20 July 2017
Why Do We Need International Legal Standards for Constitutional Referendums?
Important substantive and institutional guarantees ensure the democratic quality of the general elections. In the case of a referendum these substantive and procedural guarantees are almost completely missing. Only international soft law deals with the question of the democratic quality of the referendum. Recent experience with Turkey, Hungary and other places show that this needs to change. Continue reading >>
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02 April 2017
Germany and the Erdogan Referendum: the Case for External Voting and Dual Citizenship
Almost a million and a half Turkish citizens resident in Germany are eligible to cast absentee ballots in a Turkish referendum to scrap its parliamentary system. The run-up to the referendum had German authorities obstructing pro-Erdogan rallies, to which Erdogan himself responded with charges that the German government was engaging in “Nazi practices.” The episode marks perhaps the most prominent and controversial example of external political campaigning since such activity has become normalized among states. Continue reading >>30 March 2017