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

By Peter E. Quint

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415443539
• ISBN13: 9780415443531
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Routledge Cavendish
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"