Parliamentary Consent to the Use of German Armed Forces Abroad: The 2008 Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court in theAWACS/Turkey Case

Since the German Federal Constitutional Court's 1994 decision on the deployment of AWACS surveillance aircraft over the Adriatic Sea, it is one of the cornerstones of German constitutional law that Parliament (theBundestag) needs to consent to the external use of German Armed Forces in situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is likely. However, theBundestagmay neither determine “the modalities, the dimension and the duration of the operations, nor the necessary coordination within and with the organs of international organizations.” As the requirement of constitutive parliamentary approval is not directly set out in the German Basic Law, the Federal Constitutional Court (in the following: FCC or the Court) derived it from the general constitutional framework. The concept of “parliamentary army”, designed by the Court, attempts to strike a balance between executive effectiveness and parliamentary participation.