The incendiary image of German soldiers, serving as members of a proposed UN peace keeping force assigned to the Palestinian territories, formed the emotionally-charged and highly controversial backdrop to the Constitutional Court's recent consideration of the constitutionality of Germany's military/civil service obligation. The conflict in the Middle East aside, the military/civil service obligation has also emerged as a hot domestic issue as the campaign for the September federal elections catches its stride. Given this political climate it is hardly surprising that the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) opted to dismiss, on procedural grounds, two cases that posed distinct but related challenges to Germany's military/civil service obligation. It is, however, precisely the Court's explicit recognition of the politically-loaded nature of questions concerning Germany's military/civil service obligation that makes its decision in the first of the two cases remarkable.

Ever since its enactment, Sec. 39 para. 1 of the South African Constitution has fascinated lawyers with an inclination for comparative law. Subsections (b) and (c) of this provision compels the South African judiciary to consider international law and enables it to consider foreign law in the interpretation of any of the fundamental rights espoused by the Constitution. Sec. 35 para. 1 of the Transitional (Interim) Constitution, which preceded the 1996 Constitution, contained a similar provision. Meanwhile, it has become a feature of the South African Constitutional Court's decision-making process to work comparatively in the solution of many of the issues brought before it. Thus, the new Constitution, apart from introducing a new constitutional and political order in South Africa, gave rise to renewed interest in comparative law and the reception of foreign legal principles.

On 18 December 2002, one of the major legislative projects of the Schröder Government during its first term of office from 1998 to 2002 failed when the Federal Constitutional Court delivered its judgement in the Immigration Act case. In a split decision, the Court declared the new Immigration Act, the “Gesetz zur Steuerung und Begrenzung der Zuwanderung“ (Act on the Management and Limitation of Immigration) void for formal reasons: It found that the Act did not receive a valid majority vote in the Bundesrat, the chamber of the 16 German states (Länder) that form the Republic. The Court did not have to deal with any questions related to the content of the Act. It discussed only the constitutionality of the legislative procedure.

My motivation in putting together this Human Rights Symposium for the German Law Journal (GLJ) is based on a number of events in the news this year: recent outbreaks of political protests in Libya and Egypt, on-going wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and natural disasters in Haiti and Japan, that have re-opened questions about human rights in the 21st century on a global scale.

The article critically assesses the role of the Directorate General of the European Commission in executing enforcement of the European Communities Competition Law. The Commission is granted equally unprecedented legal powers to carry out the functions of policy maker, investigator, “judge”, “jury”, and “executioner”. For some, it is accordingly difficult to resist the suggestion that the focus of so many regulatory roles and so much power in the hands of one organization represents a legitimate source of concern. By comparing the European system of antitrust enforcement with that of the United States and examining the historical evolvement of the Commission's role, the article determines whether focus of so much power in the hands of the European Commission forms a legitimate source of concern. It determines whether so much power given to the Commission may interfere with the basic rights of corporate undertakings to carry out their business operations, and how the powers granted to the Commission lead to legally based reasons for anxiety.

Recent theories of societal development carry a heavy load; they are weighed down by their inheritance from the philosophy of history. Only at the price of a paradoxical forgetfulness can they ignore the fact that there have been predecessors, whose origin and decline, as well as the particular circumstances of their revival, must also be of interest. However, there appears to be a quest for the meaning of life, coupled with an aesthetic requirement to do a kind of elegant violence to historical complexity, which gives rise to such forgetfulness about one's own history. If one has discerned the difficulties with philosophy of history, it is only with considerable irony that one could erect a handsome structure in the form of a theory of development. There are, nevertheless, some lessons from the development of theories of development, which may permit a cautious advance. In what follows I want to attempt such a cautious advance towards a theory of legal development.

With his book “The Gentle Civilizer of Nations”, the Finnish expert on international law Martti Koskenniemi, became the most widely read author in his field overnight. In the “Gentle Civilizer”, Koskenniemi presented a new history of international law between 1870 and 1960. The tremendous success of this book rested less on an amazing number of revealing observations, but rather on its new take on the history of this discipline. In Koskenniemi's interpretation, the scientific project of international law did not start off as an endeavour that was centred on the sovereignty of nation-states. Instead, the international lawyers of that era saw their subject in the light of the idealist political project of internationalism. When they were forced to give up their high hopes in the course of the 20th century — this is where the twist of the book lies — they not only abandoned their dreams, but also their craft as lawyers. They became mere engineers of international relations, pragmatists, and apologists of governmental power. In order to retrieve the craft of international law, Koskenniemi concludes, the discipline needs to handle legal forms in a politically reflective manner. Koskenniemi has labelled this squaring of the circle, in a much-cited expression, as the “Culture of Formalism.”

According to liberal political theorists, such as John Locke and Adam Smith, liberty and equality are competing values. In Canadian constitutional law, the commitment to liberal individualism has pushed questions of socio-economic rights from the constitutional sphere into the political one.

The enlargement of the European Union, the attempt to put together a constitution we can all live with, the divisions rendered raw by passionately opposed positions on the prosecution of the so-called “War on Terror” are just some of the issues which make identifying oneself as European so damn confusing of late. The inaugural conference of the European Society of International Law, held at New York University's Villa La Pietra in Florence on 13 – 15 May 2004, saw the question of what precisely Europe is fall to the international lawyers to answer. The process of drafting a European constitution had already provided the constitutionalists with the opportunity to ponder what it is that defines us and, more specifically, distinguishes us from our American cousins; in Florence, the international lawyers had their turn to mull over such questions.

Preliminary references by national constitutional courts are not an everyday occurrence in Union law. No surprise, therefore, that they attract considerable publicity and give rise to a significant amount of academic comment. However, the recent preliminary request of the German Federal Constitutional Court (GFCC) in Gauweiler constitutes undoubtedly the most important and historic preliminary reference made thus far by a constitutional court. This is not only because it is the very first preliminary request of this particular court, inaugurating potentially a whole new era in its institutional relationships with the Court of Justice and paving the way for other national constitutional courts to make more regular recourse to the preliminary reference procedure; but also because it relates to an issue of central importance for the process of European integration with far reaching economic and political repercussions.

In the summer of 2008, the EU Commission will present the draft regulation for a European private company. The Commission indicates by this announcement of the internal market commissioner, after prolonged hesitation that it wishes to comply with the urgent and detailed request of the European Parliament (EP) and to initiate the legislative process. Apparently, the arguments directed at the small and medium sized enterprises (SME) and their specific interests have now, after the EU parliamentarians, also convinced the Commission. In fact, the significance of this group of enterprises in the economy of the Community cannot be overestimated. The Commission therefore acts with appropriate responsibility in not confining itself to taking up the draft regulation prepared ten years ago by business practitioners and academic lawyers (CCIP/CNPF working group) but being prepared (as can be seen in the Consultation Paper of the General Directorate Internal Market of July 2007) to develop its own statute for a European private company. This paper is intended, mainly on the basis of that Consultation Paper but also on the basis of the EP resolution, to introduce the main issues and central regulatory elements of the new legal form of community law.

The emergence of an independent judiciary and the associated consistent implementation of the separation of powers principle are major achievements of modern times and important characteristics of the transition to the rule of law. Against this background, any attempt at reforming the independence, control structure or liability of the judiciary must be viewed critically, because reform efforts in this area often constitute modifications to the deep layers of a legal and political system. These changes are ultimately not easy to survey and the results are difficult to control. Consequently, those who seek to touch upon the liability of judges enter a rough and sometimes even downright hostile terrain. Does such liability not inevitably lead to an impairment of judicial independence, therefore damaging the “last bulwark against the erosion of law?” Does it even perforate the traditional system of the separation of powers? Will not a circulus vitiosus in the sense of a never-ending flood of cases be created if after any legal proceedings the question of judicial liability remains to be asked (or even, from the lawyer's perspective, has to be asked to avoid recourse)? These questions can take on an even more dramatic tone and show that the area is to be treaded on lightly. Therefore, important clarifications have to be made in advance in order to put the following observations into perspective: The German judicial system is not at all a bad judicial system-the opposite is true. In a global comparison, the German system is easily able to compete with any other system in terms of speed of proceedings, judicial facilities and reputation of the courts. So then why even be concerned at all with state liability for judicial wrongs?

Under Chapter VII the UN Security Council has the authority to legally condemn certain behaviors by enacting binding measures on both states and individuals. This has been interpreted through measures undertaken by the Security Council, such as the institution of international tribunals on an inter-state level, and the imposition of sanctions on a personal level.

Focusing on Africa and Europe, this Article aspires to demonstrate how regional actors have acted in order to undermine the UN Security Chapter VII punitive cosmopolitanism, either through the institution of regional criminal courts meant to antagonize the International Criminal Court or through judicial decisions that clearly negate the Council's sanctions regime. In order to preserve international punitive cosmopolitanism, the Article will proceed to develop how regional jurisdictional initiatives can be integrated in the general international constitutional order, in both the criminal and the civil/administrative field.

The 50th Assistententagung, the annual meeting of public law assistants, convened this year in Greifswald. Greifswald is not only home to academic institutions, but also has a long legal history and is the host city of both the State Constitutional Court and the Highest Court of Administrative Law in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The meeting's aim was to facilitate an exchange between postdoctoral and doctoral candidates on questions relating to public law. Until 1959, the assistants in public law, who are usually conducting doctoral or post-doctoral studies, had been admitted to the annual meeting of public law professors. Assistants could benefit from professors' wealth of experience, including how to structure lectures and how to answer difficult questions, through participation in the Public Law Professors' Meeting. With the exclusion of non-professors from the annual Staatsrechtslehrertagung in the 1950s, assistants no longer had a forum to learn how to perform as academics. This exclusion resulted in the beginning of the annual meeting of German-speaking public law assistants in 1961 in Hamburg, to which not only postdoctoral candidates, but also doctoral candidates were welcomed. The meeting served as both a training course and an opportunity for academic exchange. And it was therefore in accordance with tradition that Jörg Scharrer, who hosted the first panel, had to ask the dean of the law faculty at Greifswald University, Prof. Dr. Axel Beater, to leave the building before opening the first session.

The focus of international humanitarian law scholarship, and that of international law more broadly, has traditionally taken a state-centric focus, for good reason. Moreover, the age-old question of “does international law work” is explored thorough the rubric of state and, more recently, corporate-level compliance. Such endeavors, however, overlook a set of participants in international law: The individual. Diffusion of international law norms through the general populace is a valuable goal in itself, but by leveraging their decision-making as consumers, it may also play an important role in inducing greater compliance by companies and states. This is acknowledged by the proliferation of consumer boycott campaigns, country-of-origin labelling requirements, and increased demands for corporate transparency. However, little is known about whether international law influences consumer choices. Using international humanitarian law as an illustrative example, this article contends that international legal scholarship should be expanded to include the consumer within its ambit, and that one promising pathway to do so is through greater uptake of the methodological approaches and insights offered by behavioral economics.

The European Union has a comprehensive legal framework in place for the authorization, traceability, and labelling of genetically modified organisms, the aim of which is to create a unified market while simultaneously ensuring that the placing on the market of the products concerned will not pose a risk to human or animal health or to the environment. This framework sets out complex, multi-level procedures which entail the cooperation and sharing of information between various national and European authorities. Filling a gap in the literature, this contribution focuses on the challenges to the system of judicial accountability that emerge in this particular system of multi-level administration. This Article shows that the problems posed by composite procedures in terms of access to justice and effective judicial protection can possibly be solved in light of the current rules concerning the division of labor between national and European courts and the applicable case law of the Court of Justice. As this Article will show, many more unsolved issues arise instead with respect to the compliance with the requirements of access to justice provided by the Aarhus Convention.

Many scholars of European integration have treated the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) as a specific area of the EU. This is due to the fact that CFSP, and before it the European Political Cooperation (which was a nucleus of CFSP), have remained primarily an intergovernmental framework, although other EC pillars evolved to a much higher supranational degree over the years. For some theorists of European integration it was a clear sign that foreign and security policy would always remain the realm of national governments, which occasionally were willing to coordinate their national interests. According to the old dictum of Stanley Hoffmann, this area of state activity belongs to so-called “high politics,” meaning that advanced integration in this field, in the sense of a creation of supranational institutions, will never materialize. This train of thought, called neo-realism in the discipline of International Relations, regards foreign policy as a highly controversial area guarded by national governments. This is so because foreign policy is essential to the survival of states and their citizens.

The COVID-19 pandemic elicited a surge in the use of digital tools to replace “classic” manual disease tracking and contact tracing across individuals. The main technical reason is based on the disease surveillance needs imposed by the magnitude of the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus since 2020, particularly how these needs overwhelmed governments around the world. Such developments led to stark variations across countries in terms of legal approaches towards the use of digital tools, including self-reporting software and mobile phone apps, for both disease tracking and contact tracing. Against this backdrop, in this article I highlight some of the normative challenges posed by the digitalization of disease surveillance, underscoring its almost non-existent regulation under international law. I look back at the historical emergence of the epidemiological principles underlying this procedure, by referring to John Snow’s trailblazing work in cholera control. I emphasize how the COVID-19 pandemic prompted both technical and normative shifts related to the digitalization of these procedures. Furthermore, I refer to some of the overarching obstacles for deploying international law to tackle future tensions between the public health rationale for digitalized disease tracking and contact tracing, on the one hand, and normative concerns directly related to their legality, on the other hand. Lastly, I put forward conclusions in light of the current juncture of international health law reforms, and how they so far display limited potential to herald structural changes concerning the legality of the use of digital tools in disease surveillance.