Grundgesetz und Katastrophenmanagement

The 2021 Ahr Valley floods and the COVID-19 pandemic have shown how much disaster management depends on cooperation between federal and state authorities. The Basic Law barely reflects this, and practice has drifted away from it. This book maps that gap: after clarifying the concept of disaster, it sets the Basic Law’s division of powers against actual practice. Its finding: aspects of federal involvement (e.g. via the BBK), some joint federal–state bodies and associated co-funding are unconstitutional. As a remedy, it drafts a new Article 115a that would merge civil defence and disaster control into a unified system of civil protection. The author’s research focuses chiefly on constitutional, social, disaster and infectious disease law.