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

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