## Facts

- NATO decided in 1979 to deploy U.S. medium-range nuclear missiles (Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles) in certain allied states in response to Soviet SS-20 deployments.
- The Federal Government of Germany consented to stationing 108 Pershing II launchers and 96 ground-launched cruise missiles on German territory; deployment began in late 1983 after arms-control talks failed.
- Private individuals filed constitutional complaints challenging the government’s consent and related measures, and alternatively alleging unlawful legislative inaction for failing to enact a formal statute authorizing deployment.
- Complainants argued that stationing increased the probability of Germany becoming a nuclear battlefield, violating the right to life and bodily integrity under Article 2(2) of the Basic Law.
- Complainants also asserted Germany lacked effective control because the weapons were under U.S. command, and argued the deployment violated international law incorporated into domestic law through Article 25 of the Basic Law.
- Complainants sought a temporary injunction to halt or suspend deployment pending a merits determination.

## Issues

1. Whether individuals may base a constitutional complaint on an increased future risk to life and bodily integrity from high-level foreign and defense policy decisions.
2. Whether German public authority is constitutionally “responsible” for alleged harms that would depend decisively on the independent decisions of foreign states.
3. Whether international law incorporated through Article 25 of the Basic Law clearly prohibited deployment of nuclear weapons for deterrent purposes.
4. Whether interim relief was available given the admissibility obstacles and the foreign-policy consequences of halting deployment.

## Decision

- The court dismissed the constitutional complaints as inadmissible.
- The court held that a complaint premised on harmful “follow-on effects” is admissible only if it is at least possible that German public authority bears fundamental-rights responsibility for the alleged effect.
- The court stated that German fundamental-rights responsibility generally ends where the relevant event is fundamentally shaped by the independent will of a foreign state.
- The court rejected the application for a temporary injunction.
- The court found no clearly established rule of customary international law rendering deterrence-oriented deployment of nuclear weapons unlawful.

## Legal Principles

- A constitutional complaint alleging injury via indirect consequences requires a plausible attribution of the alleged impairment to German public authority as a matter of fundamental-rights responsibility.
- Fundamental-rights responsibility of German public power generally does not extend to consequences decisively controlled by a foreign sovereign acting independently.
- Judicial review is limited where claims turn on strategic assessments of foreign and defense policy risk that are not determinable by legal standards; political branches receive substantial deference.
- Customary international law requires both consistent state practice and opinio juris; absent a clearly established customary rule, Article 25 of the Basic Law does not supply a basis to invalidate deterrence-related deployment.

## Conclusion

The court refused to stop the stationing of U.S. nuclear missiles in Germany, holding that the asserted risk to life from a potential nuclear conflict was not legally attributable to German authorities because decisive causal decisions would lie with foreign sovereigns, and that international law did not clearly prohibit deterrence-based deployment; interim relief was therefore denied.


Cruise Missiles (Danger to Life) Case (Ger.), 66 BVerfGE 39 (Fed. Const. Ct. 1983)