Law and Morality

Collected volume of the opening conference of the Fritz Bauer Forum in May 2025. The thematic starting point is a contribution published in 1945, in which Fritz Bauer examines internationally recognized legal norms as the basis for a global morality and clarifies where morality begins for him:

“Morality is a choice made by the individual, his conviction, his ideal of what should be. The first choice an individual faces when dealing with moral problems is whether he wants to say yes or no to the given circumstances. The inclination to come to terms with the given circumstances is great.”  

Bauer's well-founded suspicion of all types of legal positivism, to reconcile themselves with reality under the guise of realism, is exemplified. Did the resistance of the victims and survivors, which for Bauer was identical with the struggle for human rights, and his appeal to human solidarity, find a positive echo in society and the judiciary? What role did political interest play in the relationship between law and morality?

Human dignity and human rights also occupy a special place in international legal texts. Since 1968, the relationship between law and morality has become closer. The increasing number of treaties with human rights content, the creation of international criminal courts, the growing awareness of the validity of the principle of universal jurisdiction, and the existence of many civil society organizations are evidence of this.

Fritz Bauer could feel vindicated. But we all sense that the path does not necessarily continue in the same direction. Pressure on liberal societies is increasing, political opportunism seduces people into silence where grievances should be addressed, international law is ridiculed because it seems to fail in the face of the realities of power politics. The challenges are great, not least because so much is at stake.

With contributions by Gerd Hankel, Ulrike Jureit, Stephan Lehnstaedt, Maria-Sibylla Lotter, Thies Münchow, Arnd Pollmann, Jan Philipp Reemtsma, Pierre Thielbörger, Moshe Zimmermann.

Publication date: July 15, 2026