🍻 Selber Bier Brauen

After two years since the International Court of Justice unequivocally declared Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) as unlawful, the European Commission is expected to finally propose measures to “restrict” EU trade with illegal Israeli settlements ahead of the next European Council meeting on 13 July.

While most proposals openly discussed so far explore suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, adopting targeted sanctions against Israeli officials and settlers, or imposing tariffs on settlement trade, these measures are not enough to dismantle a link of complicity where a complete embargo on Israeli colonies is required.

I argue that the Commission must correctly differentiate between the imposition of countermeasures (sanctions) and the discontinuance of complicity and effective recognition under international law. Sanctions (as countermeasures) constitute a discretionary and reversible suspension of a right, but trade with Israeli settlements is illegal to begin with, and the EU is under a duty of non-assistance and non-recognition to impose a full trade embargo on them.

Distinguishing between what is and what is not a countermeasure (sanction) under customary international law also bears relevance to the current debate on the correct legal basis and voting procedure for such trade restrictions under EU external relations law. Inasmuch as discontinuing economic cooperation with Israel is not a matter of political discretion but a duty under the peremptory rules of international law binding on the EU as a matter of EU law, it is not to be voted as a sanction under a unanimity voting requirement at the Council, but as a matter of trade policy requiring only a qualified majority.

On the same distinction, I argue that the EU may choose to adopt tariffs as compensatory countermeasures against Israel proper to fund the reconstruction of the OPT, mirroring its proposed policy of tariffs on Russia to reconstruct Ukraine, but only insofar as it can target lawful Israeli economic activity, i.e. activity demonstrably extricable from its occupation enterprise. Below this threshold, it is under a strict duty of non-assistance to cease all trade and economic cooperation with both settlements and Israel proper.

Legal Consequences for Third States Arising from Israel’s Illegal Occupation

In its 2024 Advisory Opinion on Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), the International Court of Justice found that Israel had sustainedly abused its position as an occupying power through several violations of peremptory rules of international law, rendering its presence in the OPT unlawful (para. 261).

The serious breaches making the occupation illegal as a whole – namely the prohibition of acquisition of territory through the use of force, of exploitation of natural resources, forced transfer of the occupied population and introduction of civilian settlers in the occupied territory (as well as a host of other serious breaches of IHL), of racial segregation or apartheid, and of suppression of Palestinians’ right to self-determination – are opposable erga omnes to all States (para. 274).

Consequently, and mirroring language of Article 41 ARSIWA and its own 1971 Namibia Opinion, the Court found that all third States are under a duty to refrain from recognising the illegal situation as lawful, to abstain from rendering any aid and assistance to Israel that could entrench its illegal presence in the OPT, and to cooperate to bring the occupation to an end (para. 279). While the Court found that it is now the competence of the General Assembly and the Security Council to pronounce on the concrete “modalities” required along these lines, and with which States are under a duty to cooperate to put into effect (para. 275), the ICJ already specifically held that:

“the duty of distinguishing dealings with Israel between its own territory and the Occupied Palestinian Territory encompasses, inter alia, the obligation to abstain from treaty relations with Israel in all cases in which it purports to act on behalf of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or a part thereof on matters concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory or a part of its territory; to abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory; to abstain, in the establishment and maintenance of diplomatic missions in Israel, from any recognition of its illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; and to take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” (para. 278).

Business as Usual

Since that groundbreaking opinion in 2024, Israel has not only refused to withdraw from the OPT, but also dramatically escalated its policies of segregation and creeping annexation, adopting a death penalty law that de facto targets Palestinians, and replicating its patterns of destructive occupation in Lebanon and Syria.

All the while, Israel’s biggest trading partner, the European Union has largely failed to take a concerted stance for bringing itself and its members to compliance with the jus cogens obligations identified by the Advisory Opinion and competent United Nations bodies (para. 278), even where EU “exclusive competences” are concerned (the common commercial policy), and despite extensive expert legal opinions on what is expected of the EU as an international legal actor, as well as of its Member States individually.

Most embarrassingly for its European allies, Israel has accepted imports of plundered wheat from occupied Ukrainian territories by Russia, immediately prompting reactions from the EU that it otherwise failed to deliver in respect to the OPT.

The timid countermeasures that ensued, i.e. the EU Council’s recent imposition of targeted sanctions on a handful of settler entities and individuals, amount to a small step in cooperating to bring the occupation to an end, measures required under the “cooperation” pillar of duties of third States under the law of aggravated responsibility. They do not, however, play any role in stopping a continuing rendering of aid and assistance (or “complicity”) in and effective recognition of the principal breach – Israel’s illegal presence in the OPT. Duties of cooperation are “positive” (Article 41(1) ARSIWA); they are distinct from the much more serious and definite “negative” duties of non-assistance and non-recognition (Article 41(2) ARSIWA).

Failing to cease all trade with illegal settlements entails both continued assistance to their entrenchment and effective recognition of the situation as lawful. As similarly articulated by Devers and Moerenhout:

“The fundamental prohibition of the transfer of the Occupying Power’s own civilian population ipso facto implies an equally strong prohibition on the economic activity of transferred civilians for the benefit of the Occupying Power. (…) When the Occupying Power regulates the export of products from its illegal settlements, it takes a claim on that territory. And since the import of products from illegal settlements by Third States is a legal act, such trade constitutes implicit recognition because it recognises the Occupying Power’s claim over the exportation of illegal settlement goods and services from illegal settlements from an annexed or occupied territory.” (pp 227-228)

Even where States may wish to target trade from settlements, they will be thwarted by Israel’s mislabelling policies of settlement goods. A June 2026 report by Global Echo has thoroughly evinced a systematic pattern of origin obfuscation, finding that one in five Israeli shipments to the EU are sourced from illegal colonies beyond the Green Line and misrepresented as produced in Israel proper.

Given the difficulty of assuring effective due diligence in distinguishing the provenance of goods between settlements in the OPT and Israel, ultimately even trade with Israel proper could be construed as assistance that entrenches its illegal presence in the OPT, because it enables the trade of illegal contraband under international law, and even further: it allows illegal exports from settlements to benefit from preferential tariff treatment in importing countries when passing as made in Israel.

This issue underpins current debates on the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

EU-Israel Association Agreement

The EU-Israel Association Agreement is the framework for Israel’s favoured economic partnership with the EU. It contains an “essential elements” clause in its Article 2, conditioning the treaty to continuous “respect for human rights and democratic principles”. The European External Action Service (EEAS) found Israel to be in breach of this provision last year, which would allow the EU unilaterally to suspend the Agreement, consistent with the material breach rule under the law of treaties (Art 60(3)(b) VCLT). In spite of this finding, the European Council has hitherto failed to suspend the treaty, even as it meets against the backdrop of several EU (and most recently also EFTA) States enacting individual trade bans, and a European Citizen’s Initiative calling for the suspension having become the fastest ever to reach the required threshold of one million signatures.

The question that ought to be asked is no longer whether the EU is entitled to unilaterally suspend the agreement. In fact, long before the official EEAS finding from last year, this was already posited by James Crawford in 2012, and it seems to have been officially clear internally to the European Commission since 2017 according to a recently leaked confidential legal opinion by then Legal Service DG Romero Pequena, drafted well before the 2018 massacre of peaceful Palestinian demonstrators by IDF snipers in Gaza. Rather, the question is whether the EU must do suspend this treaty in order to stave off continuing attribution of responsibility for Israel’s illegal occupation.

More germanely still, even a full suspension of the Association Agreement may not attain what is required of EU States under international law, as it would merely entail a reversal to World Trade Organisation rules between the EU and Israel.

Where an outright embargo would be required under the law of responsibility, the debate must go beyond the suspension of this Association Agreement and earnestly address the question of banning all trade that benefits Israel’s illegal presence in the OPT, encompassing all illegal settlements beyond the Green Line, but also including trade with Israel proper where demonstrably “inextricable” from its occupation enterprise. An embargo on Israeli settlements must logically include both trade in goods and services, hence covering companies such as Booking.com and AirBnB.

As the widespread origin obfuscation practices documented by Global Echo launder the provenance of goods sourced in the OPT by mislabelling them as made in Israel, the EU must clearly determine who bears the burden of assuring what goods and services are not inextricable from the illegal occupation of the OPT.

Even then, due to the severely limited efficacy of EU customs and traceability enforcement in respect of Israel and its settlements, in order to comply with the duties of non-recognition and non-assistance the EU may ultimately need to impose a precautionary trade embargo on Israel until such time as the latter heeds the ICJ’s Opinion and complies with its peremptory obligation to “evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory”. Though this piece has focused on trade, other categories of economic cooperation as investment, research and public procurement may also qualify as assistance that entrenches the occupation, and must likewise be stopped.

EU Tariff Proposals as Compensatory Countermeasures

Having failed to achieve the unanimity incorrectly required to suspend the Association Agreement at Council meetings thus far, the EU started mulling other economic responses to Israel’s OPT policies.

A proposal by France and Sweden would increase EU tariffs on goods from settlements in the OPT.

It is questionable whether this would constitute a meaningful response at all. It would arguably fall short from stopping a lien of assistance and still qualify a tacit recognition of the settlements as lawful. It is not a proper form of countermeasure either, because it does little to remove the EU from a mode of participation in the principal breach.

Such model of tariff as countermeasures makes more sense in recent EU proposals of tariffs on Russian goods as a sort of compensatory countermeasure in the “general or collective interest” (Art. 54 ARSIWA) to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine. The EU could apply the same measure against Israel to start funding the reconstruction of the OPT, but tariffs can only constitute a meaningful countermeasure where they represent a step beyond merely discontinuing assistance and recognition of Israel’s illegal presence in the OPT.

Trade restrictions can only be properly regarded as a sanction (or countermeasure) under general international law insofar as they constitute a temporary suspension of a right, a permissible breach of an otherwise valid rule. Where trade is illegal to begin with, because it stems from territory illegally occupied or because it entrenches this occupation, the restriction of this trade is merely a matter of ceasing complicity and recognition – it is a duty, an act of removal from a mode of participation in a principal breach; it is not a discretionary measure.

Given contestation as to the existence of a Palestinian State, payments could be provisionally consigned to the UN Register of Damage for the Occupation of Palestinian Territory, drawing from analogous practice of the Council of Europe’s Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. Judge Tladi suggested this could be achieved by revitalising the expanding the mandate of the existing Register of Damage Caused by the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (UNRoD).

Should the EU decide to collect tariffs on settlement trade, it will not be staving off continued complicity in Israel’s illegal presence in the OPT and will accordingly need to account for its share of responsibility over a longer time span of participation. The tariffs it collects would neither stem from discretionary countermeasures, nor properly be “compensatory”, because their source is spurious at origin. These funds would need to be consigned to the UN Register of Damage, but not as remedial, but because illegally perceived from the beginning, through an illegal presence in the OPT.

Tariffs are only a meaningful countermeasure against Israeli economic activity that does not “assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within the meaning of the ICJ’s opinion.

Otherwise, a trade embargo is the policy required of assisting parties to cease continuing accruement of shared responsibility.

Conclusion

The main point of this contribution was to underline what policies can be discussed as being subject to some political discretion by the EU under the positive duty of cooperation, and what on the other hand is actually the bare minimum to cease illegal conduct on the part of the EU as a complicit party.

Targeted sanctions and economic countermeasures are adequate where they represent an effort to cooperate to bring Israel’s occupation to the end. They may and should be adopted as well.
They are, however, only an incremental step to the urgent and basic negative duty to discontinue the robust trade that assists in the principal jus cogens breach by Israel. In this sense, suspending the Association Agreement is necessary to meet non-assistance and non-recognition, but not enough. In addition, trade must not be allowed to continue in any form with Israeli settlements in the OPT.

Moreover, because Israel is deeply enmeshed with the settlements as a matter of policy, an embargo on Israel proper is also required wherever dealings would contribute to the entrenchment of the occupation in the OPT, and may be required on a precautionary basis where allowing trade with Israel enables the widespread smuggling of settlement goods through deceptive obfuscation of origin.

The post More Than Mere Bystanders appeared first on Verfassungsblog.

Die Informationsfreiheit in Deutschland befindet sich in einer Krise. Die Ampelregierung hat ihr Versprechen nicht eingelöst, die Informationsfreiheitsgesetze zu einem Transparenzgesetz weiterzuentwickeln. Im Rahmen der Koalitionsverhandlungen 2025 erwogen Teile der CDU das Informationsfreiheitsgesetz (IFG) abzuschaffen. Durch zivilgesellschaftlichen Druck konnte dieser Angriff abgewendet werden. Der endgültige Koalitionsvertrag sprach kryptisch von einer Reform des IFG mit einem „Mehrwert für Bürgerinnen und Bürger und Verwaltung“. Auf Bundesländerebene werden Informationsfreiheitsgesetze ausgehöhlt, wie zuletzt durch den Berliner Senat, der eine unbestimmte Bereichsausnahme für die sogenannte Kritische Infrastruktur geschaffen hat.

Diese restriktive Tendenz gipfelte im Papier des Koalitionsausschusses vom 2.7.2026. Im Rahmen einer Paketlösung hat die Bundesregierung angekündigt, das IFG umfassend zu ändern. Als Wissenschaftler*innen und Praxispartner*innen von „FragDenStaat“ untersuchen wir gemeinsam in dem laufenden Praxis-Forschungsprojekt „Rechtskämpfe um Informationsfreiheit“ die politischen und rechtlichen Konjunkturen der Informationsfreiheit und analysieren die Machtressourcen dieses Rechtsgebiets. Die politischen Vorschläge des Koalitionsausschusses sind aus unserer Sicht weitreichend, sodass die Informationsfreiheit in Deutschland faktisch abgeschafft werden könnte. Einschränkungen im Anwendungsbereich, hohe Gebühren und neue Ablehnungsgründe würden eine zentrale Ressource der Demokratie aushöhlen.

Bruch des Koalitionsvertrags mit diffuser Begründung

Den ursprünglich im Koalitionsvertrag versprochenen „Mehrwert“ für die Bürger*innen sucht man im Text vergebens. Der Beschluss wirkt auf eine faktische Abschaffung der Informationsfreiheit hin und kann im Zusammenhang mit anderen Vorstößen als Ausdruck eines staatlichen Misstrauens gegenüber der Bevölkerung verstanden werden.

Das Wesen der Informationsfreiheit aus Art. 5 Abs. 1 Satz 1 GG und dem aktuellen Informationsfreiheitsgesetz ist, dass es sich um ein voraussetzungsloses „Jedermannsrecht“ handelt. Jede*r kann Informationen bei Behörden erfragen, ohne dass besondere Voraussetzungen in der Person des Anfragenden oder des Inhalts der Anfrage erfüllt sein müssen. Dies würde sich mit den angekündigten Reformen fundamental ändern.

Hohe Hürden und Ausschluss von Presse, Organisationen und Drittstaatler*innen

Laut dem Koalitionsausschuss sollen die „Auskunftsrechte künftig auf natürliche Personen“ fokussiert werden, „die ein berechtigtes Interesse an einer Auskunft haben und diese nicht durch andere Regelungen erreichen können“. Damit wird das bisherige informationsfreiheitsrechtliche Verhältnis zwischen Staat und Bürger*innen ins Gegenteil verkehrt. Bisher muss nicht die Antragstellerin im ersten Schritt begründen, warum sie die Informationen haben will, sondern der Staat muss darlegen, warum sie im Einzelfall nicht herausgegeben werden können. Die Vorgabe eines berechtigten Interesses findet sich aktuell nur im Bundesland Bayern, das kein eigenes Informationsfreiheitsgesetz hat, sondern lediglich den Auskunftsanspruch nach Art. 39 Bayerisches Datenschutzgesetz (BayDSG). Auch wenn die bayerischen Verwaltungsgerichte davon ausgehen, dass an das berechtigte Interesse keine überzogenen Anforderungen gestellt werden dürften, sondern das Interesse rechtlich, wirtschaftlich und ideell begründet werden könne und weit zu verstehen sei, spiegelt sich dies in der bayerischen Behördenpraxis bisher nicht wider. Anfragen werden regelmäßig unter Verweis darauf, dass kein berechtigtes Interesse dargelegt sei, abgelehnt, wie der bayerische Datenschutzbeauftragte erläutert. In jedem Fall wird mit dem Erfordernis eines „berechtigten Interesses“ eine Bringschuld der Antragstellenden statuiert. Von einem voraussetzungslosen Anspruch wie bisher kann nicht mehr die Rede sein.

Hinzu kommt die Beschränkung auf „natürliche Personen“, d.h. juristische Personen oder Personenvereinigungen blieben künftig außen vor. NGOs oder Medienhäuser könnten keine Anfragen mehr stellen. Greenpeace Deutschland kritisiert entsprechend scharf, dass diese Änderung das Ende des IFG bedeuten würde. Wenn Behörden Informationen zurückhalten, kann geklagt werden, doch Gerichtsprozesse sind teuer, langwierig und komplex. Von Einzelpersonen sind sie nicht zu stemmen.

Die Formulierung des Koalitionsbeschlusses, dass die Auskunft nicht durch „andere Regeln“ erreicht werden darf, wirft Rätsel auf. Sie könnte als Hinweis verstanden werden, dass speziellere fachgesetzliche Ansprüche das IFG verdrängen. Hierbei handelt es sich jedoch um den aktuellen Status Quo. Natürliche Personen, die andere Auskunftsrechte haben, sind vor allem Abgeordnete und Journalist*innen. Wenn der Koalitionsausschuss davon spricht, dass Auskunftsrechte nach dem IFG begrenzt werden sollen, wenn sich diese „durch andere Regelungen erreichen“ lassen, dann stellt sich die Frage, ob Journalist*innen insgesamt die Möglichkeit genommen werden soll, das Informationsfreiheitsgesetz zu nutzen. Ihnen steht als Berufsgruppe der presserechtliche Auskunftsanspruch zu, der sich auf Auskünfte beschränkt und nicht dazu führt, dass Akten offengelegt werden. Eine derartige Schlechterstellung, gerade von Journalist*innen, wäre nicht zu vermitteln. Das „Netzwerk Recherche“ kritisiert den Koalitionsbeschluss als „Frontalangriff auf eine demokratische Errungenschaft“. Zwar erweist sich das IFG mitunter nicht als kompatibel mit dem Zeithorizont journalistischer Alltagspraxis, aber Journalist*innen berichteten uns im Rahmen des Forschungsprojekts in Interviews von der Bedeutung dieses Instruments, welches den Zugang zu Originaldokumenten ermöglicht. Beispiele sind etwa Recherchen zur Fördermittelaffäre in Berlin, zur Umstrittenheit der „Migrationswende“ innerhalb des Bundesinnenministeriums oder zum Tankrabatt.

Schließlich will die Koalition prüfen, ob sie „den Kreis der betreffenden Personen auf in Deutschland lebende Deutsche und Unionsbürger beschränk[t]“. Durch diesen Passus werden Drittstaatler*innen, die in Deutschland leben, ohne hinreichenden sachlichen Grund schlechter gestellt. Eine Verletzung von Art. 3 Abs. 1 GG drängt sich auf. Warum sollten Menschen ohne deutschen Pass oder eine anderweitige europäische Staatsbürgerschaft, die aber hier leben, arbeiten und auch von Behördenentscheidungen betroffen sind, weniger Rechte in Bezug auf den Zugang zu amtlichen Informationen haben? Wie die Bundesregierung diese Diskriminierung rechtfertigen will, bleibt völlig im Unklaren.

Keine Nachvollziehbarkeit und neue Bereichsausnahmen

Der weiteren Ankündigung des Koalitionsausschusses, man wolle Namen von Mitarbeitenden schwärzen, um Beschäftigte in Behörden vor Anfeindungen und Drohungen zu schützen, ist zu entgegnen, dass die von der Koalition vorgebrachte Sorge schon im aktuellen IFG ausreichend berücksichtigt wird: Namen sollen zugänglich gemacht werden, sofern ihre Nennung Ausdruck und Folge amtlicher Tätigkeit ist und keine anderen Ablehnungsgründe einschlägig sind. Ist tatsächlich eine Bedrohungslage gegeben, können die Namen von Mitarbeitenden schon jetzt – etwa über den Ablehnungsgrund der Gefährdung der öffentlichen Sicherheit – geschwärzt werden. Eine automatische Schwärzung der Namen würde es unmöglich machen, nachzuvollziehen, wer für welche Entscheidung verantwortlich war. Gerade dies ist essenziell, um die Kontrolle durch Öffentlichkeit als ein Ziel des IFG erreichen zu können.

Es ist ebenso wenig erforderlich, „dem besonderen Schutzbedarf bestimmter Bereiche wie dem der Kritischen Infrastruktur, der Spionageabwehr, der Terrorismusbekämpfung oder auch der wissenschaftlichen Forschung stärker Rechnung“ zu tragen, indem man diese Bereiche vom IFG ausnimmt. Das IFG hält schon jetzt eine Vielzahl von Ablehnungsgründen für sicherheitsrelevante Informationen bereit. Es ist kein Beispiel bekannt, in dem aufgrund von Informationsfreiheitsanfragen herausgegebene Informationen zu einem Sicherheitsproblem geführt hätten. Durch die angestrebte Änderung könnten die Behörden zukünftig Anträge zu den genannten Bereichen pauschal ablehnen. Schon heute zeigt sich beim reformierten Berliner IFG, dass die Behörden die neue Bereichsausnahme denkbar weit auslegen. Die im Koalitionsausschuss angestrebten Veränderungen fügen sich in eine Krisenstrategie ein, welche die Exekutive weitestgehend von externen Einflüssen abschotten möchte.

Ohne Geld läuft nichts mehr

Eine gravierende Änderung steckt im letzten Satz. Danach werde man die Gebühren „im Einklang mit dem Kostendeckungsprinzip“ anpassen. Das Kostendeckungsprinzip besagt grob, dass die Gebühr die Leistung, die die Verwaltung erbracht hat, abdecken soll. Aktuell gilt es mit Blick auf das Informationsfreiheitsgesetz nur modifiziert. Nach Maßgabe von § 10 Abs. 2 IFG fließt der Verwaltungsaufwand zwar in die Berechnung ein, er ist aber nicht allein maßgeblich. Denn die Erhebung von Gebühren darf nicht dazu führen, dass Personen keine Anträge auf Informationszugang stellen (Verbot prohibitiver Wirkung). Dementsprechend sieht die aktuelle Informationsgebührenverordnung eine Kappung der Gebühren bei 500 Euro vor. Einfache Anfragen sind kostenfrei. Die Koalition will sich offensichtlich davon abwenden und künftig allein den Verwaltungsaufwand als Maßstab heranziehen. Die Gebühren wären nach oben hin unbegrenzt. Die bisherige Praxis, keine Gebühren in den Fällen zu erheben, in denen der Informationszugang abgelehnt oder eine Anfrage zurückgenommen wird, dürfte passé sein. Denn nach dem allgemeinen Gebührenrecht können Behörden auch in diesen Fällen Gebühren erheben.

Dies wird zwangsläufig zu einer „undemokratischen Zwei-Klassen-Informationsfreiheit“ (so zutreffend die Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider) führen. Viele Personen, die wenig Geld haben, dürften künftig auf Anträge auf Auskunft oder Akteneinsicht verzichten. Dabei sind nicht nur die Kosten, die am Ende tatsächlich entstehen, das Problem. Antragstellende werden künftig noch weniger vorhersagen können, wie hoch die Gebühren letztlich sein werden. Das bisherige voraussetzungslose „Jedermannsrecht“ der Informationsfreiheit wandelt sich in ein Privileg für Wenige.

Der „Bürokratierückbau“-Diskurs

Nachdem die Einführung des IFG im Jahr 2006 einen Paradigmenwechsel von der Arkantradition hin zu einer demokratischen Kontrolle der Verwaltung durch die Öffentlichkeit einläutete (so Friedrich Schoch), hat sich der Trend schon vor dem Koalitionsbeschluss in der Praxis umgekehrt. In unseren qualitativen Interviews mit Vertreter*innen aus Behörden, Wissenschaft, Journalismus, Anwaltschaft und den Beauftragten für Informationsfreiheit konnten wir aufgrund der politischen Diskurse den Eindruck einer „negativen Konjunktur“ im Informationsfreiheitsrecht gewinnen.

Konkret zeigt sich diese negative Konjunktur in der Informationsfreiheit anhand des „Bürokratierückbau“-Diskurses, der unter dem Vorzeichen globaler ökonomischer Krisenerscheinungen geführt wird. Im Koalitionspapier werden die Änderungen am IFG im Kapitel „Bürokratierückbau“ (S. 9f.) angesprochen. Die Rede vom „Bürokratieabbau“ oder „-rückbau“ ist nichts Neues. Der Begriff erweist sich aber als leerer Signifikant, sofern – wie Pascale Cancik feststellt – unter diesem Label „ganz unterschiedliche konkrete politische Projekte“ vorangetrieben werden können, „die in anderer sprachlicher Rahmung […] möglicherweise nicht durchsetzbar wären“. Der große Verwaltungsaufwand für Behörden ist ein Argument, das von Kritiker*innen der Transparenzpolitik angeführt wird. Im Rahmen des Anspruchs der Bundesregierung, die Wirtschaft durch Bürokratieabbau zu entlasten, bestand die Gefahr, dass sich der allgemeine Bürokratieabbau-Diskurs mit der Kritik am IFG verknotet. Selbstverständlich ist es für die Behörden aufwendig, Anfragen von Bürger*innen zu bearbeiten. Allerdings wäre zu fragen, ob ein Transparenzgesetz diesen Aufwand verringern könnte, sofern Informationsfreiheit von Anfang an in der Verwaltung mitgedacht wird. Im Übrigen führt gerade die Einführung eines „berechtigten Interesses“ nicht zur Entlastung der Verwaltung, sondern verursacht im Gegenteil unnötigen Prüfungsaufwand.

Schließlich sind für die negative Konjunktur die sich zuspitzenden globalen Konfliktlagen sowie der Aufstieg der extremen Rechten zentral. So wurde auch die Änderung des Berliner Informationsfreiheitsgesetzes mit einer „veränderte[n] Sicherheitslage“ begründet und in einen Zusammenhang mit der Verteidigungsfähigkeit gestellt (S. 15f.). Dieses Motiv ist unmittelbar auch dem Papier des Koalitionsausschusses zu entnehmen, wenn dort von „aktuellen Herausforderungen“ sowie von einer „komplexen Bedrohungslage von innen und von außen“ die Rede ist. Dieser Situation will die Koalition begegnen, indem sie die „staatliche Resilienz“ erhöht. Das Schleifen demokratischer Kontroll- und Beteiligungsmöglichkeiten wird die Prozesse demokratischer Involution allerdings eher verstärken, statt Resilienz zu schaffen.

Informationsfreiheit als demokratische Ressource

Informationsfreiheit ist in den aktuellen Krisenzeiten eine wichtige demokratische Ressource. Durch sie können Skandale, Exekutivexzesse und Korruption aufgedeckt werden. Im kleineren alltäglichen Nahbereich ermöglicht sie Bürger*innen die Nachvollziehbarkeit und Überprüfung staatlicher Entscheidungen. Empirisch zeigt sich in einer kürzlich veröffentlichten repräsentativen Umfrage, dass 96% der Befragten behördliche Transparenz für wichtig erachten und immerhin 10% eine Anfrage nach dem IFG gestellt haben.

In unserem transdisziplinären Praxis-Forschungsprojekt können wir beobachten, dass Informationsfreiheit ein wichtiges Sensorium für gesellschaftliche Probleme darstellt und eine wichtige Ressource bildet, die Bürger*innen eine Meinungsbildung und das Einüben demokratischer Praxen ermöglicht. Die organisierte Zivilgesellschaft bildet als intermediärer Akteur ein wichtiges Scharnier, sofern sie versucht, die strukturelle Informationsasymmetrie zwischen Staat und Bürger*innen zu überbrücken und letztere zu diesem Zweck bei ihren Informationsanträgen unterstützt. Insbesondere während der Corona-Pandemie wurde deutlich, wie wichtig es Bürger*innen ist, staatliches Handeln nachvollziehen zu können – dies lässt sich auch im 31. Tätigkeitsbericht des BfDI nachlesen. In unseren Interviews sind wir hier auf Positivbeispiele gestoßen, in denen die vermehrten Anfragen von Bürger*innen während der Pandemie dazu geführt haben, dass Behörden Informationen proaktiv veröffentlicht haben. Dies war für den demokratischen Diskurs produktiv und konnte den Raum für eine sachorientierte Debatte eröffnen. Gleichzeitig wird an dem Fall die Bedeutung des IFG als Bestandteil einer demokratischen Infrastruktur deutlich, da die veröffentlichten Krisenstabsprotokolle nicht unwesentlich dazu beitragen, die Beschaffungsaktivitäten des Gesundheitsministeriums im Jahr 2020 aufzuklären. Nicht zuletzt verdeutlichen der von über 100 Organisationen getragene offene Brief, der sich gegen die geplanten Einschränkungen des IFG wendet, sowie eine Petition, die innerhalb kurzer Zeit mehrere Hunderttausend Unterstützer*innen gefunden hat, die gesellschaftliche Relevanz des IFG.

Sollten die wesentlichen Erwägungen des Koalitionsausschusses im parlamentarischen Prozess umgesetzt werden, dürfte von der Informationsfreiheit als demokratischer Ressource kaum etwas übrigbleiben. Dies würde die Rückkehr zu einer Arkanpraxis der Staatsapparate bedeuten und den ohnehin grassierenden Vertrauensverlust der Bürger*innen vergrößern.

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Last Tuesday, the US Supreme Court released its final merits opinion of its October 2025 term. In Trump v Barbara, a razor thin 5-4 majority deemed the President’s attempt to deny American citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to immigrant parents who are undocumented or present on certain visas unconstitutional. The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Roberts, held that the order violated the U.S. Constitution’s 14^th Amendment, which mandates that all children born on U.S. soil and ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ shall be citizens. Justice Kavanaugh, concurring only in the judgment, would have struck down the order on statutory grounds alone.

The decision is a rare and important win for immigrants and American constitutional democracy. It is rare because the Supreme Court handed the Administration a win in every other immigration enforcement-related dispute it resolved this term. And it is important because it resists one of the Administration’s most aggressive attempts to rewrite not just the country’s immigration laws and Constitution, but also its history and civic identity.

But Barbara should not be remembered as an example of principled judicial resistance against gross executive overreach. Only five Justices affirmed a constitutional rule whose meaning was textually, historically, and precedentially settled. It should, instead, be studied for the disagreement it laid bare over whether citizenship should remain constitutionally insulated from the lawless regime of executive discretion the Court has been crafting when it comes to immigration control — and, beneath that, over what makes citizenship valuable in the first place.

The Executive Order in Context

Trump v Barbara’s constitutional question was whether Executive Order 14160 was compatible with the 14^th Amendment’s citizenship clause. Until last Spring, the consensus was that the Amendment’s language conferred citizenship to all children born on U.S. soil, with a narrow set of exceptions. These pertain to “children of foreign sovereignties or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within or during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and children of members of the Indian tribes.” (United States vs. Wong Kim Ark, 169, U.S. 649, 693 (1898.) With EO 14160, President Trump sought to carve out a new exception for children born to immigrant parents who are present on temporary visas or undocumented.

Proclaiming to protect “the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” the order is part of the Administration’s broader attempt to instantiate a racially exclusive, white nationalist conception of American civic identity and political membership. In pursuit of this project, the executive branch has weaponized the country’s immigration enforcement machinery, and resorted to countless policies and measures that not merely stretch the limits of both statutory and constitutional law but outright ignore them. Its attempt to rewrite the Constitution’s citizenship attribution rule was merely the highest-profile example.

The Supreme Court has, by and large, chosen to legally clear the Administration’s way. The President may now adopt and enforce policies that are motivated by racial animus and ignore the statutorily prescribed process. Agencies tasked with enforcing immigration law may also use racial profiling in law enforcement sweeps, at least for the time being; can detain and deport certain non-citizens without due process and sometimes even basic habeas review; and, since last week, may strip lawful permanent residents seeking re-entry at the border of their green cards on mere suspicion—rather than clear and convincing evidence—that they may have committed a crime.

There is not a single decision by the Supreme Court from its October 2025 term that reined in the executive’s growing lawlessness in its immigration enforcement crackdown. The sole exception being Trump v Barbara, in which two Justices of the Court’s conservative wing split with their ideological allies and chose to side, instead, with the liberals.

On Citizenship Exceptionalism

Why this exception to this general pattern of conservative permissiveness towards executive overreach in immigration enforcement? It reflects, in part, a constitutionally entrenched qualitative distinction between questions of citizenship and immigration control. Constitutionally speaking, the government’s authority over citizenship and immigration are governed by two oppositional constitutional regimes. Since the Supreme Court crafted federal immigration authority in the so-called Chinese Exclusion Cases in the late 19^th century—a series of cases that granted the federal government largely unconstrained power to exclude and deport immigrants—it has treated immigration as a sphere of exceptional political discretion to which the Constitution’s ordinary norms, ideals, and limits simply do not apply. Not just that: it has also condoned racism and nativism as animating governmental concerns in this domain of governmental control.

This exceptionally permissive constitutional regime contrasts with the exceptionally restrictive one that governs the government’s authority over the distribution of citizenship. By attaching citizenship to the fact of territorial birth, the 14^th Amendment’s citizenship clause radically circumscribes the political branches’ capacity to determine who is to be an American citizen. Ratified in 1868, the Amendment was the crowning achievement of the progressive Reconstruction Congress, which sought to constitutionally entrench the civil rights of formerly enslaved people following the country’s civil war. Its drafters both sought to overturn the Court’s 1857 decision in Dred Scott v Sandford, which had held that African-Americans could not be citizens due to their race (Maj. Op., p. 7), and ensure that American citizenship became an “anticaste engine,” rather than a tool for legally entrenching the racial caste system that had disfigured the country’s constitutional and political order since its founding (Maj., p. 9; KBJ, p.15, 17).

The self-executing and near- categorical nature of the Amendment’s citizenship clause laid the foundations for what we may think of the citizenship line: the idea that however expansive the government’s authority over immigration was to be, it does not entail a power to decide who is to be an American in the first place.

History Repeats Itself

Trump v Barbara is not the first time the Supreme Court has had to decide whether it held firm on this line or was willing to subordinate the 14^th Amendment’s text and universalist, anti-caste spirit to the government’s nativism and anti-immigrant agenda. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Court first confronted the question whether the citizenship clause confers citizenship on children born on U.S. soil to resident immigrant parents. Wong Kim Ark was born in 1873 in California to immigrant parents who were subjects of China but not “employed in any diplomatic or official capacity.” When he returned from a temporary visit to China, the government denied him readmission on the basis that he was not a citizen and therefore excludable under the Chinese Exclusion Act. Just like Barbara, Wong Kim Ark was decided amid intense anti-immigrant, and specifically anti-Chinese, sentiment, by a Supreme Court that had otherwise been strikingly supportive of the federal government’s attempts to exclude and deport immigrants.

Yet, when the government tried to extend that campaign to citizenship itself, a Court otherwise comfortable with pouring the government’s nativism into the law, found the 14^th Amendment’s “broad and clear” words too clear to bend [704]. It rejected the government’s argument that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” entailed a broad, allegiance-based limitation that would exclude the children of foreign subjects.  It held instead, by 7-2, that Wong Kim Ark was a citizen because he was born on U.S. soil and ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ Neither his parents’ foreign nationality nor their ineligibility for naturalization altered that fact.

Blurring the Line

Fast forward to today, and this majority has shrunk to a meagre 5-4.

The Barbara majority simply affirmed the long-standing and, until recently, undisputed history and meaning of the Citizenship Clause: to be “subject to the jurisdiction” is to be subject to the government’s “full and complete power” over persons within its territory (Majority, p.3, p.11). The exceptions to this general rule are confined to a narrow category of cases where exercising jurisdiction would “degrade the dignity” of “foreign sovereigns” (Id., citing Schooner Exchange v McFaddon, 7 Cranch 116). Such “inter-sovereign concerns” do not apply to parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the United States for no sovereign would “have any motive for wishing” them outside the authority of the United States. (Majority, p. 12)

The dissents, by contrast, took up the government’s argument that the Clause’s reference to jurisdiction does not refer to ‘bare territorial authority.’ Instead, it refers to something like ‘complete’ or ‘political’ jurisdiction (Thomas Dissent, p. 3). This, in turn, requires the individual to possess something like ‘primary’ or ‘complete’ or ‘direct and immediate’ allegiance to the U.S. in order to be subject thereto (Alito Dissent, p. 22). Such allegiance exists only if the parents are ‘domiciled’ in the United States; a requirement Wong Kim Ark’s parents satisfied, because they “came to settle in America” and “had done everything within their power to express their desire and intent to become Americans” (Thomas Dissent, p. 43). By contrast, parents present on temporary visas or unlawfully cannot meet this criterion because “by definition, [they] do not choose to make a permanent home here […].” (Gorsuch Dissent, p.2).

Justice Alito goes even further: he believes the clause does not cover all those “subject to a foreign power,” which apparently means simply being a citizen of a different country (Alito Dissent, p. 17). Thus, “children born to illegal immigrants fail this test [if] they are automatically made nationals of their parents’ native country.” (Alito Dissent, p. 37.) Resident non-citizens can only satisfy the Clause’s criterion, in his eyes, if they are “lawfully present, establish the United States as their intended permanent home, and do everything within their power to become United States citizens [emphasis added]” (Alito Dissent, p. 27)—whatever that means.

The Deeper Divide or What Makes Citizenship Valuable

Despite differing in their particulars, the dissents all share a common concern: they all believe that the near-categorical, inclusionary approach to the citizenship clause that the majority affirms supposedly degrades or devalues the “glory and dignity of American citizenship.” (Thomas Dissent, p. 1, 91; Gorsuch Dissent, p.1; Alito Dissent, p. 1). In their eyes, American citizenship is a ‘privilege’ or ‘benefit’ that ought to only be granted to a select class of people (Kavanaugh Concurrence, p.8 ; Gorsuch Dissent, p.2). Extending citizenship to the children of individuals who fall short of some implicit membership criterion—whether it be domicile, lawful immigration status, or allegiance—cheapens the status.

Underpinning this charge is an exclusive, politically defined conception of the citizenry, whose boundaries the political branches must remain free to police. The dissents therefore endorse not merely the government’s legal argument, but also its underlying theory of citizenship, which locates its value in the status’ exclusive and exclusionary nature. On this theory, citizenship cannot and should not be insulated from the President’s authority, because the exclusion the status’ value necessitates requires active policing of access thereto.

This notably contrasts with the majority’s conception of citizenship. Chief Justice Roberts concludes the opinion by noting that “citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights— to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to “every free-born person in this land.” (Majority, p. 26). The phrase channels Hannah Arendt’s famous characterization of citizenship which supports the 14^th Amendment’s near categorical, and inclusionary rule of ascription.

On this view, the value and dignity of citizenship flows from its role in securing the ideal of democratic self-rule, by ensuring the inclusion and political voice of all those who are part of the polity by virtue of their territorial presence. This view of citizenship mandates not political discretion over the distribution of citizenship, but instead its widespread conferral upon those subject to the government’s jurisdiction. On this conception, categorical ascription and insulation from political manipulation is not incidental to citizenship’s value but constitutive of it.

The Dark Side of Citizenship Exceptionalism

After oral argument, most commentators were confident that the Court would strike down the Executive Order as unconstitutional. They were right. But most also expected a far more decisive majority than the case produced. That only two Justices from the conservative wing chose to affirm what has been long established law, clear history, and governmental policy is evidence not merely of the ideological corruption of the Court, or, less cynically, the Justices’ divergent approaches to constitutional interpretation. It is also evidence of citizenship exceptionalism’s strategic value to the Court’s own image as a political and politicized actor.

Trump v Barbara was the last decision released by the Court, following a slew of cases that handed the President wins on other key policy goals. Overall, the Court chose to further aggrandize the Presidency’s power at the expense of the Constitution’s rule of law. In upholding a foundational achievement of the Reconstruction Congress—which was a unique historical period in American constitutional history that sought to rectify the nation’s original sin and reaffirm the Constitution’s supposed commitment to egalitarian ideals—the Court can position itself as something other than the anti-constitutional institution it has, in reality, become. It signals to the broader public that it is still doing its supposed job of subjecting executive power to the Constitution’s rule of law, when in reality it is in the business of proactively dismantling it.

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