Papers by Matthias Goldmann
Leiden journal of international law, Apr 2, 2024
A visible sign of changing relations between the Global South and Global North are reparation cla... more A visible sign of changing relations between the Global South and Global North are reparation claims for colonial injustice. An interesting case is the 1904-1907 Namibian Genocide. Germany has recently concluded a draft agreement with Namibia on reconciliation and compensation. Nevertheless, Germany maintains that it is not under any legal obligation to pay reparations. This article challenges that position, arguing that colonial international law was far too ambiguous to support this conclusion. For this purpose, the article contrasts this 'conventional view' of colonial international law with post-colonial and pluralistic approaches. Post-colonial approaches reveal colonial-era law as a deeply ambiguous, contradictory practice that mirrors the identity crisis of the colonizers. Pluralistic approaches juxtapose colonial international law with autochtonous views of inter-polity law, i.e., the normative framework governing colonial encounters. To reconstruct autochtonous views, the article draws on letters by Hendrik Witbooi and Maharero, traditional leaders from Namibia, and examines the contours of their inter-polity law relating to territorial sovereignty and warfare. These contending perspectives undermine the cogency with which the conventional view rejects reparation claims. While ambiguity as such does not give rise to compensation claims, other options come to mind, such as a duty to negotiate, shifts in the burden of proofor a profound recalibration of international law towards greater solidarity.
International Organizations Law Review, 2008
Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht, 2010
Concept.- Developing the Publicness of Public International Law: Towards a Legal Framework for Gl... more Concept.- Developing the Publicness of Public International Law: Towards a Legal Framework for Global Governance Activities.- From Public International Law to International Public Law: A Comment on the #x201C Public Authority#x201D of International Institutions and the #x201C Publicness#x201D of their Law.- To Tame and to Frame.- International Bureaucracies from a Political Science Perspective #x2013 Agency, Authority and International Institutional Law.- Thematic Studies: The Exercise of Public Authority through Instruments Concerning Indivduals - Decisions.- The UN Security Council Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee: Emerging Principles of International Institutional Law for the Protection of Individuals?.- WIPO#x2019 s International Registration of Trademarks: An International Administrative Act Subject to Examination by the Designated Contracting Parties.- International Institutions and Individualized Decision-Making: An Example of UNHCR#x2019 s Refugee Status Determination.- Thematic Studies: The Exercise of Public Authority through Instruments Concerning Indivduals - Recommendations.- Effective Governance through Decentralized Soft Implementation: The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.- Thematic Studies: The Exercise of Public Authority through Instruments Concerning Indivduals - Information.- The Administration of Information in International Administrative Law #x2013 The Example of Interpol.- Thematic Studies: The Exercise of Public Authority through Instruments Concerning Indivdual States - Decisions.- Flexibility and Legitimacy #x2014 The Emissions Trading System under the Kyoto Protocol.- The UNESCO Regime for the Protection of World Heritage as Prototype of an Autonomy-Gaining International Institution.- The UNESCO Regime for the Protection of World Heritage.- Thematic Studies: The Exercise of Public Authority through Instruments Concerning Indivdual States - Recommendations.- Regulating Minority Issues through Standard-Setting and Mediation: The Case of the High Commissioner on National Minorities.- Thematic Studies: The Exercise of Public Authority through Instruments Concerning Indivdual States - Information.- Governance through Promotion and Persuasion: The 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.- The WTO Committee on Trade in Financial Services: The Exercise of Public Authority within an Informational Forum.- The Exercise of Public Authority through General Instruments: Secondary Law.- The Administration of the Vocabulary of International Trade: The Adaptation of WTO Schedules to Changes in the Harmonized System.- Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) #x2013 Conservation Efforts Undermine the Legality Principle.- The Exercise of Public Authority through General Instruments: International Public Standards.- Legal Challenges of Non-binding Instruments: The Case of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.- Why Would International Administrative Activity Be Any Less Legitimate? #x2014 A Study of the Codex Alimentarius Commission.- The Exercise of Public Authority through General Instruments: Public Authority through Private Law Instruments.- ICANN #x2013 Governance by Technical Necessity.- International Administration of Holocaust Compensation: The International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC).- Cross-Cutting Analyses.- Inside Relative Normativity: From Sources to Standard Instruments for the Exercise of International Public Authority.- Goldmann Variations.- General Principles of International Public Authority: Sketching a Research Field.- Is There a Global Administrative Law?.- Procedures of Decision-Making and the Role of Law in International Organizations.- The Contributions by Jochen von Bernstorff and by Maja Smrkolj.- The Enforcement Authority of International Institutions.- The Enforcement Authority of International Institutions #x2013 Some Remarks and Suggestions for Further Analysis.- Holding International Institutions Accountable: The Complementary Role of Non-Judicial Oversight Mechanisms and Judicial Review.- International Composite Administration: Conceptualizing Multi-Level and Network Aspects in the Exercise of International Public Authority.- International Composite Administration.- Legitimacy of International Law and the Exercise of Administrative Functions: The Example of the International Seabed Authority, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and International Fisheries Organizations.- Context.- The Internationalization of Administrative Relations as a Challenge for Administrative Law Scholarship.- Procedural Due Process of Law Beyond the State.
Social Science Research Network, 2022
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Feb 22, 2019
Social Science Research Network, 2022
![Research paper thumbnail of Matthias Goldmann, Review of Bénédicte Savoy, Afrikas Kampf um seine Kunst. Geschichte einer postkolonialen Niederlage [Africa’s Fight for Its Cultural Heritage: History of a Postcolonial Defeat]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/117455565/thumbnails/1.jpg)
European Journal of International Law
From the movie Black Panther to Emanuel Macron's 2017 Ouagadougou speech, restituting looted art ... more From the movie Black Panther to Emanuel Macron's 2017 Ouagadougou speech, restituting looted art to former colonial territories and protectorates is all the rage. A hotspot of recent debate is Germany, provoked by the opening of the freshly reconstructed Hohenzollern Castle right in the centre of Berlin, the former imperial capital and host of the 1884 Berlin Congress that sealed the European conquest of Africa, much to the delight of the German emperor. Unwilling or unable to understand the implications of their choice, the curators decided the castle should host an anthropological museum, whose collections include plenty of controversial artefacts that were taken from their countries of origin in a colonial context. The ensuing restitution claims caught the museum off-guard, leading to a rear-guard battle that finally prompted the recent restitution of some sculptures taken by force from ancient Benin by the British in 1897 and bought by Germans on the art market. In her much-noted book, Bénédicte Savoy shows that the curators should have known better. The recent debate is to an incredible extent a mere revenant of an older, but largely forgotten, wave of restitution claims spanning from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s that produced underwhelming results. Savoy reconstructs the rise and fall of this earlier debate in chronological order. Each chapter focuses on one year and one remarkable event. Rather than rehashing each chapter in some detail, this review zooms in on the cross-cutting themes that emerge.
Governments, economists and intellectuals have called for common European bonds or increased own ... more Governments, economists and intellectuals have called for common European bonds or increased own EU funds to address the recession induced by Covid19. Unfortunately, the German government, joined by the other members of the "Frugal Four" (Austria, Finland, the Netherlands), has categorically rejected to look into any such measures and favours using the ESM. This reaction created a déjà vu experience for citizens and governments of the heavily affected southern Member States of the EU. The proposal to use the ESM raises fears of another wave of austerity amounting to yet another lost decade for economic, social, and ecological development in Europe. Meanwhile, however, even some members of the Christian Democrats raise doubts about the strategy of their leaders. The understanding that the Corona crisis combines multiple risks, including financial instability, migration, and authoritarianism, seems to gain ground. Consequently, any response will require greater European solidarity, which has been fundamentally absent. When the Eurogroup meets on Tuesday, April 7, it will be decided whether the idea of Corona bonds will be consigned to the scrap heap of history. Should Europe continue on the path of austerity, the European Union will have to ask itself to what extent it still contributes to "Europe as a Way of Life", as Tony Judt famously called the postwar European welfare state model.
Seit Dezember 2010 stehen die politischen und gesellschaftlichen Umbrüche in Nordafrika und im Na... more Seit Dezember 2010 stehen die politischen und gesellschaftlichen Umbrüche in Nordafrika und im Nahen Osten im Fokus der Weltöffentlichkeit. Der Arabische Frühling hat nahezu alle Staaten in der Region erfasst, wenn auch in unterschiedlichem Ausmaß und mit unterschiedlichem Verlauf: In Tunesien und Ägypten etwa führten die Proteste in einem verhältnismäßig kurzen Zeitraum und relativ friedlich zum Sturz des jeweiligen Staatsoberhauptes. In Libyen hingegen versuchte Muammar al-Gaddafi die Proteste gewaltsam zu unterdrücken, es kam zu einem Bürgerkrieg und zu einer kontrovers diskutierten militärischen Intervention der NATO auf der Grundlage eines Mandats des UN-Sicherheitsrates. Nach den Umstürzen stellt sich nunmehr die Frage, in welche politische und gesellschaftliche Richtung sich die betroffenen Staaten entwickeln werden und wie sie mit dem Erbe der Vorgängerregime umgehen sollen. In Syrien hingegen war die Situation im Zeitpunkt der Drucklegung noch offen. Weder vermochte es die ...
Nicht nur die Geräuschkulisse des Brexits absorbierte ein Stück weit die Aufmerksamkeit für das U... more Nicht nur die Geräuschkulisse des Brexits absorbierte ein Stück weit die Aufmerksamkeit für das Urteil des Europäischen Gerichtshofs (EuGH) zur Zulässigkeit des Anleihenkaufprogramms der EZB. Denn immerhin entschied Luxemburg damit über eine der nach wie vor seltenen Vorlagen aus Karlsruhe. Dazu mag auch beigetragen haben, dass seit der Stellungnahme des Generalanwalts Wathelet nicht mehr damit gerechnet wurde, dass der EuGH der Europäischen Zentralbank (EZB) einen sprichwörtlichen Strich durch die Rechnung machen würde. Dennoch ist das Urteil aus einigen Gründen bemerkenswert.
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Papers by Matthias Goldmann
The introduction, entitled 'The Life of International Law and its Concepts', is a standalone piece that grapples with the relation between legal concepts, life and living in international law. First, we briefly explore the contemporary malaise in international law’s disciplinary life, in and for which this book emerges. We urge a sensibility that sees working on international law’s concepts as opening up a range of possibilities in how we may act, live, know, see and understand within and towards the discipline. Second, we offer an overview into how legal thought has, in its diversity, approached legal concepts. We aim to draw out those sensibilities that remain prevalent in today’s legal writings on concepts, whilst also pointing to the limits, nuances and fractures of these sensibilities. In this regard we offer detailed readings, criticisms and extensions of texts by Jhering, Hohfeld, Ross, Cohen, Kennedy, Koskenniemi, and Marks to name but a few. These readings primarily point to the intricate and intractable difficulties of reconciling concepts with social life. They also point to a series of shifting and entwined aesthetic, ethical and political presuppositions that dominate the various ways in which we approach legal concepts today. In showing the diversity of legal sensibilities towards legal concepts, we hope to not only open up the various possibilities and limits of these sensibilities, but to point towards the intellectual cultural resources at the modern scholar’s disposal. Third, and finally, we offer an introduction to the volume itself. Here we outline how we chose its concepts, the types of concepts contained therein, and how we see the complex relations between different concepts.
We have arranged the special issue in order to reflect certain debates. Thus, the special issue begins with a debate between two contemporary German theories of law by Jürgen Habermas (Goldmann and Steininger) and Niklas Luhmann (Viellechner). Next is a transatlantic debate between rational choice conceptions of law (Towfigh) and ideas of constitutional pluralism (Avbelj). Different traditions of mostly Anglo-Saxon liberalism are reflected in the contribution by Suttle. Eventually, three contributions engage with conceptions of law in neoliberalism and ordoliberalism and the way they have shaped our perceptions of public finance, including budgetary rules, taxes, and money (Biebricher, Saffie, Feichtner).
To connect theory with life, each contribution elaborates its salient theoretical points by using an example of a particular case study or issue area that faces challenges in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Thus, while all articles address the law’s capacity to accommodate both democracy and capitalism, each individually contributes to the development of law and policy in a particular issue area. Topics range from sovereign debt issues (Goldmann and Steininger, Viellechner, Suttle) to budgetary restrictions (Biebricher), banking regulation (Avbelj), money and the ECB (Towfigh and Feichtner), and taxes (Saffie).
Jede Herrschaftsordnung bedarf der Legitimation. Das Werk befasst sich mit der Legitimation derjenigen Instrumente internationaler Institutionen, die nicht zum verbindlichen Völkerrecht gehören, deren Anzahl und Bedeutung mit der Globalisierung massiv angestiegen sind. Dazu zählen das Soft Law, aber auch Informationsakte wie Indikatoren oder Indizes. Legitimationsbedürftig, so die These, sind neben dem verbindlichen Völkerrecht alle Akte, die als „internationale öffentliche Gewalt“ einzustufen sind. Dieser Begriff wird auf Grundlage der Diskurstheorie von Jürgen Habermas konzipiert, die dazu in einigen Punkten fortzuentwickeln ist. Das Werk entwirft sodann eine Handlungsformenlehre, mit der sich der abstrakte Begriff der internationalen öffentlichen Gewalt auf vergleichbare Instrumentenkategorien herunterbrechen lässt, die durch ein einheitliches Rechtsregime legitimiert werden können. Am Beispiel der PISA-Studie demonstriert es, wie diese sich durch Konzeption einer Handlungsform „staatliche Politikbewertung“ rechtlich einhegen lässt.
Die deutsche Öffentlichkeit und die deutsche Völkerrechtswissenschaft sind derzeit im Kontext geopolitischer Verschiebungen in einer tiefgreifenden Neujustierung ihres Zugriffs auf die koloniale Vergangenheit begriffen. Vor diesem Hintergrund verhandelt Deutschland derzeit mit der namibischen Regierung über Entschädigungen wegen des Genozids an den Herero und Nama in den Jahren 1904 bis 1907. Allerdings sieht der überwiegende Teil der deutschen Rechtswissenschaft die Bundesregierung nur moralisch, aber nicht rechtlich zu Schadensersatz verpflichtet. Demnach handle es sich bei dem Genozid um einen nach deutschem Recht, nicht nach Völkerrecht zu beurteilenden Vorgang. Selbst wenn man die Anwendbarkeit des damaligen Völkerrechts voraussetze, sei es zumindest nicht in einer Weise verletzt worden, auf die sich die Nachfahren der Opfer berufen könnten. Der Beitrag fordert diese Sichtweise heraus, indem er ihr die Ambivalenz des Kolonialrechts entgegenhält, welches von den Widersprüchen der damaligen Gesellschaft durchzogen ist. Diese Spannungen sollten in der Rückschau nicht überspielt werden. Zudem stellt auch das europäische
Völkerrecht nur eine mögliche Perspektive der rechtlichen Aufarbeitung dar. Anhand der Schriften von Hendrik Witbooi und Maharero versucht der Beitrag eine Rekonstruktion ihrer Rechtsauffassungen und stellt
diese den Befunden des kolonialzeitlichen Völkerrechts gegenüber. Das hieraus resultierende vielschichtige Bild dürfte einen guten Ausgangspunkt für Verhandlungen über Entschädigungen auf Augenhöhe bilden.
English abstract: Since President Macron‘s speech in Ouagadougu in 2017, European states can no longer avoid the question as to whether and to what extent cultural artefacts from formerly dependent territories should be restituted. At the same time, doubts about the role of law in this debate increase. Since the principles of intertemporal law would necessitate the application of legal rules from the past considered today as “unjust”, many advocate setting aside the law and finding political solutions. But what to expect from them under prevailing power imbalances? This article therefore examines the potential of legal provenance research inspired by postcolonial theory to inform the restitution debate. This perspective not only questions factual misconceptions underlying the application of colonial law. It also reveals the contingency and ambiguity of colonial law resulting from impossibility of legitimizing oppression by law. As a result, colonial law turns out to be far less monolithic. The resulting ambiguity may give rise to different understandings of the law and enable legal interpretations that take into account the further development of the law up to the present day. The article then explains this method by reference to the Pergamon Altar, the bust of Nefertiti and artefacts from present-day Namibia. In each of these cases, it reveals serious doubts as to the legality of the acquisition. The case studies indicate that current restitution practice is based more on the cultural significance of the object for Germany than on legal criteria. Processes of cultural appropriation and othering seem decisive for current restitution practice.
is usually misattributed. While European law has had little impact on international legal doctrine, and while European integration has remained unique as a political project, European law and the process of European integration have served international law as an important progress narrative. In this respect, they have had an influence on important background understandings characterizing international law since the postwar era, including on the perception of international law as universal, autonomous, pluralistic, and economically liberal. The progress narrative culminates in the view that international law is in a normatively ambitious process of constitutionalization, an idea imported from European law. This progress narrative is now under threat as European integration faces existential difficulties. The crisis of European integration might therefore anticipate a crisis of international law.
Reconstructing the vertical and horizontal relationships between different legal orders or spheres of competence in the European legal space, the chapter argues that the actors involved frequently seek to stabilize them by what one might call “mutually assured discretion”. This designates a relationship between two legal orders (or two actors) organized by interdependent legal concepts by which these legal orders (or spheres of competence) mutually define that relationship. Those interdependent legal concepts are often deliberatively vague and grant actors in both legal orders (or spheres of competence) a fair amount of discretion. This entices self-discipline within actors in both legal orders (or spheres of competence). Key to the success of mutually assured discretion is the openness of the interdependent legal concept to rational discourse within both legal orders (or spheres of competence). An example is the proportionality principle.
I elaborate the operation of mutually assured discretion in the European legal space through the study of a set of judgments of European and domestic courts, especially the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC). The analysis will put particular emphasis on the Economic and Monetary Union.
The Banking Union puts prudential supervision in the hands of the European Central Bank (ECB), the institution responsible for monetary policy. Nevertheless, at its establishment there was the political understanding that the ECB should follow a policy of meticulous separation in the discharge of its different functions. This raises the question whether the ECB may pursue a holistic approach to monetary policy and supervisory decision-making, respectively. On the basis of a purposive reading of the monetary policy mandate and the SSM Regulation, the paper answers this question in the affirmative. Effective monetary policy (or supervision) requires financial stability (or smooth monetary policy transmission). Moreover, without a holistic approach, the SSM Regulation is more likely to provoke the adoption of mutually defeating decisions by the Governing Board. The reputation of the ECB would suffer considerably under such a situation – in a field where reputation is of paramount importance for effective policy.
As any meticulous separation between monetary and supervisory functions turns out to be infeasible, the paper explores the reasons. Parting from Katharina Pistor’s legal theory of finance, which puts the emphasis on exogenous factors to explain the (non)enforcement of legal rules, the paper suggests a legal instability theorem which focuses on endogenous reasons, such as law’s indeterminacy, contextuality, and responsiveness to democratic deliberation. This raises the question whether the holistic approach would be democratically legitimate under the current framework of the ESCB. The idea of technocratic legitimacy that exempts the ECB from representative structures is effectively called into question by the legal instability theorem. This does not imply that the independence of the ECB should be given up, as there are no viable alternatives to protect monetary policy against the time inconsistency problem. Rather, any solution might benefit from recognizing the ECB in its mixed technocratic and political shape as a centerpiece of European integration and improving.