During the last decade, there has been a widespread trend in Germany and internationally away from litigation towards Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) procedures. In recent years, the German interest has especially focused on mediation as a means of dispute resolution. The year 2000 saw the introduction of a federal mediation law that permits all German states (“Länder”) to launch mandatory court-connected mediation with respect to certain kinds of civil disputes. However, mediation is still in its infancy in Germany. Thus, it could be helpful for the purpose of improving the German system to look to other jurisdictions that have mature mediation systems.

Why did the European Union (EU) leaders at the Laeken summit in December 2001 agree to a constitutional convention headed by the former French President Valéry Giscard D'Estaing to design a constitution for the EU when, according to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the German Federal Constitutional Court, and many academic commentators, the founding treaties already form a constitution?

In a unanimous, surprising decision the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) announced last Tuesday, 22 January 2002, that the hearing in the NPD Party Ban Case - scheduled for five days in early and late February - was suspended. The Court did not yet set a new date. The Court explained that facts had now become known to the Court that raised serious legal questions which can not be resolved in the two weeks before the scheduled hearings. Even the decision from October 1st, 2001, in which the motions by the Bundesregierung (German Federal Government), the Bundestag (Federal Par-liament) and the Bundesrat (Federal Legislative Chamber of the Länder) seeking a ban of the extremist right wing National Democratic Party (NPD) were ruled to be admissible and not evidently unfounded is called into question by the Court. The FCC had been told by a senior civil servant from the Federal Ministry of the Interior that there would be one so-called “V-Mann” among the 14 people to appear as witnesses before the FCC at the scheduled hearing. The motions to ban the NPD build upon numerous sources in order to show that the NPD seeks to undermine or abolish the “freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung” (free democratic basic order) and therefore must be banned under Art. 21 (2) of the German Basic Law (“Grundgesetz. Among those quoted is the V-Mann, Wolfgang Frenz, a former high-ranking official of the NPD. The rather drastic reaction by the FCC to these news is explained by the significance of the information about the V-Mann, an often dubious source (infra I.) and the way this information made its way to the Court, which is a scandal in itself (infra II.). The fallout from the decision will be the subject of the closing remarks (infra III.).

On 12 December 2001, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights unanimously found the case Bankovic et al. vs. 17 NATO and ECHR- Member States (NATO Bombing Case) inadmissible.

Two recent decisions by a German regional court and the European Court of Justice have sparked a heated public debate on the Continent about the objectives of German and European competition policy. More specifically, the courts’ decisions in “Zentrale zur Bekämpfung des unlauteren Wettbewerbs” v. C&A Mode KG and Zino Davidoff SA v. A & G Imports Ltd respectively, have focussed attention on the proper place of the consumer in national and supranational competition policy. The local media, politicians, lobby groups, and the general public have with some exceptions reacted strongly against the alleged benefitting of ‘vested interests’ at the expense of the ‘general interest'. Calls for fundamental changes to the existing laws have accordingly been widespread and vociferous.

Italy belongs to the European Union, and more, it belongs to it since the very beginning. Whose status as a founding member of the European Community could be better documented than Italy's signing the Treaty of Rome in 1957? Such historic and symbolic weights surely justify high moral expectations. This might have been one of the messages brought to Italian S. Berlusconi by the European J. Fischer last month “Be a respectable and progressive European partner and the European Union can successfully face the two challenges of the immediate future: EMU and Eastern enlargement.” In a subsequent discussion at the European University Institute in Florence on 17 January 2002, the German Foreign Minister explained his convictions by passionate verbal and non-verbal arguments. ‘This is today's Europe', he announced proudly, when showing a one-Euro coin to a baffled audience. The powerful gesture was unmistakable: Europe had entered another stage in its gradual evolution to an ‘ever closer Union'. Not only the ‘Monnet method’ but also the ‘money method’ would ensure the further inseparability of the national economies and merge them into the internal market. With excitement Mr. Fischer recalled the envy of his British colleagues when Euro-kits were distributed at a Council meeting to the representatives of the Euro-zone in December. [Indeed, at a Press Conference held in the Foreign Ministry in Berlin on 14 January 2002, Fischer recalled that the British colleagues were utterly excited about the starter kit and “behaved almost like a gang of children at the sight of a marvel” The Editors].

With its Schaechten (traditional slaughter) decision from 15 January 2002, the First Senate of the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) nudged Germany further in the direction of an integrated, multi-cultural society. This theme alone, described by one commentator in the German press as the “explosive question of integration,” would be enough to demand our attention. According to this story-line, a modest and faithful immigrant butcher, quietly took-on a grave social evil (the illiberal oppression of his religion) and won. In so doing, he left Germany a better place.

The twin Bretton Woods institutions, comprising the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have in the past decades come under increased and intensified scrutiny, in particular as regards the social and environmental consequences of their activities. International awareness and criticism of the negative impacts of Bank and Fund projects grew during a period of time in which the concept of development has been entirely reconceptualized: Development is no longer measured in economic terms only, but understood as “a comprehensive economic, social, cultural and political process, which aims at the constant improvement of the well-being of the entire population and of all individuals.”