Civil Disobedience and the German Courts: The Pershing Missile Protests in Comparative Perspective [Paperback]

In the 1980s the West German Peace Movement -- fearing that the stationing of NATO nuclear missiles in Germany threatened an imminent nuclear war in Europe -- engaged in massive protests, including sustained civil disobedience in the form of sit-down demonstrations. Civil Disobedience and the German Courts traces the historical and philosophical background of this movement and follows a group of demonstrators through their trials in the German criminal courts up to the German Constitutional Court -- in which their fate was determined in two important constitutional cases. In this context, the volume also analyzes the German Constitutional Court, as a crucial institution of government, in comparative perspective. The book is the first full-length English language treatment of these events and these constitutional decisions, and it also places the decisions at an important turning-point in German constitutional history.

Preface

Introduction

Chapter I: THE ANTI-MISSILE DEMONSTRATIONS: THE PROTESTS AND THEIR CONTEXT

Chapter II: THE SIT-DOWN BLOCKADES IN THE CRIMINAL COURTS

Chapter III: THE SIT-DOWN BLOCKADES IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT: THE COURT AND THE ARGUMENTS

Chapter IV: THE SIT-DOWN BLOCKADES IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT: THE DECISIONS OF 1986 AND 1995

Chapter V: THE GREAT CASES OF 1995 -- SUCCESS FOR THE LONG MARCH OF 1968?

Epilogue

One of the first English language case studies of the German Constitutional Court, focusing on an important event in recent German history and packed with material from numerous interviews with participants, this volume analyzes civil disobedience, providing a comparative study of judicial institutions.US? 2008 Peter E. QuilÓ&