The Cruise Missile Case

In 1979 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), including West Germany, agreed to install United States-provided nuclear-equipped medium-range missiles at several locations in Europe. These missiles were intended to be a counterweight to Soviet missiles that threatened NATO-member countries. In 1983 the West German government, or Bundesregierung, agreed to allow the United States to station some missiles in West Germany. The West German parliament, or Bundestag, adopted a resolution supporting the decision. A group of West German citizens (the citizens) (plaintiffs), concerned about the threat of nuclear war, petitioned the German Constitutional Court to declare that stationing the missiles in German territory was a violation of the Basic Law, or Grundgesetz. The citizens argued that the installation of the missiles increased the likelihood of nuclear war, which threatened the citizens’ rights to life and bodily integrity. Article 2 of the Basic Law protected German citizens’ rights to life and bodily integrity. The citizens further argued that (1) the deployment of the missiles in West Germany required the Bundestag to formally enact a law; (2) deploying the missiles violated the United Nations charter; (3) deployment violated the Basic Law’s limitation of German armed forces to a purely defensive force; and (4) having the United States in command of the missile sites violated German sovereignty. Because this was a constitutional-law claim against a branch of the federal government, the German Constitutional Court heard the motion.