Ein neues Demokratiemodell für das 21. Jahrhundert?

Angelika Nußberger is professor of international law, public law and comparative law at the University of Cologne and founding director of the Academy for European Human Rights Protection, international judge at the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vice President of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe and President of the German Constitutional Lawyers Association (Vereinigung der deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer). She was a judge at the European Court of Human Rights elected on behalf of Germany from January 2011 to December 2019 and its Vice President from February 2017. She has studied law and literature (German, Russian and French) in Munich, Würzburg, Moscow (1985, study visit) and Boston (visiting researcher at Harvard University 1994/1995). She worked at the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Social Law in Munich from 1993 to 2002.

With the "Thyssen Lectures" the Fritz Thyssen Foundation is continuing a tradition that is initiated beginning in Germany in 1979 and followed by venues at a series of universitites in the Czech Republic, Israel, the Russian Republic and, most recently, in Turkey.The series in Greece is being organised for a period of four years under the leadership of Prof. Vassilios Skouris, former President of the European Court of Justice and current Director of the Centre of International and European Economic Law (CIELL), and is dedicated to the framework topic of "the EU as a community of European law and values".A NEW MODEL OF DEMOCRACY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY?Although the principle of democracy serves - at least de iure - as the foundation for the exercise of state power throughout the world, the threats being posed to democratic governance are apparent. This is not only the case with regard to the growing concentration of power in systems that are already chracterised as "authorian" like Russia, China and Turkey. But even consolidated democracies see themselves confronted with major challenges, however.The internationalisation of decision-making, for example, while originally perceived as progress, is running up against mounting criticism as "undemocratic", while reservations exist when it comes to basing decision-making purely on expert knowledge, nor is it easy to counter populist tendencies. All this raises the question as to what extent new principles need to be elaborated for democratic governance in the 21st century.