Research at the Institute covers the legal foundations for the exercise of public functions in all their manifestations. The Institute links research on public international law (including the law of the European Union) with comparative constitutional and administrative law. This nexus rests on the premise that public international law and domestic public law are increasingly intertwined, requiring an intensive conceptual, theoretical and interdisciplinary approach to facilitate analysis of the exercise of public authority in the 21st century. Comparative law is understood as an essential component of conceptual and theoretical research.
A foremost task is the monitoring, legal analysis and evaluation of important, often heterogeneous, developments in the legal areas already mentioned. Monitoring is directed particularly towards the following sub-areas: With respect to public international law, the Institute is presently concerned primarily with the law of the United Nations, especially in regard to collective security and peacekeeping, with international and regional protection of human rights, with international economic law and the newly developing law of scientific scholarship, with international environmental law, with the law of international organizations, as well as with the law of common areas (high seas, space and Antarctica). Particular attention is devoted to general doctrines and the philosophy of public international law. Research at the Institute concerning the European Union encompasses European constitutional law and administrative law, particularly administrative law networks. The comparative public law focus is mainly on the European legal space. However, constitutional developments are also dealt with in central and eastern
For purposes of coordination and mutual exchange of information, members of the research staff report weekly on the legal areas they cover. Guest researchers are included in this process. The first and third meetings held each month take place in English.
Four projects, in which substantial resources of the Institute are invested, presently dominate its research: the “Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law”, the “Max Planck Commentaries on World Trade Law”, the “World Court Digest” and “Ius Publicum Europaeum”.
A new edition of the “Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law” (Max Planck EPIL), under the direction of Prof. Wolfrum, is scheduled to be published in electronic form and print by Oxford University Press. The online publication process will begin in the fall of 2008 with more than 400 entries. It is designed to provide practitioners and scholars with up-to-date information on current public international law and directly-related issues. The Max Planck EPIL not only refers to the respective sources of public international law, but also analyses specific conflicts and developments in treaty law, jurisprudence or state practice. This new edition represents an attempt to provide a restatement of public international law together with an indication of the direction in which public international law is developing. To achieve these objectives, approximately 1,700 entries have been identified which will be addressed by about 600 authors. An attempt has been made to include authors from around the globe representing various fields and holding a range of positions.
The commentary series “Max Planck Commentaries on World Trade Law”, edited by Prof. Wolfrum and Prof. Peter-Tobias Stoll, Göttingen, will present a thorough explication of world trade law. Volume 1 was published in 2005, Volume 2 in 2006 and Volume 3 in 2007. Volumes 4, 6 and 7 will be published in 2008, Volume 5 in 2009.
Under the direction of Dr. Karin Oellers-Frahm, the “World Court Digest” (WCD), formerly the “Fontes Juris Gentium, Serie A, Sectio I”, offers a systematic reproduction of the decisions of the International Court of Justice on questions of public international law. Three volumes of the WCD, each covering a 5-year period, have already appeared, the latest containing materials up to and including the year 2000. Volume IV, covering the period from 2001 to 2005, will be published in 2008.
The handbook “Ius Publicum Europaeum”, under the direction of Prof. von Bogdandy, Prof. Peter M. Huber, Munich, and foreign co-editors (Prof. Pedro Cruz Villalón, Madrid, for volumes I and II, and Prof. Sabino Cassese, Rom, for volumes III and IV), is devoted to the historical, theoretical and doctrinal foundations and main features of public law in Europe as well as the related scholarship. The multi-volume work, published by C. F. Müller, Heidelberg, concentrates initially on the principles and structures of the national constitutional systems, their reciprocal impact and their receptiveness for supranational integration and transnational cooperation (volumes I and II). It continues with two volumes on national administrative law, which is set forth in a common European perspective.
Within the framework of these projects, but also in conjunction with parallel individual projects, the Institute pursues work with a pronounced theoretical focus. In the sphere of public international law, a number of research projects are concerned with monitoring the origin and establishment of a value-oriented and institutionally anchored international legal system. It is generally known that public international law has developed beyond a merely cooperative law model and has created normative regimes and institutions. This raises the question to what extent one may speak of a constitutionalization of public international law. The value-orientation of public international law, as expressed in universal and regional regimes for the protection of human rights as well as in the development of international criminal law, acquires special significance in this connection. Corresponding with this is, inter alia, a modification in the process of creating public international law, a matter already examined at an international conference held by the Institute in 2003 entitled “Development of International Law: Alternatives to Treaty-making?” and a follow-up conference, entitled “Legitimacy in International Law”, in 2006.
Debate over the notion of constitutionalization appears particularly productive with regard to the European Union. Examination of the conceptual foundations of European Union law occurs from the perspective of a transnational constitutional law. The latter can be adequately understood only in relation to an overriding public international law framework and a comparison of the member states’ legal systems. The most important project during the reporting period led to “Principles of European Constitutional Law”, an exposition of the conceptual and theoretical foundations of European constitutional law, which was published in the spring of 2006 by Hart Publ.,
Closely related to this inquiry is another research effort of the Institute which aims at a more precise conceptualization of the interaction among public international law, European law and national law, as well as between various legal systems. In connection with the political science concepts of the multi-level system and of networks, attention is directed toward an examination of how legal norms derived from various legal systems interact in the regulation of particular subject-matters and how this interaction can legally best be conceptualized and most convincingly shaped.
A further interest of the Institute is in the law of societies which attempt to establish legal and democratic conditions following conflicts. This interest leads to closely interrelated practical as well as theoretical projects. Among the practical projects, the Institute’s participation in the reconstruction of
Finally, the Institute has extended its research activities to the theoretical and philosophical foundations of public international law. During the reporting period, work commenced on the project “Philosophy of Public International Law”. The objective of this project, for which Prof. von Bogdandy und Prof. Sergio Dellavalle are responsible, is a survey of existing theories of public international law. In the first phase of research, a model will be developed for an improved systematical classification of historical work on the theoretical foundations of public international law before World War II. Building up on this, the second phase will offer an analysis of contemporary theoretical approaches. In addition, an independent group of young scholars researching “Democratic Legitimacy of Ethical Decisions, Ethics and Law in Biotechnology and Modern Medicine”, under the direction of Dr. Silja Vöneky, was approved in 2006. This group examines the democratic legitimacy of ethical decisions through discursive processes as well as the relationship between ethics and law in public international law, European law, constitutional law and administrative law. In the context of biotechnology and modern medicine, it analyses how ethics and law are distinguished and connected, and how they evolve. Currently inter alia three dissertations and two post-doctoral projects are to be finished covering questions of legitimate rule development in the area of international, european and national laws.
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