Portraitfoto Nils Kohlmeier

Nils Kohlmeier

Contradiction-Responsive Law: A Search Formula for Just Socio-Ecological (Legal) Transformations

Lithium mining in South America, which is essential for the European Green Deal, leads to socio-ecological crises, which in turn are rooted in contradictions between economic rationalities on the one hand and social and ecological rationalities on the other. My dissertation project is based on the hypothesis that these contradictions have inscribed themselves into the norms of the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) and the Free Trade Agreement between the EU and Chile (FTA EU-Chile).

In order to negotiate these contradictions in the sense of just socio-ecological (legal) transformations, a negotiation standard must be developed in the respective standardizations: On the one hand, the norms of the CRMA and the FTA EU-Chile must comply with the sustainability requirements under EU and International Law. However, because the law has both a transformation-promoting and transformation-inhibiting effect, these sustainability requirements themselves must – on the other hand – also be made accessible to criticism. By way of legal transcendence, these requirements must be questioned in an interdisciplinary manner and the findings from this must in turn be transferred to the law’s own operations.

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, Workshops and Events
  • 12.12.2024
    Presentation Widerspruchsresponsives Recht: Suchformel gerechter Nachhaltigkeitstransformationen as part of the Conference Die Vielfalt des Rechts, University of Marburg
  • 13.01.2024
    Workshop Widerspruchsresponsives Recht: Nachhaltige (Rechts-)Transformationen as part of the Sustainability 2024 transformation workshop, University of Kassel
  • 12.07.2023
    Panel Discussion Constitution and/or Declaration. Discussing the Question of the (Linguistic) Construction of Contradictions, University of Bremen
  • 12.11.2022
    Talk Das Recht und seine Widersprüche with Lilli Hasche at the Colloquium RTG Contradiction Studies, University of 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.)
name contradiction

“Contradiction becomes real where someone names contradiction.”

Ingo H. Warnke
prison of difference

“‘Contradiction is the prison of difference‘ writes the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Worlds of Contradiction asks: how can we explain and describe the world without making it more coherent and systematic than it is?”

Michi Knecht
problem to be solved

“Contradiction is not primarily a problem to be solved but a motor we cannot do without.”

Martin Nonhoff
city

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

Julia Lossau
l’illusion d’une unité

“Foucault speaks of contradiction as l’illusion d’une unité.”

Ingo H. Warnke