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Category: Global Law

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Lèse-Majesté in Germany – A Relic of a Long-Gone Era?

Posted by: Jenny Gesley

In the summer of 2016, a little known provision of the German criminal code received international attention when it was invoked by the Turkish government on behalf of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who felt insulted by a poem written by the German satirist Jan Böhmermann. According to section 103 of the German Criminal Code, …

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Restoration of German Citizenship Post Brexit

Posted by: Jenny Gesley

On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom (UK) held a referendum on whether to leave or to remain in the European Union (so called “Brexit”) with 51.9% of the people voting in favor of leaving. The withdrawal procedure from the European Union (EU) is governed by article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), …

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Düsseldorf, Germany Courthouse— Pic of the Week

Posted by: Jenny Gesley

On my recent visit to Düsseldorf, Germany, I could not stop my nerdy lawyer self from visiting the Administrative Court of Düsseldorf (Verwaltungsgericht Düsseldorf). The Administrative Court in Düsseldorf is the court of first instance in administrative matters and handles all kinds of non-constitutional public law matters. Examples include disputes over building permits, access to public institutions and …

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The Volkswagen Litigation

Posted by: Jenny Gesley

In September 2015, the German automaker Volkswagen (VW) admitted that it had manipulated software in around eleven million diesel vehicles worldwide to cheat on emissions tests. As more and more details emerged in the ensuing weeks and months, VW’s share value rapidly declined by 30 percent. U.S. regulators levied heavy fines of up to US$15.3 billion …

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New Law Library Reports Cover Access to Encrypted Communications and Intelligence Gathering

Posted by: Jenny Gesley

More and more internet traffic is encrypted. Encryption is a method of protecting electronic information by converting it into an unintelligible form (encoding) so that it can only be decoded with a key. Google stated in its latest transparency report that 85% of requests from around the world to Google’s servers used encrypted connections in …

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An Interview with Molly O’Casey, Foreign Law Intern

Posted by: Jenny Gesley

Today’s interview is with Molly O’Casey, a foreign law intern working with Nicolas Boring on research related to the laws of France and other French-speaking jurisdictions and with Clare Feikert-Ahalt on research related to the United Kingdom and a number of Commonwealth jurisdictions. Molly has recently graduated from a dual law degree (civil law/common law) …

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Nuremberg Trial Verdicts

Posted by: Jenny Gesley

Seventy years ago – on October 1, 1946 – the Nuremberg trial, one of the most prominent trials of the last century, concluded when the International Military Tribunal (IMT) issued the verdicts for the main war criminals of the Second World War. The IMT sentenced twelve of the defendants to death, seven to terms of …

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European Minimum Wage – Towards an Ever Closer Union?

Posted by: Jenny Gesley

This is a guest post by Molly O’Casey, foreign law intern in the Global Legal Research Directorate, Law Library of Congress. Molly has recently graduated from a dual law degree (civil law/common law) program between University College Dublin, in Ireland, and Université Paris II Pantheon-Assas, in France. According to statistics published by Eurostat, the European …

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Global Anti-Doping Rules – an Overview

Posted by: Jenny Gesley

The following is a guest post by Felix Beulke, a summer intern currently working with Jenny Gesley on research related to the laws of German-speaking jurisdictions at the Global Legal Research Directorate, Law Library of Congress. Felix has previously written on Brexit – What Happens Next?. The preparations for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio …