Professorship of the Cluster of Excellence – Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, International and European Criminal Law, Comparative Law and Legal Theory

Prof. Dr. Christoph Burchard

The broad denomination of the professorship, which was established in mid-2015, reflects its equally broad focus in research and teaching. The professorship represents German criminal law and criminal procedure law, including commercial criminal law and criminal constitutional law, as well as the internationalization and Europeanization of criminal justice. All of this is reflected in particular against the backdrop of comparative law and legal theory.

The cluster programmatic interdisciplinarity of the research and teaching pursued by the professorship is reflected in the bridges to other legal disciplines (as is evident in the generic concept of criminal constitutional law coined by the holder of the professorship), political science and political philosophy (as illustrated by the cluster research project on the normative openness of international criminal law). The internationalization and Europeanization of the administration of criminal law provides rich illustrative material for the development of new (think of the international criminal law system) as well as for the transformation of existing normative orders (think of judicial cooperation in criminal matters, which is currently mutating into the administration of joint criminal law in Europe). These processes will be examined in the light of the cluster’s fundamental research program, with a particular focus on the inter- and intra-jurisdictional competition between different normative concepts of order in connection with research focus 3.

With regard to national German criminal law, the focus is on the far-reaching, often internationally or European-induced processes of change in the administration of criminal justice. For example, economic criminal law is transforming into a “normal” regulatory control instrument and the rationalities of criminal constitutional law are giving way to the (democratic) politicization of criminal law. Another main area of interest is judicial cooperation in criminal matters, in particular the supranationalization (think of the upcoming establishment of a European Public Prosecutor’s Office) and privatization processes (think of the dependence of national prosecutors on cooperation with private Internet service providers). In addition to all of this, there is a fundamental theoretical focus on comparative law and legal theory, which is pursued in particular on the scientific-theoretical basis of epistemological pluralism.

The most important publications of this professorship of the Cluster of Excellence:

Burchard, Christoph: “Strafverfassungsrecht: Vorüberlegungen zu einem Schlüsselbegriff”, in: Tiedemann/Sieber/Satzger/Burchard/Brodowski (eds.), Die Verfassung moderner Strafrechtspflege – Erinnerung an Joachim Vogel, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2016, pp. 27-61.

Burchard, Christoph: “Commentary on Art. 27 Rome Statute (Irrelevance of official capacity)”; “on Art. 71 Rome Statute (Sanctions for misconduct before the Court)”, in: Triffterer & Ambos (eds.), The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – A Commentary, Munich/Oxford: Beck/Hart, 2016, pp. 1037-1055, pp. 1760-1774.

Burchard, Christoph: “Kommentierung von § 13 StGB (Unterlassen)”, in: Leitner & Rosenau (eds.): Wirtschafts- und Steuerstrafrecht, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2017, pp. 1047-1066.

Burchard, Christoph: “Kommentierung von Vor § 1 IRG (Gesetz über Internationale Rechtshilfe in Strafsachen)”, in: Grützner/Pötz/Kreß (ed.), C.F. Müller, forthcoming 2017, ca. 300 pages.

Burchard, Christoph: “Judicial Dialogue in Light of Comparative Criminal Law and Justice”, in: P. Lobba & T. Mariniello (eds.), Judicial Dialogue on Human Rights: The Practice of International Criminal Tribunals, Brill|Nijhoff, forthcoming 2017.

The most important events of this professorship of the Cluster of Excellence:

AK Europäisches Strafrecht, Co-Initiator and organizer of the first workshop, June 23-24 2016, Frankfurt a.M.; Co-Initiator and organizer of the second workshop, April 27-28 2017, Zurich.

International Lecture Series “Strafrechtspflege zwischen Purismus und Pluralität”, Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”, Summer Term 2017, Frankfurt a.M., Organizer.

Workshop “Normative Orders of the Digital”, Co-Organizer, first workshop of the research group “Internet and Society”, Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”, July 6-7 2017, Frankfurt a.M.

Workshop on Comparative Constitutional Criminal Justice, Organizer, scheduled for July 10 2017, Frankfurt a.M.

Interdisciplinary Seminar “National Resistance to the Internationalization of Criminal Law”, in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Jens Steffek (TU Darmstadt; Principal Investigator of the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”), scheduled for winter term 2017/2018.