Thomas Bernauer is a professor of political science at ETH Zurich. He and his research group are based at the Center for Comparative and International Studies, a joint institution of ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, and at ETH Zurich’s Institute for Environmental Decisions.
Author Archives: Jack Williams
Rudolf Bindschedler
Born in 1915, Rudolf Bindschedler obtained his Law degree from the University of Zürich. After briefly working for a Zürich District Court, he was hired by the Political Department (known today as the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs) of Switzerland in 1943.
Laurence Boisson de Chazournes
Laurence Boisson de Chazournes has gained a wide-ranging reputation in academic circles for her contribution to international law, in such fields as the law of international organisations, international economic law and international environmental law, while at the same time being recognized for her practical work as Senior Counsel to the World Bank and as advisor to many international organizations.
Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui
Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui was born in Geneva in 1694 into a family of Italian origin. Once politically influential in Lucca, Italy, Burlamaqui’s ancestors had fled religious persecution in 1591 and found refuge in the reformed Republic of Geneva.
Henry Dunant
The only constants in Henry Dunant’s life were his passion for humanitarianism and the Red Cross. His life was marked with contrasts. He was born on the 8th May 1828, in Geneva, into a religious, Calvinist family that devoted itself to humanitarian and civic values. Henry Dunant developed deep religious beliefs and high morals at an early age. He then dedicated a great part of his life to religious activities. He became a member of the League of Alms whose goal was to offer material comfort to the poor, sick and those in need. He was further carrying out visits to prisons as a social worker and was for a while a full-time representative of the Young Men’s Christian Association for which he travelled to France, Belgium and Holland.
Max Huber
This biography is taken from Benedict von Tscharner, ‘Max Huber’ in Benedict von Tscharner, Inter Gentes: Statesmen, Diplomats, Political Thinkers, translation Nathasha Proietto, (Infolio editions & Éditions de Penthes, 2012): extract: pp. 217-226.
Emer De Vattel
Born in 1714 in the Prussian Neuchâtel, Emer de Vattel grew up in an old and traditional family. He was schooled by his father, a reverend, who later in life was ennobled by the Prussian king. As a young adult, Vattel moved to Basel in order to attend university and pursue his interests in classical and humanistic studies.
Joseph Hornung
The Swiss lawyer Joseph Hornung attacked Western brutality in the colonies as well as its hypocrisy in supporting intervention of oppressed Christians in Turkey was while paying no such consideration to those Africans and Asians being persecuted by colonial rule.
Giuseppe Motta
This biography is taken from Benedict von Tscharner, ‘Giuseppe Motta’ in Benedict von Tscharner, Inter Gentes: Statesmen, Diplomats, Political Thinkers, translation Nathasha Proietto, (Infolio editions & Éditions de Penthes, 2012): extract: pp. 199-215.
Carla Del Ponte
This biography is taken from Benedict von Tscharner, ‘Carla Del Ponte’ in Benedict von Tscharner, Inter Gentes: Statesmen, Diplomats, Political Thinkers, translation Nathasha Proietto, (Infolio editions & Éditions de Penthes, 2012): extract: pp. 349-357.
Antoine-Henri Jomini
Antoine-Henri Jomini was born in 1779 in Payerne, where his father, a notary, held various prestigious offices. From an early age, Jomini had a particularly keen interest in strategic military affaires and military history. This caused him to pass up an opportunity to become a jurist in the hopes of enrolling in a military school in the Duchy of Württemberg. This dream, however, had to yield to the political realities and revolutionary upheavals at the time. Jomini opted for becoming a merchant instead.
Positivism, Functionalism and International Law
Hans Joachim Morgenthau, ‘Positivism, Functionalism and International Law’ (1940) The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 260-28.
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2.49 Verweigerte Erinnerung, Nachrichtenlose Vermögen und die Schweizer Weltkriegsdebatte 1989-2004
Thomas Maissen, V Worum ging es?, excerpt from Verweigerte Erinnerung, Nachrichtenlose Vermögen und die Schweizer Weltkriegsdebatte 1989-2004, p. 645 – 662
2.48 Mit Prozessieren den Holocaust bewältigen? Die Rolle des Zivilrechts und Zivilprozesses beim Versuch der Wiedergutmachung internationaler Katastrophen
2.47 Forward; Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade
Stuart E. Eizenstat, Forward; Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Special Envoy of the Department of State on Property Restitution in Central and Eastern Europe, U.S. and Allied Efforts to Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen or Hidden by Germany During World War II, Prepared by William Slany, The Historian, Department of State with the Participation of various Departments and Federal Agencies, May 1997, p. III – XII
2.45 Neutrality and Morality; Developments in Switzerland and in the International Community
A_2.45_SCHINDLER_Neutrality and morality
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2.33 Europa: Das Fest, Der Tod und die Andern
2.27 The EU’s call for institutionalization of the bilateral agreements
2.21 Swiss Model of European Integration
2.20 Einleitung und Synthese
2.18 Effects of International and European Integration on Switzerland
Carl Baudenbacher, Effects of International and European Integration on Switzerland, excerpt, in Swiss Economic Law Facing the Challenges of International and European Law, Zeitschrift für Schweizerisches Recht, 2012, p.495 – 510
2.41 Religionsfreiheit
Peter Saladin, 1. Kapitel: Die Religionsfreiheit, excerpt, in Grundrechte im Wandel, Die Rechtsprechung des Bundesgerichts in einer sich wandelnden Welt, Bern, 3. Auf. 1982, p. 2-21
Die Rechtsprechung des Europäischen Gerichtshofes als neue Herausforderung für die Praxis und die Wissenschaft
Bibliographic references
Thomas Probst, Die Rechtsprechung des Europäischen Gerichtshofes als neue Herausforderung für die Praxis und die Wissenschaft. Im Schweizerischen Privatrecht, in Basler Juristische Mitteilungen, 2004, p. 225-260 (in German)
[The case law of the European Court of Justice as new challange for legal practice and the science in Swiss private law]
a) Background
The text at hand focuses on the specific issues of private law and on the challenges brought about by the case law of the European Court of Justice to courts, legal science and legal practice in Swiss private law. The opinions of the author have been confirmed by more recent decisions of the Swiss Federal Tribunal.
Thomas Probst is Professor for Private and Comparative Law at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. The article was published in 2004 in the Basler Juristische Mitteilung, which is the widely respected publication organ of the Lawyers Association of the Canton of Basel.
b) Summary
In a contextual remark, the author begins his observations on the evolution of the changing notion of “European law” from a Swiss perspective. The development can be characterized as a development from “public European law to private European law.” In the first phase, the notion “European law” was institutionally linked to the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights; the second phase – partially parallel – focused on the ECSC and the EEC-Treaties, in particular on the institutions, the legislative and law enforcement process and the basic rights. Consequently “European law” was predominantly qualified as international public law. In the third phase, after the negative vote of the Swiss people against the EEA-Agreement, the planned Eurolex legislation, and the successful ensuing Swiss Lex Legislation, private law was brought to the centre of interest.
The major factors of the influence of EU law on Swiss Law are by way of “Autonomen Nachvollzug” (autonomous adaptation) of EU-directives by the Swiss legislator; the decisions of the European Court of Justice; and the influence in the trans-European legal science.
The article analyses the consequences and the significance of the decisions of the European Court of Justice for the Federal Tribunal. The Federal Tribunal applies the following major arguments in its holdings regarding the influence of the law of the European Court of Justice: autonomously applied national law is to be applied in a “Euro-compatible” way. “Euro-compatibility,” as a guiding principle of interpretation, is a dynamic goal which implies the autonomous interpretation of national law to be “objective” and pertaining to the “present times (Geltungszeitlich). The article analyses the systematic significance of the EU court decisions on the international treaty based unified law; the harmonization of law, in which the Swiss legislator has autonomously followed community law; and the area of non-harmonized law.
Probst first analyses the Vienna unified Law on Sales, the Lugano-Convention and the Free-Trade-Treaty between Switzerland and EU. Where the legislator regularly does not address explicitly the situation as to the effects of judgments of the European Court of Justice, it is open to the discretion of the courts applying the general rules and methodology. In the core of non-harmonized national law, the interpretation by the legislator and the courts are by and large independent and autonomous. Based upon the tradition and the practice, national courts may take foreign law into account. The Federal Tribunal has a history of openness and independence concerning foreign law and has often used foreign law as a very productive source in the interpretation of national law.
The article gives an overview of the methodological rules in dubio pro interpretatione europea of treaty based unitary law, autonomously applied European Community law and of non-harmonized national law. The article evaluates the options of the Federal Tribunal as regards to the interpretation of Community law, as well as the risks of such court decisions to digress in divesity splitting in Swiss private law and the risk of loss of autonomy in the area of consumer protection. Probst calls for an analysis and a theory to steer the boat of Europeanization between the Scylla of a heteronomously determined Swiss law and the charybolis of an isolation of the Swiss private legal order from EU community law.
c) Text
You can find a scan (PDF) of the original text here.
2.14 Sechzig Jahre schweizerische Europapolitik
Dieter Freiburghaus, Fazit, excerpt, in Königsweg oder Sackgasse?, Sechzig Jahre schweizerische Europapolitik, Zürich, 2009, p. 349 – 367
2.13 Switzerland – European Union, An impossible membership
René Schwok, Switzerland – European Union, An impossible membership, excerpts chapter 9, chapter 10 Why Switzerland refused to join the European Union, p. 93 – 126 and conclusions: Interesting Paradoxes p. 127 – 130
2.11 Le Libre-échange en Europe de 1945 à 1960
Pierre Du Bois, Le Libre-échange en Europe de 1945 à 1960, in Olivier Jacot-Guillarmod (ed.) L’avenir du libre-échange en Europe : vers un Espace économique européen? Zürich / Bern, 1990, p. 3 – 15
2.10 Die Vorbereitungsarbeiten der Schweiz
Dieter Freiburghaus, Die Vorbereitungsarbeiten der Schweiz, excerpt, in Erfolglose Annäherungsversuche der EFTA Staaten, Die Jahre 1961 – 1968, in Königsweg oder Sackgasse, 60 Jahre Schweizerische Europapolitik, Zürich, 2009
E_2.10_FREIBURGHAUS_Erfolglose Annäherungsversuche der EFTA-Staaten
2.9 Le chemin européen
Henri Rieben, Le chemin européen, Lausanne, 1963, 17 pages
2.9 Die Bundesverfassung von 1848: Kristallisationspunkt einer Staatsidee
Daniel Thürer, „Die Bundesverfassung von 1848: Kristallisationspunkt einer Staatsidee; Drei Paradoxe und die Frage ihrer Bedeutung für die Fortentwicklung der Verfassungskonzeption im Zeitalter der “Globalisierung“, in: Daniel Thürer, Perspektive Schweiz, übergreifendes Verfassungsdenken als Herausforderung, Zürich 1998, p.15-34
Thomas Maissen
Thomas Maissen studied history, Latin and philosophy in Basel, Rome, and Geneva. He completed his dissertation in 1993 under the guidance of the Swiss historian Hans Rudolf Guggisberg. Afterwards, he worked as an assistant professor at the Chair for Early Modern History at the University of Potsdam.
Stuart Eizenstat
Stuart Eizenstat was born on the 15th January 1943. He is a partner at Washington, D.C. law firm, Covington & Burling and senior strategist at APCO Worldwide.
Peter Saladin
Peter Saladin was born on the 4th February 1935. He studied at the University of Basel, obtained his doctor degree in 1959 and passed his bar exam in 1961. From 1962 to 1963 he carried out graduate work at the Freie Universität Berlin and at the University of Michigan, Law School.
Gustave Moynier
Gustave Moynier was born in 1826 into an influential Genevan Family of merchants and watchmakers. At the age of twenty he relocated to Paris, due to political upheavals in Geneva at the time, and stayed there in order to complete his law studies and earn his doctorate degree. His marriage to Jeanne-Françoise Paccard gave him financial independence giving him the freedom to follow his Calvinist ideals and turn to charitable work and philanthropy.
Otfried Nippold
Otfried Nippold was born in Wiesbaden, Germany in 1864. He studied law at the University of Bern, University of Halle, University of Tübingen before earning his doctorate at the University of Jena in 1886. Nippold was a prominent internationalist whose work played a significant role in the development of international law. In his study of treaties in 1894 Nippold proposed that power dominated relations between states with treaties agreed to the detriment of the weaker party. The behaviour of European countries in colonies Nippold cited as a prime example of force being used to impose international law on peaceful communities.
Anne Peters
Anne Peters was born in Berlin in 1964. She began her graduate studies in 1984 and studied a combination of Law, Modern Greek and Spanish at the Universities of Würzburg, Lausanne, and Freiburg im Breisgau respectively.
Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann
Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann was born on 26 August 1945 in Hamburg, Germany. He studied law and economics from 1964-1970 at the Universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, Freiburg (Germany), Geneva and the London School of Economics.
Dietrich Schindler Junior
Dietrich Schindler Junior was born on the 22nd December 1924 in Zurich. He is a Swiss lawyer, who particularly excelled in humanitarian international public law, human rights, neutrality policy and federalism. From 1964 to 1989 he was a Professor for International Law and Constitutional Law at the University of Zurich.
Henri Rieben
Henri Rieben was born in Epalinges in the Canton of Vaud the son of a farmer. He studied economics at the University of Lausanne where he joined the student association Valdésia. He obtained his doctor degree in 1952. In 1956 he became the first full professor on a newly instituted chair on questions of European integration, the first of its kind in Europe.
Luzius Wildhaber
Luzius Wildhaber was born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1937 and studied at the Universities of Basel, Paris, Heidelberg, London and Yale. He was the first President of the new European Court of Human Rights. Before appointment to this post in 1998, Wildhaber had a distinguished academic career, including being Rector of Basel University, but mostly as Professor in the fields of Public International, Constitutional, Comparative and Administrative Law at the Universities of Basel and Fribourg.
Dieter Freiburghaus
Dieter Freiburghaus grew up in Laupen close to Bern. He studied mathematics in Bern before going on to study economics and political science in St. Gallen and Berlin. Freiburghaus was a scientific collaborator at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin under the direction of Fritz W. Scharpf, where his research activities at the time mainly focused on labour markets.
Pierre Du Bois
Pierre Du Bois was born 1943 in Herzogenbuchsee, in the Swiss-German part of Switzerland. From 1945 to 1947 he lived in Tanger. After the death of his father he returned with his mother to Switzerland. From 1950 he attended the École Nouvelle de la Suisse Romande in Chailly, then Collège de Béthusy and Gymnase de la Cité in Lausanne, where he gained his college diploma in 1962.
René Schwok
René Schwok is associated with the European Institute and the Department of Political Science of the University of Geneva. He is also the holder of the Jean Monnet Chair in Political Science.
Adolf Muschg
Adolf Muschg was born on the 13th May 1934 in Zurich the only child of the second marriage of his father Friedrich Adolf sen (1872 – 1948), primary school teacher in Zollikon close to Zurich. His mother Frieda was a nurse.