Article on the Federal Court of Justice’s Referral of the “Afghanistan Papers” Case to the European Court of Justice

Recently, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) referred questions of EU law regarding the Afghanistan Papers to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for a preliminary ruling (ZUM 2017, 753). Further background information can be found in the BGH’s press release. The CJEU is handling this case—which is reminiscent of the WikiLeaks affair—as Case C-469/17. In his article “Die Schranken des Urheberrechts bei geleakten Regierungsdokumenten” (The Limits of Copyright Law Regarding Leaked Government Documents), Prof. Rösler provides an initial assessment of the referral and an outlook on the European Court of Justice’s potential decision. His comments can be found in ZUM 2017, 758–760.