Portraitfoto Nils Kohlmeier

Nils Kohlmeier

Contradictions-Responsivity of Law: Search Formula for critical Sustainability Transformations of EU Free Trade Agreements

The starting point of my dissertation project is a critique of the prevailing concept of sustainability in EU Free Trade Agreements. This concept ignores contradictions that go hand in hand with a “just transition” of the global North, which is reflected, among other things, in the deficient design of Trade and Sustainability Chapters in EU Free Trade Agreements. In order to enable (contradiction-)just socio-ecological (legal) transformations, these contradictions must be inscribed in the law and negotiated therein, which means a transformation of both the contradictions and the regulations of the Sustainability Chapters.

Research interests

  • International Law
  • European Law
  • Transnational Law
  • Critical (Law-)Theory
  • Assembly Law
  • Investor-State Dispute Settlement

Vita

  • 2019 – 2022
    Legal Clerkship, Higher Regional Court [Oberlandesgericht] Bremen (stations including BBG und Partner, Bremen and Higher Administrative Court [Oberverwaltungsgericht] Bremen. Degree Second German State Examination.
  • 2018 – 2020
    Research Assistant in the ERC-funded Project Transnational Force of Law supervised by Professor Andreas Fischer-Lescano, University of Bremen.
  • 2011 – 2017
    Studies of Law, University of Bremen. Degree First German State Examination.

Publications

  • 2024
    Was lange währt, wird endlich gut? Staatsanwaltschaft braucht drei Anläufe und fast drei Jahre, um gegen einen Neonazi vorzugehen, der erkennbar gegen Jüd:innen hetzt (co-authored with Julia Gelhaar). In: Austermann/Fischer-Lescano et al. (Edt.), Recht gegen Rechts. Report 2024, S. Fischer Verlag, p. 255-261.
  • 2024
    Verfassungsblog Article Nachhaltig nicht-nachhaltig: Rechte indigener Gruppen im Freihandelsabkommen EU-Mercosur (with Andreas Gutmann). Accessible at: https://verfassungsblog.de/nachhaltig-nicht-nachhaltig/
  • 2023
    Verfassungsblog Article Widerspruchsresponsive Nachhaltigkeit: Das Freihandelsabkommen der EU mit Neuseeland verpasst die Etablierung eines kritischen Nachhaltigkeitsbegriffs. Accessible at: https://verfassungsblog.de/widerspruchsresponsive-nachhaltigkeit/
  • 2020
    Rassistische Beamt*innen: Und wie der Staat sie wieder loswird (with Tore Vetter). In: Austermann/Fischer-Lescano/Kaleck u.a. (Eds.), Recht gegen Rechts: Report 2020, Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt a.M., 2020.
  • 2020
    Legal Commentary on § 13 VersammlG (with Sebastian Eickenjäger and Elena Sofia Ewering), § 13 SächsVersG (with Sebastian Eickenjäger and Elena Sofia Ewering), Art. 12 BayVersG (with Hanna Haerkötter) and § 3 VersFG SH (with Elena Sofia Ewering). In: Ridder/Breitbach/Deiseroth (Eds.) Versammlungsrecht des Bundes und der Länder, 2. Edition, Nomos-Verlag, Baden-Baden, 2020.
  • 2020
    Verfassungsblog Article Versammlungsfreiheit Corona-konform (with Andreas Gutmann). Accessible at: https://verfassungsblog.de/versammlungsfreiheit-corona-konform/.

Talks

  • 2024
    Widerspruchsresponsives Recht: Nachhaltige (Rechts-)Transformationen, talk at Panel 5: Law, Institutions and Regulations towards or against Transformation? at the Sustainability Transformation Workshop 2024, U Kassel.
  • 2022
    Das Recht und seine Widersprüche, talk with Lilli Hasche at the Colloquium of the RTG Contradiction Studies, U Bremen.

Teaching

  • Summer Term 2024 | U Bremen
    Migration Law in Practice (Colloquium) with Julia Gelhaar (LL.M.).
  • Summer Term 2023 | U Bremen
    Migration Law in Practice (Colloquium) with Prof. Pia Lange and Julia Gelhaar (LL.M.).
idea of democratic critique

“If you think that acts of contradicting someone always need to point to better solutions, you haven’t really understood the idea of democratic critique.”

Martin Nonhoff
sustained engagement

“The history of Western philosophy can be understood as a sustained engagement with contradiction.”

Norman Sieroka
limits

“Resistance is a democratic right, sometimes a duty. With literature we can find models for this right and think about its limits.”

Gisela Febel
city

“The city is a laboratory not only of modernity, but also of contradiction.”

Julia Lossau
decolonial scholarship

“Creating decentralizing and decolonizing scholarship on contradiction, contradictory phenomena, and contradicting processes is a challenging task.”

Kerstin Knopf