🍻 Selber Bier Brauen

Students demand the decolonization of curricula. Civil society debates the presentation of Non-Western artefacts and entangled histories in museums across the world. European governments apologize for slavery and genocidal killings, while former colonies request reparations, and the Indian legislature decolonizes the Indian Penal Code. The legacies of colonialism and empire are debated everywhere these days.

We propose that these developments signal a new phase in the dynamics of globalisation. While globalisation was perceived especially in recent decades mostly in economic terms and often as uni-directional “Westernisation”, the present phase also has important intellectual dimensions and is fundamentally multidirectional: Positions of “South” and “North”, of metropole and periphery are redefined and rebalanced. We propose to conceptualise this new phase – tentatively – as reflexive globalisation. In this phase, colonial and imperial legacies are increasingly discussed with regard to the North itself; Northern premises of concepts, vocabularies and epistemic certainties are questioned across multiple fields, and Northern domination in systems of knowledge production is subjected to critique.

The notion of reflexive globalisation provides an analytical framework but also a point of departure for systematic interdisciplinary research on this constellation – and is precisely the constellation of transformations – intellectual, political, and institutional – that the Centre for Advanced Studies “Reflexive Globalisation and the Law: Colonial Legacies and their Implications in the 21st Century” (RefLex) seeks to address. Established in October 2025 in Berlin, the Centre aims to serve as a space and platform for sustained, iterative conversations between voices from the South and North.

In this post, we will briefly sketch the background and context of the Centre’s agenda, explain further the idea of reflexive globalization and finally describe the operation of the Centre, where process and substance are equally important.

Background and Context

Starting and conducting iterative conversations between voices from the South and North has remained a challenge, especially in legal academia. Even though post-/decolonial theory has developed immensely over the past 50 years and many disciplines in the social sciences and humanities have used it, in legal academia these theories and colonial legacies were studied, if at all, not in depth. One notable exception is public international law where scholars started what they called Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) in the late 1990s and by now have reshaped the field.

In other areas of legal research, however, the reflection of colonial legacies has been almost nonexistent until very recently. Where Southern contestations to allegedly Northern legal concepts (such as constitutionalism or international criminal justice) have arisen, the responses have often been rather schematic. While some defend such conceptions as necessary and universal elements of well-ordered societies anywhere, others have joined these contestations, in part by characterising such concepts as neo-colonial, foreign, and oppressive. Legal academia, to a large extent, was lagging behind in recognizing the varied experiences of law and integrating them into a more reflexive conceptual vocabulary of law.

But the constellation is changing fast not least due to the realization of a profoundly changed context. A multipolar world has emerged in the past years, in which the former gross asymmetries in many fields are waning. Be it with regard to economic power, military capacity or technological innovation, the dominance of Northern actors and ideas is being unsettled. In the field of knowledge production and especially in legal academia, the shift has been slower but we believe the emergence of a multipolar world has started to change the terms of conversation here too.

In this shift, two trends have emerged, which provide both a tailwind and challenges: On one hand, there has been a surge in interest in colonial legacies and their significance for postcolonial legal orders in the South as well as the North. In the South, a growing number of studies reflect colonial legacies in postcolonial constitutional orders. There is also a growing interest in the North. Various research projects on imperial legacies in the European integration process and in different constitutional systems across Europe and even the US are in the making. A similar trend can be seen in criminal law and crime control. While important foundational work has been done since the 1980s, in particular by protagonists of critical criminology in Latin America, and in Europe, we can observe a recent surge in interest in critically interrogating the impact of colonialism on criminal legal orders and practices.

On the other hand, the discourse and especially the notion of “decolonisation” have become highly politicised and polarised.  In Germany, in particular, postcolonial studies and Southern voices have recently been criticised as inherently anti-Semitic and anti-Western. In India and South Africa, Hindu-nationalists as well as radical left-wing writers respectively have adopted the language of decolonisation to reject liberal constitutional frameworks as imposed and neocolonial. On the international level, the international criminal justice system and the International Criminal Court (ICC) have been getting flak from the Global South states, in particular from the African Union, for being neo-colonial tools in the hands of the North, resulting, inter alia, in the quest for “decolonisation” through withdrawal from and rejection of universal mechanisms of accountability.

These recent trends and the patterns of discussion only underline the need for a respectful, horizontal and analytical engagement – precisely the kind of engagement that RefLex seeks to foster by overcoming polarizations or knee-jerk reactions and creating a space, where mutual, iterative and reflexive rethinking of colonial legacies in legal notions and structures can take place.

Concept of Reflexive Globalisation

The concept of reflexive globalisation intends to contextualise, frame and help to better understand the processes and results of the ongoing renegotiation of legal concepts triggered by the renewed attention to colonial legacies. It is both a framework and an object of study. We aim to test and refine it through the conversations at RefLex – which, of course, includes that we remain open to critique and contestation throughout our ongoing conversations.

We connect to larger discussions in the humanities and social sciences on characteristics and phases of modernity and more concretely to two problematisations of modernity – one from the North and one from the South. Following Ulrich Beck, we observe the reflexivity in the rethinking of concepts in our times. He suggested that many concepts, which emerged as dominant in the 19th century (such as the nation-state, the Fordist company, and the core family) have started to crumble in the late 20th century, lost their clarity and hence became reflexive. Reflexivity here means that such concepts are questioned, their ambiguities are more apparent, with alternatives being discussed. Connecting to the work of Dipesh Chakrabarty, we consider the global, South-North dimension of the rethinking of modern concepts; with him we note the Eurocentricism of much of the legal vocabulary and the urge to overcome, de-centre and “provincialise” this vocabulary – without giving up on the normative, often ideally emancipatory promises in it. In the concept of reflexive globalisation, we hence combine Beck’s notion of reflexivity and Chakrabarty’s idea of provincialisation or de-centering, and argue that today’s multipolar, horizontal world allows and actually calls for global renegotiations that lead to a renewed plural and reflexive conceptual vocabulary.

The concept assumes an entangled character of South-North relations, avoids the polarising choice of rejection or adaption, and allows us to look at both substance and process. In highlighting the procedural dimension, the concept is especially suited for the Centre‘s purpose, since it captures the perennially evolving nature of law that is driven by many actors – legislatures and courts (as studied in a formal-legal perspective), social movements and civil society (in an empirical-political perspective) but also intellectuals and (legal) academia. The concept draws on conceptual history (in the vein of Koselleck or Skinner), recent discourses on the translation, borrowing or transfer of ideas and studies of vernacularisation in legal anthropology and comparative law. It allows us to connect our study of law to similar ongoing work in political theory and social thought that unearths and rediscovers regional concepts of thinking that have been ignored or forgotten in the shadow of Western hegemonic notions.

Work at the Centre and the Interplay of Process and Substance

Central for the research at the Centre is that we are interested in process as much as in substance – the process of illuminating different experiences with certain legal concepts, as well as their reflexive global renegotiation. However, the process of conducting a dialogue with and between scholars from different countries, cultures, and different methodological approaches comes with a number of challenges, which are often legacies of the asymmetries we discuss. Three challenges stand out: First, legal expertise in the Global South is often differently situated. Legal cultures and expertise are less shaped by academia but by diverse institutions and actors. Important interlocutors and great legal intellectuals might be professors, but can also be judges, activists, artists or administrators. Second,  “international” academic collaboration, also in legal academia, continues to be largely dominated by Northern norms, standards and styles. Resulting asymmetries in access and production of knowledge are obvious. The Centre’s location in Berlin, the metropole of a former colonial state, and the Northern backgrounds of both directors of the Centre embody this. And third, as mentioned, the Centre’s topic has become highly polarising and the international perception of Germany, especially in much of the Global South, has changed profoundly. What was once seen as an open and self-critical place for scholars, has been called into question. These challenges impact both the selection of fellows and the organisation of life at the Centre.

 In its design, the Centre is an attempt at reflecting and mitigating these challenges. At its core is the fellows programme. Our aim is to assemble diverse groups of scholars and practitioners from around the world and to form (with and among these fellows) cohorts, in which mutual trust can develop and iterative, robust yet constructive discussions about legacies of colonialism in law can take place. Reflexivity in reflexive globalisation and in our efforts also includes the critical self-reflection of the varying positionalities of people involved, including the Centre’s team. In the selection of the fellows and conversations at the Centre, the Centre’s team is advised by a global Advisory Board of distinguished scholars, as well as by five strategic interlocutors in Berlin, who bring in complementary, non-legal expertise from the perspectives of global history, anthropology, political theory, and legal and academic activism. Moreover, conversations will not only take place at the Centre but involve larger communities through public lectures, conferences (also outside Europe) and blog-symposia like this.

In terms of substance, discussions at the Centre take their starting point in two areas of law: constitutional law and criminal law. Both areas are central for public ordering, world making and for the study of law in colonial and postcolonial settings. Such a study and rethinking could start with many notions from the conceptual vocabulary of law, such as citizenship, constitution, litigation, rights of nature, harm, responsibility. More specifically and by way of example, the Centre focuses on two concepts, which exemplify especially well the colonial and postcolonial dimensions of constitutional and criminal law, and which we see in a process of reflexive global renegotiation: (representative) democracy and (international) punishment.

Representative democracy is an especially interesting and important example, as it can showcase the ongoing effects of Western influence on constitutional thinking, where an allegedly universal vocabulary hardly captures (and much less governs) the reality of political practices in many countries. Studying democracy then is not so much about “colonial legacies” in a strict sense, since democracy was not introduced during formal colonial rule, but about “epistemic coloniality” in constitutional concepts, thinking and practice. And indeed, a number of core concepts of the law of representative democracy are built on European experiences and conceptualisations. The concept of the public, for example, feeds into our understanding (and laws) of parliamentary deliberation or that of party formation harken back to European (for example Habermasian) conceptions. But often enough, ideal theory and non-ideal reality of law do not fit. One stream of intercultural South-North conversations in our Centre would study the law of democracy in Brazil, India, Nigeria and the EU, and interrogate its conceptual and cultural preconditions in these heterogeneous contexts.

The Centre’s second area of critical inquiry and the rethinking of concepts vis-à-vis colonial legacies concerns the field of criminal law, and more specifically the concept of punishment. The study of colonial criminal law is not merely a historical inquiry into sites of violent domination as well as experimentation and innovation, partly later adopted in the metropole; it also encompasses the continuing impact of colonialism on modern criminal justice systems in postcolonial states. In line with our framing of reflexive globalization, this perspective further raises the question of how legacies, practices, and contestations travel from the Global South to the Global North. The relationship between race, crime, punishment, and empire thus becomes central to understanding the ways in which the laws and policies of colonial powers have shaped contemporary legal orders. There are, however, also pertinent questions at the international level. These include the purported “superiority” of retributive punishment as the primary response to mass atrocities; the exclusion of colonial violence and domination from international criminal law; claims of a neocolonial “reality” and of “double standards” in the contemporary enforcement of international criminal law; and, finally, the emancipatory potential of (international) criminal law as a powerful tool available to social movements.

It is this interplay of process and substance, reflective of the spirit of the Centre, that is brought into focus through this blog symposium. The symposium brings together contributions from across disciplines and regions by the Centre’s 2026 Fellows (Alejandra Ancheita, Oumar Ba, Theunis Roux, Peer Zumbansen), postdoctoral researchers (Kalika Mehta and Amadou Korbinian Sow), strategic interlocutors (Isabella Aboderin, Sebastian Conrad, Julia Eckert, Jeanette Ehrmann, and Miriam Saage-Maaß), and the academic coordinator (Johannes Socher, writing with colleagues from the African Network of Constitutional Lawyers). From these varied vantage points, the contributions reflect on how law might respond reflexively to the histories and structures that have shaped it, and on how such forms of (self-)reflection might open space for new legal imaginaries.

As the breadth of these contributions demonstrates, the creation of the Centre on Reflexive Globalisation and the Law comes with an ambitious idea and agenda in process and substance. Taking reflexivity seriously, however, suggests that this agenda must remain open to discussion, critique and revision over time. In this sense, the Centre seeks to provide a space for sustained engagement with the legal implications of colonial legacies.

The post Reflexive Globalisation, Law and Placemaking appeared first on Verfassungsblog.

The Venice Commission, formally known as the European Commission for Democracy through Law, plays an important role in shaping standards of European constitutionalism. By providing expert advice to Council of Europe member states, but also a number of non-European countries; reviewing (draft) laws to assess their compatibility with European standards in the field of democracy, human rights and the rule of law; and by adopting important soft law documents such as its rule of law checklist, the Venice Commission (hereinafter: VC) has increasingly gained political salience and has influenced the lawmaking agenda in a growing number of countries. The EU’s rule of law crisis has similarly shown the increasing importance attached to the VC at the EU level. To give a single example, the VC is mentioned more than 160 times across the 32 rule of law reports published by the European Commission in July 2025. By contrast, the VC was “merely” referenced 68 times in the first edition of the EU’s rule of law report in 2020.

When it comes to specific instances of rule of law backsliding, the VC has acted as an important player and has been recognized as such by both backsliding authorities and EU institutions. From the very start of Poland’s rule of law crisis, for instance, it was striking to see the Polish government promptly asking for an opinion of the VC regarding a law of 22 December 2015 concerning the Constitutional Tribunal (a few days later, however, this manifestly unconstitutional law was promulgated). Subsequently, the European Commission repeatedly recommended that Polish authorities work closely with the VC and made extensive references to its opinions within the framework of the pre-Article 7 and Article 7(1) proceedings it initiated in January 2016 and December 2017 respectively.

With greater influence, however, should come greater responsibility. As this post will outline, the VC suffers from one institutional flaw which concerns the method of selecting its members, a flaw which has been made worse by an unwillingness to enforce its own membership requirements and principles of conduct.

As per the (revised) Statute of the Venice Commission, it is for each member state concerned to appoint two “independent experts” (one member and one substitute). It is furthermore provided that these two members “shall have the qualifications required”, i.e., “have achieved eminence through their experience in democratic institutions or by their contribution to the enhancement of law and political science”. However, there are no mechanisms to review whether the appointees meet – or continue to meet – these qualifications.

The case of Poland shows the urgency of addressing this gap. With the term of Poland’s two (unbecoming) members soon coming to an end, this post will reflect on the VC’s failure to enforce the most basic standards when it comes to qualifications and behaviour, and further submit that the VC ought to make itself immune to autocratic contamination by (i) establishing a mechanism akin to the CJEU’s “255 Committee” and (ii) enforcing its code of conduct without tergiversations. In essence, we urge the VC to assess its own resilience to autocratic capture, and compliance with its duty to take full account of relevant CJEU and ECtHR judgments. The VC’s authority can only but suffer in a context where it is (rightly) stressing the crucial importance of the obligation to execute judgments of international courts while failing to police VC members who engage in a systemic violation of this obligation.

Impact of Poland’s rule of law crisis on VC membership

Prior to Poland’s rule of law crisis, Poland’s standing expert was Hanna Suchocka. A former Prime Minister and an eminent constitutional expert, she served in the VC between 1991 and 2016. In April 2016, the Polish government decided not to re-appoint her, in part due to the sharply critical VC opinion adopted in March 2016 in respect of the Polish government’s legislative attempts to capture Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal. This led the VC to (unusually) appoint Hanna Suchocka as its honorary president.

Mindful of the strategic importance of the VC with respect of its then ongoing attempts to implement the backslider’s playbook, the Polish government appointed Bogusław Banaszak as VC member and Mariusz Muszyński as VC substitute. Although they were both professors of law and could meet the criteria of “contribution to the enhancement of law” on paper, their (lack of) independence could be seriously questioned. At the time of his appointment, M. Muszyński was already well known as one of the framers of, and participants in, the changes which made Poland the world’s top autocratising country by 2020. He was also one of the irregularly appointed “judges” (so-called “double judges”) to the Constitutional Tribunal. Even after the ECtHR in May 2021 found his appointment to violate the very essence of the right to a tribunal established by law, due to multiple irregularities amounting to grave breaches of relevant domestic law, the VC did not budge.

Given that active participation in activities which the ECtHR characterised as “an affront to the rule of law” was deemed insufficient to call into question M. Muszyński’s VC substitute status, it is not surprising that B. Banaszak’s membership was not called into question either. A well-established law professor and academic author, he was also one of the key supporters of the (unconstitutional) changes which led to the effective capture of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal. For example, he co-authored a July 2016 report that was highly critical towards the VC and the (not yet captured) Constitutional Tribunal. The combined efforts of M. Muszyński and B. Banaszak paved the way for the Constitutional Tribunal’s transformation into a discredited body which no longer meets the requirements of an independent and impartial tribunal established by law, as most recently confirmed by the CJEU.

Unaccountability, no matter what

Following B. Banaszak’s sudden death in January 2018, the Polish government decided to appoint Marcin Warchoł, a professor of law who served at that time as the Deputy Minister of Justice. His VC membership was so manifestly incompatible with the VC’s basic qualification and conduct requirements that one of the present authors wrote to the then-President of the VC in July 2018 and January 2020. In his response dated 13 July 2018, Mr Buquicchio accepted that “some recent appointments … raise questions” only to indicate that “it is the task of the member states to ensure that the individual members fulfil the criteria defined by the [VC]’s Statute”. In other words, there was seemingly “no procedure by virtue of which the [VC] can exclude or suspend” a member in any circumstances. In his response dated 27 January 2020 to the second letter which highlighted inter alia the Supreme Court of Ireland’s severe criticism of M. Warchoł’s behaviour in a specific case, Mr Buquicchio just repeated that “there is no procedure for excluding individual members if they act contrary” to the objectives of the VC, even when VC members challenge the legitimacy of the VC itself.

In short, the VC leadership was unwilling to contemplate any formal action, even in a situation where rulings from both the ECtHR and CJEU had repeatedly found relevant VC members to have been illegally appointed to the roles listed on the VC’s website and belonging to bodies found incompatible with basic rule of law requirements; bodies which remain mentioned to this day on the VC’s website without any qualifications.

The lack of accountability in respect of both M. Warchoł and M. Muszyński, who served their full terms until 2022, has similarly characterised the VC’s modus operandi in respect of their successors. To begin with law professor Joanna Lemańska, she was appointed to the VC while presiding over a body masquerading as a court and formally known as the Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs, which is located in the (captured) Supreme Court. In this case as well, the VC failed to take any account of several CJEU and ECtHR rulings finding inter alia Lemańska’s Supreme Court appointment to have been made “in blatant defiance of the rule of law”, and of her role as president of a body which does not constitute a lawful court either in ECHR or EU law.

As for the new VC substitute member, Mr Justyn Piskorski, he is one of the so-called “double double judges” of Poland’s “Constitutional Tribunal”, i.e., he was irregularly selected when one of the original “double judges”, elected in 2015, died. The current VC therefore includes not one but two pseudo judges belonging to two pseudo courts. And yet, the VC has just been quietly waiting for Mrs Lemańska and Mr Piskorski to finish their four-year term due to expire in March 2026.

Shielding the VC from unbecoming “experts”

Poland’s episode of severe rule of law backsliding has brought to the fore many weak spots in Europe’s rule of law ecosystem, which have been exploited by those seeking to undermine the rule of law while encountering little to no resistance from gatekeepers.

In the case of the VC, it is not the toolbox which has been blamed for the lack of action over its manifestly unbecoming members, but the absence of a procedure for excluding or suspending individual members. Leaving aside the validity of the arguments raised by the VC leadership to justify inaction, a more formal filtering process of national appointments ought to be prioritised. The current rule preventing a VC member from voting on issues concerning the country appointing him/her is evidently insufficient to prevent “autocratic contamination” via the participation of manifestly compromised “experts” or agents of backsliding regimes, to the work of the VC.

As early as 2019, a network of rule of law experts (including one of the present coauthors) cautioned against any systemic involvement of the VC in the EU’s rule of law toolbox as long as the Council of Europe fails to establish a filtering panel akin to the Article 255 TFEU panel and starts “taking the vetting of aspirant [VC] members seriously”. Instead, the VC has sought refuge in revised but unenforced “principles of conduct” while re-electing in December 2021 Mr András Zs Varga as a Vice-Chair of its sub-commission for constitutional justice, the “President” of Orbán’s (captured) Supreme Court, who has since been busy threatening independent judges.

In 2013, PACE called for a reinforcement of the selection procedures for experts of key Council of Europe human rights monitoring mechanisms (such as the ECRI), at both national and international levels. Among the general minimum standards proposed by PACE, one may mention the need for transparent and competitive national selection procedures, as well as the possibility for the Assembly to reject lists of candidates who do not meet the criteria of competence, integrity and independence. While the Venice Commission was not explicitly referenced in this process, it seems obvious that the current status quo, coupled with a failure to apply to itself the standards it demands of others, endangers the VC’s authority.

After undermining the VC on the back of repeated and manifestly unsuitable appointments, Poland has an opportunity to strengthen the VC by applying the general minimum standards for selection procedures advocated by the Assembly. In the past two years, Polish authorities have already organised the competitive and transparent selection of candidates for the roles of ECtHR judge, CPT member and ECRI member. The time has come to finally return to the VC genuine, eminent, and independent experts. It is furthermore suggested that relevant texts are amended to provide for an automatic membership suspension in any situation where a VC member has been found to have been illegally appointed or belongs to a body which is not – or is no longer – a lawful court as established by either the ECtHR or the CJEU. Beyond the VC, we urge all relevant European associations, bodies or networks, such as the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts of EU Member States, not to turn a blind eye on their illegal or compromised members. It is at the very least inconsistent to warn against rule of law regression and violations while failing to police one’s own membership. We are where we are because too many in senior positions who had and have the power to act have failed to do so.

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As the New York Times reported, President Trump and NATO have reached the framework of a deal that would grant the US sovereign bases over territories of Greenland. One of the officials present at the negotiations compared the proposed bases to the British Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs) in Cyprus, a comparison that has also been analysed by Marc Weller in a recent blog post. We argue that establishing such bases constitutes a violation of international law and cannot validly be agreed to by Denmark or NATO. This conclusion draws support from two distinct lines of argument: one relating to the (il)legality of establishing sovereign bases; and the other to indigenous rights.

Who May Consent to Sovereign Bases?

The first line of argument draws on the ICJ’s Chagos Archipelago Advisory Opinion. In this, the Court explained that the detachment of part of a non-self-governing territory must be based on the free and genuine will of the people of the concerned territory. If one is concerned about respecting “the free and genuine will of the people”, identifying said people is crucial. Denmark’s title to Greenland is uncontested in modern practice and has been expressly recognised by the United States in the 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement and its 2004 update. While Denmark’s claim to Greenland has been described as “unimpeachable,” Greenlanders are constitutionally recognised as a “people” with a right to self‑determination, including a lawful pathway to independence by referendum and subsequent negotiation. If anyone were to consent to the creation of US sovereign bases, therefore, it would have to be them. It is not for Denmark to reach such an agreement, and it is certainly not for the NATO Secretary General.

Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland was abruptly questioned when President Trump declared that the US had to own the island and did not rule out using force to achieve this. In light of such threats, it is clear that if a transfer of sovereignty were to take place, it would not be the result of “the free and genuine will of the people”. Also supporting this argument is the fact that a threat of the use of force by the US violates Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which is a ius cogens norm. Thus, any transfer of sovereignty of part of Greenland’s territory to the US, as a result of such a threat, would be null and void.

Modelling the proposed US bases on the SBAs in Cyprus does not enhance their credibility. The SBAs are a remnant of Cyprus’ colonial history, but even when seen through this light, they are arguably illegal. The Treaty of Establishment 1960 that created the SBAs allowed the UK to retain its sovereignty over the two large bases, while at the same time, granted independence to the rest of the island. Yet, the UK’s sovereignty is not unlimited: Appendix O of the Treaty (which Cyprus considers to be legally binding, but the UK does not) declares the UK’s intention “[n]ot to set up or permit the establishment of civilian commercial or industrial enterprises”; prohibits the creation of “custom posts or other frontier barriers” between the SBAs and the rest of the island; and mandates that UK law in the SBAs will “mirror” that of the Republic of Cyprus. As one of us has already argued (here and here), even with such restrictions on the UK’s sovereignty, the SBAs remain of doubtful international legality, precisely because they were established in contravention of the principles set out in Chagos.

The establishment of SBAs might have been considered acceptable in the era of decolonisation, but not anymore. Contemporary practice to establish military bases overwhelmingly no longer grants this type of enclave sovereignty within the host state, but only grants defined functional (exclusively military) rights to the sending state. Problematically, what President Trump envisions in Greenland are not just SBAs, but “SBAs plus”, which would allow the US to not merely use the bases for military purposes, but also develop them commercially. Thus, any future Greenland “framework” built on sovereignty transfers would in our view not just “trade short‑term optics for long‑term legal uncertainty”. Instead, it would constitute an overt violation of international law.

Indigenous Rights, Environmental Due Diligence, and Climate Obligations

The second line of argument for why US sovereign bases in Greenland would be illegal relates to the protection of indigenous rights. Where indigenous lands, territories or resources are affected, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, as customary international law, requires processes oriented toward Free, Prior and Informed Consent for large‑scale, high‑impact measures. Such consent must be supported by prior environmental and social impact assessments and equitable benefit‑sharing. A sovereignty carve‑out for enclaves would plainly qualify; without demonstrably robust consent from Greenlandic/Inuit institutions, it would conflict with today’s Indigenous‑rights baseline. The International Law Association’s 2020 Guidelines likewise affirm duties of rational, sustainable and safe resource management with particular regard for indigenous rights, and embed transparency, public participation, access to information and justice, and benefit‑sharing.

The ICJ’s 2025 Climate Advisory Opinion closes remaining gaps by integrating fields that once were siloed. The Court confirmed that environmental treaties, the customary no‑harm rule and duty to cooperate, and international human rights obligations operate cumulatively. It articulated a stringent due‑diligence standard, required impact assessments for activities posing significant environmental risks, recognised the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and characterised key obligations as erga omnes (for an accessible synthesis of the Advisory Opinion, see here). Applied to Greenland, a sovereignty enclave that removes areas from Danish/Greenlandic jurisdiction would impede the host’s ability to carry out due‑diligence controls, run cumulative EIA/ESIA processes with public participation, and secure the clarified human‑rights baseline – problems that do not arise when access is organised under host‑state sovereignty through normal international treaties for stationing of foreign militaries and their bases. This is exacerbated by US law, which does not treat sovereign bases such as Guantanamo as US territory, i.e. neither US domestic nor international law would fully apply.

Rather than starting a resource “race to the Arctic”, States should embrace the spirit of the Arctic Council.¹⁾ While most Arctic Council outputs are non-binding recommendations, Member States could potentially conclude a new binding instrument associated with the Council focused on de-militarization. Such an agreement could limit military use of the Arctic Ocean in the spirit of the BBNJ agreement, similar to how the Antarctic Treaty operates. Indigenous representatives on the Arctic Council participate fully in its drafting.²⁾ It feels deeply disturbing that one of the countries that has withdrawn from the constitution of climate change in the form of the Paris Agreement would use the warming of the Arctic Ocean as an excuse to lay sovereignty claims on Greenland.

In twenty-first-century international law, carving out a sovereign enclave, “forever” as President Trump called it, constitutes multiple breaches of international law. Any move towards US sovereign enclaves in Greenland would contravene the UN Charter and ius cogens norms, the right of self-determination, and the rights of indigenous peoples; it would undermine Denmark’s and Greenland’s ability to discharge binding environmental and human‑rights duties, and it would depart from prevailing practice for military bases. It should be ruled out.

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