von LARA TORBAY
In 2023, Svenja Schulze, then head of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung, BMZ), announced a far-reaching feminist development policy. Today, that policy is under threat as the BMZ increasingly prioritizes Germany’s self-interest. This shift reveals the shortcomings of German development law: what appears to be a political issue of policy reversal is also a legal problem. It is indeed the absence of binding, precise development law in Germany that allows progressive policies to be adopted and abandoned with ease.
Development Cooperation as an Object of Public Law
Though domestic development law remains strikingly under-researched, development is not just a political or economic issue: as an area of state action, it is also a concern of domestic public law. In fact, countless OECD members have adopted national laws on development, most often regulating its material content (general approach, principles, objectives, thematic and geographic foci) as well as its procedures and administration.
Yet German law stands as something of an anomaly in the field of development law. There exists no constitutionally enshrined obligation for the state to provide development assistance nor a federal development law in the German regime. German development law is thus extremely minimal despite the country’s significant development activity (Philipp Dann, The Law of Development Cooperation: A Comparative Analysis of the World Bank, the EU and Germany, Cambridge 2013, p. 167). The material objectives of development cooperation, as well as its criteria and procedures for project selection, remain largely unregulated by law.
German development cooperation, however, does not take place in a complete legal vacuum (Thomas Groß, Deutsches Entwicklungsrecht, Baden-Baden 2014, p. 675). Development-related norms can in fact be found in budgetary legislation (Dann, p.167), through the Federal Budget Law (Haushaltsgesetz). This law gives legal force to the yearly individual budgetary plans (Einzelplan). It is through such a plan, the Einzelplan 23, that funds for the BMZ are allocated. What comes closest to the legally binding regulation of German development cooperation takes place in this context, through the allocation of funds to specific aims in yearly budgetary laws (Groß, p. 662; Patrick Sachsenmaier, Die parlamentarische Steuerung und Kontrolle der deutschen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit, Berlin 2021, p. 84).
The BMZ’s Feminist Development Policy: An Ongoing Policy Reversal
A look at Germany’s development policy in recent years can shed light onto the issue that this (lack of) legal framework creates. In 2023, the BMZ released its first comprehensive feminist development policy, pioneering in its attempt to integrate feminism across development cooperation. It centered on a “three Rs” policy – rights, representation, and resources for women – while committing to mainstreaming feminist principles throughout all BMZ activities. Its overarching aim was to dismantle patriarchal power structures and effect systemic change.
The policy explicitly adopted a transformative, intersectional, post-colonial, and anti-racist approach, addressing structural causes of inequality rather than relying on depoliticized development language. In its transversal focus on structural discrimination and its acknowledgment of the political nature of development cooperation, the policy was strikingly progressive.
Despite being deemed “more necessary than ever” in 2023, feminist development policy is now being sidelined. The current head of the BMZ, Reema Alabali Radovan, has emphasized the importance to align development policy with foreign and defence policy as part of a broader security strategy. Her statements highlight development cooperation’s role in preventing migration, strengthening national security, and promoting trade between German companies and Global South countries. German self-interest has thus moved to the center of development policy.
While feminist development policy has not been explicitly renounced, it is notably absent from the new minister’s rhetoric. This shift reflects a broader international trend toward conservative, security-oriented development discourse. It has sparked criticism within German political circles, with figures such as Claudia Roth and Charlotte Neuhäuser warning against the instrumentalization of development for anti-migration purposes and corporate interests. Nevertheless, there is little Parliamentarians can do to effect change: the executive retains broad discretion over development policy, facing few legal constraints beyond budgetary limits.
What’s law got to do with it?
A closer analysis of the Einzelplan 23 of recent years reveals that the BMZ’s current shift away from feminist development policy is not merely rhetorical: it has already found its way into budgetary laws. Feminist development policy, mentioned in the foreword of the Einzelplan 23 from 2022 to 2024, is absent from both the 2025 and 2026 plans. Additionally, though the key development objectives of previous years, which include the promotion of gender equality, remain otherwise unchanged, the budgetary commitment to feminist development policy has been quietly removed from the 2026 Einzelplan 23. The shift occurring year by year in these budgetary documents sends a clear message: though feminist development policy has not been officially abandoned yet, it is evidently being relegated to the background – and runs the risk of being altogether left behind.
Such a change is entirely allowed by the (extremely minimal) German legal framework pertaining to development. The fact that there exists so little domestic development law in Germany – as opposed to other states who have made certain aspects of their development policy legally binding – ensures that any criticism of its developmemt policy is mostly of political nature.
However, even in the German case, abandoning feminist development policy is not a purely political decision entirely deprived of any legal dimension. Indeed, art. 1 par. 2 and art. 25 GG (Grundgesetz, the German ‘Basic Law’) oblige Germany to respect international human rights law in all its activities. This is of significance to feminist development cooperation. As has now been officially and repeatedly recognized by the international community, women’s rights are human rights: the latter cannot be realized without significant and focused efforts on the former. Therefore, a feminist approach to development would constitute an optimal framework for Germany to honor the commitments made in its own Basic Law, as it encourages the state to strive towards the realization of women’s human rights through its development cooperation. This argument does not imply an obligation to provide (feminist) development assistance but does underline that if the German state were to implement development cooperation programs, a feminist approach would be ideal to do so while respecting art. 1 par. 2 and art. 25 GG, as well as international (human rights) law. Conversely, a failure to take women and girls’ interests into account in development policy, orienting it instead towards self-interest – which may, in some cases, violate the human rights of the populations impacted by it – might constitute a violation of the Grundgesetz (Groß, p.668).
Conclusion
Germany’s 2023 feminist development policy was ambitious, comprehensive, and robust. Its emphasis on intersectionality, post-colonial critique, institutional self-reflection, and budgetary commitments marked a significant advance in development policy. Yet the BMZ’s current shift toward security, economic interests, and migration control reveals how fragile these commitments were from the outset.
From a feminist legal perspective, the lack of precise development law in Germany enables precisely the kind of inconsistency that undermines long-term feminist transformation. Feminist commitments thus dissolve into purple-washing: symbolic alignment with feminist ideals without sustained implementation. This is evident in the case of the 2023 policy, which, despite its quality and ambition, was never legally secured against reversal. This is especially regrettable as research shows that feminist development policy requires long-term implementation to produce meaningful change.
In fact, long-term consistency would not only be beneficial from a feminist perspective, but also from a legal-dogmatic one. Stronger legal regulation could indeed promote consistency and efficiency, both of which fall under the principle of economy and efficiency in German administrative law (Stöhr, Kohärente Entwicklungszusammenarbeit durch Recht, p. 232), which demands the promotion of “measures which are most effective from the point of view of economic efficiency” (Stöhr, p. 232, translation from the German is mine). Similarly, stronger national development law would strengthen the rule of law, anchored in art. 20 par. 3 GG, thereby providing greater accountability and transparency in the field of German development cooperation. Domestic development law is therefore an issue of broader constitutional relevance. It follows that both constitutional and feminist legal analyses point to the need for clearer, binding development law if transparent, effective, and genuinely feminist development cooperation is to be possible.
Zitiervorschlag: Torbay, Lara, What’s Law Got to Do With It? The Law of German (Feminist) Development, JuWissBlog Nr. 28/2026 v. 19.03.2026, https://www.juwiss.de/28-2026/.
Dieses Werk ist unter der Lizenz CC BY-SA 4.0 lizenziert.
