Civil Disobedience and the German Courts

<p>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. <em>Civil Disobedience and the German Courts</em> 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.</p>