Abstract

The Binding Effects of International Treaty Law on the German Administration

In practice, the question is, whether and to what extent the German administration’s actions are bound by international treaty law. The law ratifying a treaty is typically abstract and formulated without actual use and organizational terms. Not every case there contains a legal implementation of international agreements further specifying the policies of the German administration. The question of the direct applicability of international treaty law, the question of so-called self-executing law, has not yet been adequately examined. The German constitutional requirement of the specific enactment of a statute (Vorbehalt des Gesetzes) compels the federal legislature to eliminate this legal uncertainty in determining the self-executing law. The specification of international treaty law by democratically legitimized accompanying laws appear, on constitutional grounds, as the ideal solution for the incorporation of international arrangements in the decision program of the German administration.