Foreign trade criminal law

The area of foreign trade is of significant economic importance: For instance, the value of armaments finally exported with approval (i.e. not the actual exports) in 2014 was almost 4 billion euro. German foreign trade criminal law has always been in a conflict between the freedom of foreign trade resp. free competition, international legal obligations and the national security needs of the state.

Probably the most fundamental motive for surveillance is the attempt to avert or at least limit the risks and dangers to important interests worthy of protection, that are linked to the crossing of borders of certain goods or services, as far as possible. For this purpose, in many places the legislator employs its most powerful instrument: criminal law. Therefore, research core themes are - apart from fundamental research on the protection of Germany’s national security through criminal law - the analysis and contextualization of these multiple central offences in the AWG, KrWaffG, and CWÜAG that have recently been considerably tightened and amended. 

A special focus is on compliance in foreign trade (so-called Trade Compliance/JCP), which is the criminal liability of persons responsible for exports. Furthermore, international conflict situations and crises are covered by our research, with respect to the international dimension of the matter.  For instance, the Chair is concerned with prohibitions of disposal of frozen funds.