Demokratie und Völkerrecht

Since the 1990s, international law has posited an obligation to promote democracy worldwide, even if this requires interventions in the internal affairs of states. Another variant of the topic concerns the threat to democracy posed by international law. This includes the question of whether international treaty law can become binding domestically without the involvement or even against the will of democratic bodies. The responses from German and Swiss constitutional law differ significantly. The focus of the investigation is on customary international law, which does not require any act of transformation to be applicable domestically. A new doctrine has lowered the requirements for the emergence of this law to such an extent that a significant expansion of the new customary international law is to be feared, which would lack any democratic legitimacy. Remedies are expected from a return to the doctrinal foundations of international law and the strengthening of national democracy.