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 constitutional decisions, and it also places the decisions at an important turning-point in German constitutional history.

• Book Cover 2
• Title 5
• Copyright 6
• Dedication 7
• Contents 9
• Preface 11
• Abbreviations 13
• Introduction 15
• Chapter 1 The anti-missile demonstrations: The protests and their context 25
• Chapter 2 The sit-down blockades in the criminal courts 74
• Chapter 3 The sit-down blockades in the Constitutional Court: The Court and the arguments 120
• Chapter 4 The sit-down blockades in the Constitutional Court: The decisions of 1986 and 1995 165
• Chapter 5 The great cases of 1995: Success for the “long march” of 1968? 217
• Epilogue 265
• Appendix: Selected constitutional and statutory provisions 278