On 29 and 30 September and 1 October 2021, the international symposium Elemente einer diskursiven Grund- und Menschenrechtstheorie (Elements of a discursive theory of fundamental and human rights) was held at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. The symposium was dedicated to the work of Robert Alexy, on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Participants included researchers from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, England, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. The keynote speakers were Mark Tushnet (Harvard University), Dieter Grimm (University of Berlin, German Constitutional Court) and Robert Alexy (University of Kiel). Virgílio Afonso da Silva, head of the constitution, politics & institutions group, presented a paper with the provocative title “Die verborgene Welt hinter Fußnote 24” (The hidden world behind footnote 24), in which he analyses the collisions between principles and rules to demonstrate that these may demand different types of balancing, which, depending on institutional design, may be performed by different authorities. The papers presented at the symposium will be published (in German) by Mohr Publisher in 2022.
