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donate Abstracts for Mittelweg 36 5/2009
Birthe Hellmig
Richterbilder und der Begriff des Politischen: Ein empirischer Beitrag zu den Selbst- und Rechtsverständnissen der Arbeitsrichterschaft
(Judges' ideas and conceptualizations of the political: an empirical study of labour court judges' understandings of their profession and the law)
This contribution is based on empirical data from an interdisciplinary research project currently underway at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research that addresses judicial decision-making in the German labour courts. The study explores two key aspects. First, it aims to explicate labour court judges' fundamental legal assumptions and their perspectives on judicial work. Second, tentative results on the question of judges' professional self-understanding are presented and their relevance for concepts of a law-politics dichotomy that is characteristic of legal professionals is discussed.
Sebastian Weber
Richterliche Spielregeln für die Arbeitswelt
(Judges' rules for the world of work)
The labour courts mediate and decide on conflicts that arise in individual cases in the world of work. But these decisions, especially those handed down by the Federal Labour Court, are significant beyond the individual case at hand. They frequently result in universal rules that have considerable influence on business and employment practices at the workplace. The social context of legal conflicts and policies formulated by lawmakers are factors that affect these court decisions. Sebastian Weber discusses examples from German labour courts to reveal how their work in mediating labour conflicts contributes to shaping the realities in the sphere of employment.
Stig Förster
Krieg und Genozid: Überlegungen zum Problem extremer Gewalt in universalhistorischer Perspektive
(War and genocide: reflections on the problem of extreme violence from the perspective of world history)
While there is sufficient evidence that massacres of large numbers of people have occurred since the Stone Age, some perpetrated within the context of armed conflicts, those that were not motivated by the aim of eradicating a specific group of people cannot justifiably be labelled as genocides. World history demonstrates according to Stig Förster that genocidal excesses were more likely to occur in asymmetric wars characterized by a significant imbalance of power between adversaries. Whether the parties involved were "primitive" societies or modern constitutional states was of less consequence to the decision to forego genocide than factors such as the likelihood of retaliation.
Published 2009-10-27
Original in English
Contributed by Mittelweg 36
© Mittelweg 36
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