Der offene Bundesstaat

Bardo Fassbender analyzes in detail the foreign relations powers and the international legal personality of the German Länder, or individual states, which is integral to the federal system established in Germany in 1949. He also examines the international legal status of sub-national state entities in Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and, in contrast, the United States. In his view, the international legal personality of such entities is a characteristic feature of a specifically European type of federal state. The comparatively strong position in international law which the German constitution of 1949 accorded to the Länder can only be understood against the background of German constitutional history of the 19th and 20th century. The Basic Law is standing in a tradition characteristic of German federalism, beginning with the constitution of the German Empire of 1871 and continued by the »Weimar Constitution« of 1919. The line of continuity can even be traced back to the Holy Roman Empire and to the German revolution of 1848 with its (eventually unsuccessful) project of a federal constitution drafted by the parliament in Frankfurt.