• Administration, ministries, politics:
  Start with the Hambach submission and its extensions as well as the legislative reference case in Berlin .
• Lawyers and academia:
  Begin with the theoretical and methodological foundations and the Systemic Legal Development research series .
• Journalists and media:
  For a quick overview, see the concise case summaries and the section on institutional response and administrative transparency .
• Interested citizens:
  Start with the practical method and case examples. The sections on Ontocentrism and co-intelligence provide additional theoretical context.
• International contacts:
  Relevant are the theoretical references and the Zenodo community “Systemic Legal Development” .

Practice cases 2025 – where the method has been tested

The practice cases show how Art. 20a GG, ecological facts and functional questions can be introduced into concrete administrative, political and legal contexts.

The cases distinguish between submission, formal registration, institutional response, deeper review, procedural change and material effect. These stages should not be treated as equivalent.

• Olympics Bavaria
  Constitution-related submission in the context of the planned Olympic bid, addressing ecological and infrastructure-related questions.
  ➜ Short dossier Olympics Bavaria
• Hambach / Rhenish mining area (NRW)
  Documented submission and extensions addressing ecological risks, the Rhine water transport pipeline and other administrative questions.
  ➜ Hambach dossier
  ➜ DOI series: Main submission · First extension · Second extension
• Murnauer Moos / upper Loisach (Bavaria)
  Submission concerning hydrological integrity and possible cumulative effects on the moor and upper Loisach catchment.
  ➜ Dossier Murnauer Moos / upper Loisach
• Berlin – legislative reference case
  Civil-society impulses and legislative development concerning climate adaptation and nature-based rainwater management.
  ➜ Case Berlin – legislative reference
• Munich – judicial reference case
  A Bavarian Higher Administrative Court decision concerning municipal tree-protection law and environmental association standing.
  ➜ Case Munich – judicial reference
• Munich / Eisbach – administrative learning case
  A case concerning intervention, hydrological dynamics and the limits of technical predictability.
  ➜ Case Munich – Eisbach

Additional texts and documents are available in the research series on Systemic Legal Development .

Law and physical reality

Law operates through norms, concepts, procedures and institutional decisions. Those decisions nevertheless take place within a physical world: water balances, soils, temperatures, ecosystems and material resource limits.

Ecological facts do not determine legal outcomes by themselves. But ignoring relevant physical conditions can undermine the factual basis on which sound legal and administrative decisions depend.

Systemic Legal Development therefore asks how legal decision-making can remain connected to ecological reality without collapsing law into natural science.

Excursus Tehran – when ecological limits narrow political options

Tehran can be read as a warning example of how long-term water stress, groundwater depletion, subsidence and infrastructure pressure can severely restrict political options.

From the perspective of Systemic Legal Development, the case illustrates a general preventive question: what information, institutional coordination and legal safeguards are needed before ecological deterioration becomes difficult to reverse?

The comparison does not imply that Art. 20a GG automatically requires a particular response in every comparable situation. It illustrates why future-oriented protection and early recognition of ecological limits matter for state decision-making.

📘 Full-length version of the excursus: Tehran as a warning case – Zenodo paper

Administrative, legislative and judicial responses can be compared as different forms of institutional resonance.
Current reference cases include:

• Hambach (NRW) – an administrative response to a documented, constitution-related submission.
• Ruhr region (NRW) – mine-water management, long-term environmental risks and water-law review questions.
• Murnauer Moos / upper Loisach (Bavaria) – hydrological relationships, moor functions and possible cumulative effects.
• Munich (Bavaria) – judicial and administrative reference cases involving city trees and the Eisbach.
• Berlin – a legislative reference case involving climate adaptation and nature-based water management.

Case Berlin – legislative reference: civil-society impulses and climate adaptation

Civil-society initiatives concerning urban trees and climate adaptation contributed to a broader political debate about decentralised, nature-based rainwater management and the protection of near-natural water cycles.

The Berlin case can therefore be used as a legislative reference for the question how ecological functional concerns can enter political and legislative processes.

It should not be presented as proof that Systemic Legal Development itself caused the legislative development or that Art. 20a GG was directly “operationalised” by parliament.

🌀 Case Munich – Eisbach: intervention, uncertainty and irreversibility

After riverbed maintenance in autumn 2025, Munich’s Eisbach wave disappeared. Subsequent measurements and technical interventions sought to understand and restore the hydraulic conditions.

The case illustrates a broader methodological question: relatively routine interventions can alter complex physical systems in ways that are difficult to predict or reverse.

This does not mean that Art. 20a GG creates a specific legal rule for the preservation of the wave. The case is used here as a learning example for uncertainty, system understanding and preventive decision-making.

Category: administrative learning case · location: Munich · author: Hans Leo Bader · date: November 2025

Case Munich – judicial reference: city trees and environmental association standing

In a decision of 13 November 2025 (BayVGH, 2 CS 25.1851), the Bavarian Higher Administrative Court provisionally stopped a building project because the legal questions surrounding protected city trees and the associated planning permission required further examination.

The decision is relevant because the court classified the municipal tree-protection ordinance as an environment-related provision for the purposes of environmental legal protection and addressed the relationship between tree protection and planning law.

Category: judicial reference · location: Munich · level: Bavarian Higher Administrative Court · date: November 2025

Hambach / NRW – documented submission and institutional response

On 17 October 2025, a documented submission concerning the Hambach open-cast mine was sent to the competent authority. It referred to Art. 20a GG and raised questions concerning ongoing earth movements, ecological functions and the Rhine water transport pipeline.

Further extensions followed on 30 October 2025 and 1 November 2025.

In a letter of 24 October 2025, the Arnsberg district government responded to the original submission. It addressed the relevance of Art. 20a GG and referred to climate-protection law and constitutional case law, while maintaining the existing permit.

On 10 November 2025, the NRW environment ministry forwarded one of the extensions to the City of Kerpen on grounds of competence. This is another documented form of institutional processing.

Status: formal responses and forwarding steps are documented. Further substantive effects, if any, must be evaluated separately.

📄 Main submission Hambach – DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17465271
📄 First extension – DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17569246
📄 Second extension – DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17569788

Recultivation and precaution are different questions

Recultivation concerns the treatment and development of areas after or during major interventions. Preventive environmental protection asks an additional question: which avoidable or irreversible impacts should be addressed before they occur?

Art. 20a GG provides a constitutional protection mandate with a clear future-oriented dimension. Which concrete preventive requirements follow in an individual case depends on the applicable law.

Resonance NRW – Garzweiler buy-back and soft law

The 2022 agreement between RWE, the federal government and the state of NRW contains political commitments concerning land, houses, revitalisation and opportunities for former residents.

The case can be analysed as an example of the relationship between political commitments, legal enforceability and actual implementation.

Tension between promises and implementation

• Political language can create expectations that do not necessarily correspond to individually enforceable legal rights.
• Questions of affordability, repurchase, social consequences and implementation must be distinguished from the wording of political agreements.
• Long-term questions concerning water balance, ecology and post-mining burdens require separate legal and factual assessment.

Connection to Systemic Legal Development

For Systemic Legal Development, the case serves as a comparison between political narratives and legally reviewable obligations. Documented submissions can raise concrete questions about environmental effects, legal responsibilities and long-term risks.

They do not, by themselves, create new binding duties of review or documentation. Such duties must derive from the relevant constitutional, statutory and procedural law.

Between tree empathy and land-use logic – a functional perspective

Public debate often focuses either on individual trees or on broader land-use objectives. A functional perspective asks an additional question: what do changes in land use mean for water balance, habitats, soil, biodiversity and other ecological functions?

Systemic Legal Development uses such questions to structure ecological facts and possible cumulative effects. Art. 20a GG, EU environmental law and sector-specific legislation may provide relevant legal reference points where they are applicable.

They are not converted by the method itself into new “binding review benchmarks”. Their legal relevance must be established under the law applicable to the specific case.

Ruhr – objection concerning mine-water discharge

In a procedure concerning amendments to water permits for mine-water management in the Ruhr region, a citizen submitted an objection addressing climate risks, water-law objectives, drinking-water concerns and monitoring.

The objection refers, among other things, to Art. 20a GG, possible EU-law considerations and the Water Framework Directive.

Key themes of the objection

• Climate risk and annual maximum volumes: questions concerning the use of extreme years as reference points for future permitted volumes.
• WFD and non-deterioration: request for examination of compatibility with the relevant water-law objectives.
• Drinking water and long-term pathways: questions concerning long-term risks and treatment requirements.
• Monitoring and adjustment: proposals concerning monitoring, thresholds, review intervals and alternatives.

Current status – response by the authority

The authority confirmed that the objection had been received in time and would be considered in the procedure.

The objection therefore forms part of the material submitted in the procedure. Which issues the authority is legally required to examine, how deeply they must be examined and how they must be addressed in the final decision depends on the applicable procedural and substantive law.

Murnauer Moos / upper Loisach – functional case

The submission concerning Murnauer Moos / upper Loisach focuses on the hydrological relationships within a wider catchment: moorlands, wetlands, groundwater, river dynamics and possible cumulative effects.

The submission raises the question how relevant ecological functions and interactions are taken into account within existing administrative responsibilities and sector-specific procedures.

Systemic classification: Murnau / upper Loisach is used as a functional case because it demonstrates how ecological relationships can be documented across traditional sectoral boundaries. This does not mean that “functional protection” itself constitutes a separate legal standard.

Current status: The District Office of Garmisch-Partenkirchen has responded to the submission, addressed individual points and created a dedicated administrative file. The responses also illustrate the institutional difficulty of assigning responsibility for a project-independent view of the wider hydrological system.

That institutional fragmentation is itself an important observation. It does not automatically establish a new overarching legal responsibility.

➜ Dossier Murnauer Moos / upper Loisach