Lorenz Wielenga studied law at the University of Münster, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He majored in human rights protection, international law and comparative law. He also completed additional studies in Anglo-American common law. He is an alumnus of the German National Academic Foundation.
Lorenz worked as a student assistant for Prof. Dr. Petra Pohlmann at the Institute for International Business Law at the University of Münster. While working for the NGO "Advocates Abroad", he advised refugees in Athens on the asylum process. In 2021, he worked as campaign manager for the Bundestag candidacy of Federal Minister Svenja Schulze. Since January 2022, he has been a research assistant and doctoral student at the Academy for European Human Rights Protection at the University of Cologne. Lorenz is a Working Group of Young Scholars in Public International Law (AjV) member. In the spring of 2023, he was researching judicial review at the University of Oxford.
Areas of Research
European Human Rights Protection
International Law
Constitutional Law (Fundamental Rights Protection, Constitutional Courts, Separation of Powers, Comparative Constitutional Law)
Climate cases
Current research project
Currently, Lorenz Wielenga is researching climate jurisprudence in supreme courts. In particular, he is addressing the questions of whether specific features of climate cases in democratic states that have introduced judicial review lead to a shift of power in favor of the judiciary and whether selected supreme courts and constitutional courts address separation of powers concerns in their climate jurisprudence.
Exposé
The growing number of climate cases puts the spotlight on an old but ongoing debate in constitutional legal theory: the democratic legitimacy of judicial review. In the struggle for climate protection by legal means, both the potential and limits of the judiciary crystallise. Strong courts simultaneously serve as a projection surface for desperate hopes to save nature and thereby mankind from irreversible destruction and as the epitome of judicial transgression of power.
Against this backdrop, the two overall research questions are: 1) Do the specific traits of climate cases cause power shifts towards the judiciary in democratic states which have implemented judicial review? 2) Do selected supreme and constitutional courts address separation of powers concerns in their climate jurisprudence?
My research aims at combining the constitutional and environmental legal discourse with an analysis of separation of powers-related specifics of climate change litigation. In short, I want to enhance the understanding of the potential and limits of climate litigation by analysing the shift climate cases may constitute to our conventional lines of thought about judicial review and the separation of powers.
Published in Turkish translation as: Anayasa Majestelerine Hakaret Olarak Demokratik Protestolar (“Son Nesil”in İklimi Koruma Aktivizmine Yönelik Aşırı ve Tehlikeli Eleştirileri Hakkında), Rechtsbrücke/ Hukuk Küprüsü, Nr. 24, June 2023, 9-19.
Über den Umgang mit Bahar Aslan: Die disziplinar- und strafrechtliche Lage, Junge Wissenschaft im Öffentlichen Recht vom 14. Juni 2023, zusammen mit Timo Laven, https://www.juwiss.de/36-2023/
Über den Umgang mit Bahar Aslan: Die verbogene Hufeisentheorie, Junge Wissenschaft im Öffentlichen Recht vom 15. Juni 2023, zusammen mit Timo Laven, abrufbar unter https://www.juwiss.de/37-2023/
