im Bereich der auswärtigen Gewalt (allocation of competences in the field of foreign affairs), Munich 1986; commentary on articles 32 and 59 in the Berlin Commentary on the Basic Law (together with Thomas Groh); review of the Treaty Override ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court, JuristenZeitung 2016, 636-640.