Armin von Bogdandy

Armin von Bogdandy (born 5 June 1960 in Oberhausen) is a German legal scholar.

He is director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg and Professor for Public Law, European Law, and International and Economic Law at the Goethe University Frankfurt.

Armin von Bogdandy's research centers on the structural changes affecting public law, be they theoretical, doctrinal, or practical.

A member of the noble Hungarian Bogdándy family, Armin von Bogdandy is a son of the metallurgist and industrial executive Ludwig von Bogdandy, and a grandson of the Hungarian physical chemist Stefan von Bogdándy.

In 1978, he finished high school in Dinslaken and started to study law (1979–1984) and philosophy (1980–1987) at the University of Freiburg and at the Freie Universität Berlin before completing his doctoral thesis (1984–1986) on Hegel's Theory of the Statute; his PhD was supported by a scholarship of the Land Baden-Württemberg.

In 1989, Armin von Bogdandy passed his second state exam in Berlin.

From 1993 to 1995, he received a scholarship from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and qualified as a professor at the Freie Universität Berlin (1996) with a work on governmental lawmaking, supervised by Albrecht Randelzhofer.

Armin von Bogdandy obtained a professorial chair in Public Law, European Law, and International and Economic Law as well as Philosophy of Law at the University in Frankfurt/Main in 1997.

In September 2000 he declined the offer for directorship at the Centre of European Law and Politics (ZERP).

From 2001 until 2014, Armin von Bogdandy was a judge – and, from 2006 onwards, the president – at the OECD Nuclear Energy Tribunal in Paris.

He became one of the two directors of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg in October 2002.

In May 2003, he became professor at the Faculty of Law of the Heidelberg University, but left the University in 2009.

From 2005 until 2008, he was a member of the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) before becoming a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2008–2013).

From 2010 until 2015, he was a Senior Emile Noël Fellow at New York University.

From 2013 until 2019, he was Partner Investigator at the “Normative Orders” cluster of excellence in Frankfurt/Main.

The main focus of his research are the current changes in the structure of Public Law which is divided into three areas at his department at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law: The European judicial area, the concept of International Public Authority and the Ius Constitutionale en América Latina (ICCAL).

His research regarding the European judicial area concerns European law in a broad sense, including the law of the European Union as well as regional instruments of Public International Law such as the European Convention on Human Rights.

His research object is the observation of the process of European unification from a legal perspective by enabling a specific European method of Comparative Law.

In the field of International Public Authority he is studying the increasing power of international institutions which are acting in public interest, but whose legitimacy might be questionable.

He is developing a theory of International Public Law which can be seen as advancement of the field of Public International Law governing the exercise of international public Power.

The ICCAL-project pursues a regional approach to transformative constitutionally in Latin America.

It is based on the concrete experience of untenable conditions of systemic character.

Object of this work is the political and social change caused by a concerted strengthening of Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law.