• The General Question
• Three Perspectives
  • Values
  • Structures
  • Institutions

Values

The idea of a legal order presupposes a minimal set of common, legally recognized values. In particular, significant strands of political science have perceived a juridification of the global protection of human rights, which had made significant advances in the 1990s, as evidence of a general development towards a value-based international order. The equivalent idea in legal discourse is that international law developed from a formal order, which was value-neutral, towards a more value-based order, designed to serve individuals. Such macro-analyses, however, tended to neglect decisions and processes, in which such values are either disputed or rejected. Shifts in emphasis, like they occur in the jurisprudence of international courts, but also in modified State practice and political prioritization, are not always taken sufficiently into account. The Research Group will approach the identification of such an order by putting special emphasis on such shifts.

From its perspective "Values", the Research Group will investigate to what extent counter movements against the international rule of law have questioned the achieved acquis of values in international law, and which actors take part in this process. Is the alleged process of juridification based on values continuing or may one observe that legally protected values are seriously questioned and possibly undermined? Are different, opposite values advanced, is the protection of values by international law rejected as a whole or is the dissent directed only at certain forms of their legal-institutional enforcement? Is it necessary to again build international law on more formal legal concepts?