Lando Kirchmair - Böcker

In the last decade, at least two European Union (EU) member states have deteriorated from fragile liberal democracies to illiberal regimes. This deterioration not only includes key elements of the rule of law, but also mechanisms of democratic accountability have eroded. While the cause is an unfortunate combination of factors, post-socialist EU member states are particularly likely to embrace an illiberal cause. Saving the European Union from its Illiberal Member States aims to show that inherited cultural patterns from socialism - and even earlier - in the form of informal practices and narratives are a largely underestimated source of illiberalism. Initially, the book diagnoses an unfortunate dynamic of 'mutual poisoning': existing vulnerabilities and weaknesses of democracy and the rule of law at the level of EU law are exacerbated by illiberal member states, and vice versa. The crisis of illiberal regimes is shown to be a symptom of the EU's own constitutional malaise. Authors András Jakab and Lando Kirchmair aim to offer antidotes to this mutual affliction, highlighting areas of EU law that have been neglected. Chapters examine whether an epistemological tool, such as the EU Justice Scoreboard, could be adapted to identify illiberal elements. The authors also argue that the protection of fundamental rights needs to be strengthened, through the completion of the European Fundamental Rights Union. Finally, the book states that the Spitzenkandidaten-system needs to be further strengthened and stabilised for the long term - not only to ensure the democratic accountability of the Commission, but also because this has the potential to bring the Commission's hitherto undecided and hesitant stance closer to that of the European Parliament.

The interdisciplinary embedding and novel conceptual approach offered in the book to address the relationship between legal orders offers a significant and original contribution to the literature. The first part of the book provides a critical account of dominant approaches to explain this relationship where theories of Kelsenian monism, dualism, legal pluralism and constitutionalism are criticized. In the second part, Kirchmair engages with an innovative idea by applying insights from social contract theory to the relationship between international, EU and Member State law and establishes his theoretical approach: Consent-Based Monism. The book focuses on the most important structural characteristics of the external relations law of the EU as well as the primacy of EU law in lieu of national constitutional identity which is demonstrated in part three.

This book is located at the intersection of constitutional law and political science and uses Legal Network Analysis to shed light on hitherto unseen aspects of the citation practices among constitutional courts in Europe. The collection enhances our understanding as to why certain European constitutional courts refer more and others less to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on the vertical level and other European constitutional courts on the horizontal level. Divided into two parts, the volume offers novel data on references between European constitutional courts. It provides a coherent and original methodological approach to analyse the case law, and draws on research from political science and Network Analysis to inform the discussion of judicial “dialogue” between them, highlighting an asymmetric dimension. Featuring country specific analysis by leading scholars, this work is an invaluable reference for academics, researchers and policy-makers working in EU Law, Human Rights Law, Constitutional Law and Politics.

Experts believe that self-driving cars will be much safer than conventional cars. However, there will still be some accidents, even fatal ones. The innovation of self-driving cars gives us the new, amazing, and, at the same time, arduous opportunity to decide in advance what should happen in which accident situation. It will force us to decide who must die in order to save others in dilemma situations.This book prepares readers to take an informed stance on the difficult moral dilemmas involving self-driving cars. It will convince them that the ethical and legal challenges posed by self-driving cars are real, novel, and unavoidable—and that they require a solution. It presents the problems involved in programming self-driving cars for dilemma situations, putting the reader in the position to develop their own well-informed opinion on the issues. The book also discusses the astonishing discrepancies between existing regulations for collisions involving self-driving cars in some jurisdictions and empirical findings about what people think about how they should be regulated. Finally, it presents advice for policymakers around the globe on how to regulate moral dilemmas involving self-driving cars.Moral Dilemmas Involving Self-Driving Cars will be of interest to a broad range of students, scholars, and policymakers interested in the ethics of self-driving vehicles.

Experts believe that self-driving cars will be much safer than conventional cars. However, there will still be some accidents, even fatal ones. The innovation of self-driving cars gives us the new, amazing, and, at the same time, arduous opportunity to decide in advance what should happen in which accident situation. It will force us to decide who must die in order to save others in dilemma situations.This book prepares readers to take an informed stance on the difficult moral dilemmas involving self-driving cars. It will convince them that the ethical and legal challenges posed by self-driving cars are real, novel, and unavoidable—and that they require a solution. It presents the problems involved in programming self-driving cars for dilemma situations, putting the reader in the position to develop their own well-informed opinion on the issues. The book also discusses the astonishing discrepancies between existing regulations for collisions involving self-driving cars in some jurisdictions and empirical findings about what people think about how they should be regulated. Finally, it presents advice for policymakers around the globe on how to regulate moral dilemmas involving self-driving cars.Moral Dilemmas Involving Self-Driving Cars will be of interest to a broad range of students, scholars, and policymakers interested in the ethics of self-driving vehicles.