The development of modern corporate law can be located in four “origin” legal systems: France, England, Germany and the United States (specifically in leading State Jurisdictions such as New York, New Jersey and Delaware). These systems are often segregated between an Anglo-American “outsider” system of corporate law and governance and the Continental “insider” system. This has its political economy parallel in the “Varieties of Capitalism” literature, which separates the major capitalist economies into “Liberal Market Economies”, such as the UK and the USA, and “Co-ordinated Market Economies”, such as Germany. These distinctions concentrate, in particular, on whether the system of corporate finance is based on open stock markets and widely dispersed “outsider” shareholding, as in the Anglo-American model, or on finance carried out by “insider” universal investment banks with places on the supervisory organs of corporations as is often claimed to be the case for the German system.

The European Council of Lisbon (December 2000) formally adopted the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) as a means to implement the Lisbon Strategy, a package of policies aimed at promoting economic and social innovations in the member states. The Open Method of Coordination is a means of governance based on the cooperation of member states. The formal introduction of the OMC, based on policy coordination at European level in order to induce change in national policies, triggered a lively scholarly debate on the role of new modes of governance in the EU. New modes of governance are roughly defined as non-hierarchical forms of political steering that rely on policy coordination among a multitude of institutional actors and across government levels. Scholars have coined a variety of terms to capture the characteristics of these governance modes, such as soft modes of governance, network governance, multilevel governance, experimental governance or, as we call it here and elsewhere, innovative governance. Despite the wide variety of terms, scholars hold several assumptions in common. Thus, most scholars assume that new modes of governance have only recently emerged. Furthermore, they assume that such modes of governance particularly emerge in policy areas where the Union lacks competences, while some form of common action is needed. Finally, many scholars take it for granted that non–hierarchical modes of governance result in weak impacts.

Before the Law stands a doorkeeper. A man from the countryside comes up to the door and requests admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he can't grant him admittance now. The man thinks it over and then asks if he'll be allowed to enter later. “It's possible” says the doorkeeper, “but not now.” Since the gate to the Law stands open as always, and the doorkeeper steps aside, the man bends down to look through the gate into the interior. When the doorkeeper sees this, he laughs and says: “If you're so drawn to it, go ahead and try to enter, even though I've forbidden it. But bear this in mind: I'm powerful. And I'm only the lowest doorkeeper. From hall to hall, however, stand doorkeepers each more powerful than the one before. The mere sight of the third is more than even I can bear.” The man from the country has not anticipated such difficulties; the Law should be accessible to anyone at any time, he thinks, but as he now examines the doorkeeper in his fur coat more closely, his large, sharply pointed nose, his long, thin, blank tartar's beard, he decides he would prefer to wait until he receives permission to enter. And the doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at the side of the door. He sits there for days and years. He asks time and again to be admitted and wearies the doorkeeper with his entreaties. The doorkeeper often conducts brief interrogations, inquiring about his home and many other matters, but he asks such questions indifferently, as great men do, and in the end he always tells him he still can't admit him. The man, who has equipped himself well for the journey, uses everything he has, no matter how valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. And the doorkeeper accepts everything, but as he does so he says: “I'm taking this just so you won't think you've neglected something.” Over the many years, the man observes the doorkeeper almost incessantly. He forgets the other doorkeepers and this first one seems to him the only obstacle to his admittance to the Law. He curses his unhappy fate, loudly during the first years, later, as he grows older, merely grumbling to himself. He turns childish, and since he has come to know even the fleas in the doorkeeper's collar over his years of study, he asks the fleas too to help him change the doorkeeper's mind. Finally his eyes grow dim and he no longer knows whether it's really getting darker around him or if his eyes are merely deceiving him. And yet in the darkness he now sees a radiance that streams forth inextinguishably from the door of the Law. He doesn't have much longer to live now. Before he dies, everything he has experienced over the years coalesces in his mind into a single question he has never asked the doorkeeper. He motions to him, since he can no longer straighten his stiffening body. The doorkeeper hat to bend down to him, for the difference in size between them has altered greatly to the man's disadvantage. “What do you want to know now,” asks the doorkeeper, “you're insatiable.” “Everyone strives to reach the Law,” says the man, “how does it happen, then, that in all these years no one but me has requested admittance.” The doorkeeper sees that the man in nearing his end, and in order to reach his failing hearing, he roars at him: “No one else could gain admittance here, because this entrance was meant solely for you. I'm going to go and shut it now.”

On 11 January 2013 the German quality newspaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported about the effects of introducing the new unisex insurance tariffs mandated by a decision of the European Court of Justice on 1 March 2011. The result is summarized in the headline: “Für alle teurer” (“More expensive for all”). According to a study the leveling of gender specific risks led to largely insignificant benefits for the former disadvantaged sex but to partially dramatic rises of the premium of those who were formerly considered better risks. The insurance industry which has been operating a dual structure since 21 December 2012 is considered to be the winner of the legal change.

In contrast to other legal systems, interdisciplinarity of German jurisprudence lags behind; interdisciplinary approaches to legal theory and regulation are not as common in Germany as, for example, in the US with its various, well-established “Law and…” approaches. However, the following report draws attention to important interdisciplinary developments in one of the most challenging legal areas - biolaw.