Alexandra Kemmerer

Choice Architecture in Democracies: Exploring the Legitimacy of Nudging

Experts advise governments as to common traits in human behavior that need to be taken into account when designing rules for situations of decision-making by individuals – for instance in the fields of health, retirement provisions, or education. »Choice architects« shape situations of decision-making in such a way that the individual will take the »right« decision with a higher probability than in an alternative landscape. Based on insights from behavioral economics, tools have been developed in order to motivate the citizen towards more »reasonable« conduct. The European Commission has been rewarding the reasonable, self-determined individual for a long time, and in the German Federal Chancellery, too, the search for behavioral economic guidelines toward efficient and cost-saving policies is under way. The »how« of state interventions for the facilitation of a good life is being widely discussed. The »if«, however, seems to be the more pressing issue. Are citizens’ virtues the business of the state? May the state influence and »nudge« its citizens, or even paternalistically act as their benevolent guardian? Are there constitutional limits to »liberal paternalism«? What about freedom of the individual, dignity, autonomy, and self-determination in a democracy? This volume brings together a collection of contributions that explore the promises and dark sides, the limits and possibilities of behaviorally informed regulatory strategies. All chapters in the first part of the book were, in substance, presented and discussed at the Verfassungsblog Conference »Choice Architecture in Democracies: Exploring the Legitimacy of Nudging« which we convened at Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin in January 2015 – with the exception of Morag Goodwin’s chapter that had been discussed in a preceding Recht im Kontext conference on Human Dignity held at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in July 2013 and is now also part of the edited volume »Human Dignity in Context« (Dieter Grimm / Alexandra Kemmerer / Christoph Mollers, eds., Recht im Kontext 5). Goodwin’s paper inspired our interest in a constitutionalist perspective on choice architecture and behaviorally informed regulation, and is reprinted here with thanks. Christopher McCrudden and Jeff King went even one step further and turned the gist of their two separate conference papers into a joint contribution, put up for discussion in the Berlin Seminar Recht im Kontext and at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. The blog posts republished in the second part of the book were first published as an Online Symposium on Verfassungsblog in April 2015, taking further the discussion we had during three vibrant conference days in Berlin.

Kelsen, Schmitt, Arendt, and the Possibilities of Constitutionalization in (International) Law: Introduction

It is tempting to introduce this special section in an apologetic tone. Has there not enough been written, in recent years, on constitutionalisation, that new phenomenon and term which has recently entered the world of politics and law, closely related to global constitutionalism, to constitutionalism in international law? And is there really a need to publish another three articles on Hans Kelsen, Carl Schmitt and Hannah Arendt, instead of highlighting new faces and frames of thought in international law and its theory? But no apologies. Au contraire. This special section, bringing together three articles on three modernist thinkers of the 20th century and a current issue of international legal discourse at the beginning of the 21st, offers a fresh perspective on theory of and in international law. Or, more precisely: it brings together a variety of perspectives, of theoretical approaches to one of the greatest practical questions and challenges in today’s (international) law: ‘the attempt to subject the exercise of all types of public power, whatever the medium of its exercise, to the discipline of constitutional procedures and norms’ (Martin Loughlin). Approaching the theme from the perspectives of an international lawyer and theorist of international law engaging Hans Kelsen (Jorg Kammerhofer), of a public lawyer and legal philosopher discussing Carl Schmitt (Ino Augsberg) and of a political theorist reconstructing the legal thought of Hannah Arendt (Christian Volk), the articles of this special section provide an intellectual laboratory to reflect current questions of (international) law against the backdrop of the thought of three ‘classics’ of modernity. The papers in the symposium introduced here were originally presented at the workshop ‘Kelsen Schmitt Arendt and the Possibilities of (International) Law: Part I, Constitutionalisation’, Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture at the University of Leipzig, 11-12 June 2009 – the first part of a transeuropean workshop series on (the role of) theory in international law. (For a detailed and thoughtful workshop report, critically engaging with the papers published here, see I. Ley, ‘Which Role for Theory in International Law?’, German Law Journal, Vol. 11, 2010, forthcoming).

Human Dignity in Context. An Introduction

Human dignity is a complex topic. It is a philosophical, a theological as well as a legal concept and refers to a long and manifold intellectual history – a history it brought to the human rights context, to which it has been applied only rather recently. Within the legal world, it remains a gateway for ethical arguments. And as such it has received increased attention in recent years. Equally when the prohibition of torture was called into question during the so-called war on terror or when the ethical limits of biotechnology became more relevant in the face of disappearing practical boundaries, these issues were debated in dignity-based language in and outside the legal world. Human dignity arguments thus transcend disciplinary boundaries. To confront this phenomenon, and as the title suggests, we attempt to put human dignity in context. On the one hand, bringing context to universal concepts is an ambivalent undertaking. As our arguments claim to be universal when we evoke human dignity, they defy the very idea of context. On the other hand, given the abstractness of the concept and its application to various fields, we run the risk of missing something if we ignore the different contexts. In fact, it may often be easier to agree on the violation of human dignity in a specific context than on the abstract meaning of the notion. It is no coincidence therefore that German constitutional lawyers, following Gunter Durig, approach dignity cases not by abstractly conceptualizing what is protected under art. 1 Basic Law but by determining acts of infringement instead. This volume is the result of two conferences on human dignity convened by the editors and held at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Study Berlin) on 16-18 November 2011 and 19-21 June 2013. As exercises in comparative constitutional law in context, both events brought together a wide array of scholars from various disciplinary and regional backgrounds.

Recht im Kontext. Ausgangspunkte und Perspektiven

Vielfältiger und unübersichtlicher wird das Recht. Längst ist das kompetitive, aber auch komplementäre Nebenund Miteinander verschiedener Rechtssysteme und normativer Ordnungen Teil des sozialen Alltags geworden. Rechtspluralismus ist allgegenwärtig. Jenseits der Staaten und der von diesen gegründeten internationalen Organisationen entsteht ein transnationales Recht, das sich von der institutionalisierten Politik emanzipiert hat und neue Fragen nach Autorität und Legitimation aufwirft. Dies gilt auch für die Verbreitung neuer Gerichte und gerichtsförmiger Spruchkörper jenseits der Grenzen des Staates, die direkte Wirkung auf Bürger und Unternehmen haben. Der vielfach übereilt totgesagte Staat bleibt unersetzlich, doch seine Außenhaut ist permeabel geworden. Neue Formen und Ebenen des inter-, supraund transnationalen Regierens verlangen nach einer Neubestimmung der Elemente hoheitlicher Gewalt. Die Liquidität der Autorität verlangt nach einer Neubestimmung des Regierens. Die Grenzen des Rechts und seiner Wissenschaft entgleiten hergebrachten Ordnungsmustern. Intradisziplinäre Differenzierungen wie etwa die Dichotomie von Öffentlichem und Privatem bedürfen kritischer, aber

Development as Event: Revisiting Concepts and Ideas of Twentieth Century International Law

A review of: Nathaniel Berman, Passion and Ambivalence: Colonialism, Nationalism, and International Law; Antonio Cassese, Five Masters of International Law: Conversations with R-J Dupuy, E Jimenez de Arechaga, R Jennings, L Henkin and O Schachter; Fleur Johns, Richard Joyce and Sundhya Pahuja (eds), Events: The Force of International Law; Anne Orford, International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect; Sundhya Pahuja, Decolonising International Law: Development, Economic Growth and the Politics of Universality; Thomas Skouteris, Progress in International Law.