Although the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is a technical intergovernmental organization with a limited mandate, it has been entrusted with a panoply of tasks. These include, inter alia, the international harmonization of intellectual property law, the administration of fee-based global intellectual property protection services, and the delivery of dispute resolution services to individuals. While the central role of WIPO in the continuous development of substantive intellectual property law has been questioned by developing countries, the administrative activities of WIPO have remained largely unscathed by critique and, therefore, have not attracted much attention. They revolve around the international filing, registration or recognition of industrial property rights, such as patents, industrial designs and trademarks, and provide an interesting perspective on the law of international institutions.

It has been a long journey from the noble declaration in the Federal Republic's new constitution (Grundgesetz [Basic Law]) that women and men have equal rights, to the establishment of concrete laws and jurisprudence that now assure that women and men actually receive equal treatment and that women are no longer disadvantaged in society (and even more, laws and jurisprudence that assure that women receive support if they encounter structural disadvantages). This article, in looking back on its first fifty years of service, surveys the decisive role that the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) played in that journey.

Since 1995 the Commission has repeatedly reviewed the operation of directive 87/102/EEC for the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the member states concerning consumer credit. This was regarded to be necessary mainly for two reasons: firstly, even at the time of the enactment of the original directive its level of protection was lower than in most member states; secondly, the Commission repeatedly emphasised several changes, which had taken place in regard to the credit services sector in recent years. Whereas the previous directive was targeted at the two most common “products” at that time, namely hire purchase agreements and instalment credit and reflected the cash-based society of that time, the range of products presently offered is much more colourful.

The ruling of the German Federal Constitutional Court in the Right to be forgotten II case is an example of constitutional pluralism in action. It demonstrates how a pluralist-minded court can elevate itself from and above the constitutional confines of its own legal order. By integrating the material standards of another legal order in its own review of constitutionality a national constitutional court contributes directly to the strengthening of the fundamental rights of individuals against the national authorities within the overall system of European legal order.

A new era of responsibility seems poised to overshadow the human rights discourse in international law. On the one hand, introducing the perspective of responsibility must result in an added value when compared to the former predominant approach. In fact, some justifications are inconsistent, and the most radical interpretations jeopardize the very core of the modern theory of social and legal order—namely, the centrality of the individual. On the other hand, the incorporation of responsibility into the discourse on rights may help to overcome some of its most evident shortcomings. Nonetheless, despite some positive outcomes which the new attention on responsibility may bring about, the concept is flawed by at least two major deficits. First, the reference to responsibility tends to presuppose the possibility of taking the position of a privileged observer. This implicitly rejects the idea that the moral and legal community is essentially constituted by human individuals who freely recognize each other as equal members and rightful holders of entitlements. The second deficit is instead related to the intrinsically particularistic character of responsibility, which makes it rather difficult to apply to the field of international law and relations. An analysis shows that we are confronted with a conflict: while responsibility can, in fact, be assumed to bring an added value, the costs for this are exceedingly high, because they amount to no less than the abandonment of the core concept of modern moral and political philosophy. By recurring to the communicative paradigm of rationality and social order, a possible solution is outlined according to which responsibility is reinterpreted in the sense of a time, space, composition, and content-related expansion of mutual recognition.

Like many of the provisions of the German Grundgesetz (Basic Law – GG) the constitutional protection of German citizenship enshrined in Article 16.1 GG is a reaction to the atrocities committed by Nazi-Germany. From early on, the Nazis had abused nationality law not only as a sanctioning device to discipline Germans living abroad but also to ostracize unwanted citizens and confiscate their property, i.e., as a means of large scale political and racial discrimination. This inhuman denaturalization practice culminated in the 11. Verordnung zum Reichsbürgergesetz (11th ordinance of 25 November 1941, issued by virtue of the Reich's Citizenship Law), which stripped Jewish citizens living abroad of their German nationality, aiming inter alia at Jews deported to concentration camps in Eastern Europe. To prevent any kind of political abuse of denaturalization measures in the future, Article 16.1 sent. 1 GG guarantees that no German may be deprived of his nationality. There is a long-standing debate about the precise meaning of this strict ban on any “deprivation” of nationality, because at the same time Article 16.1 sent. 2 GG allows for the loss of German nationality against the will of the person affected if this loss has a statutory basis and the person does not become stateless as a result. Thus, it is unclear whether the constitution permits a revocation of German citizenship, and if so under what conditions. Further, this debate broaches the questions of whether there are, in fact, exceptions to the constitutional protection against statelessness, e.g., in cases of fraud.

Criminal law is different, it is often said, from other areas of law in that it is rooted in and thus depends on national heritage to a great extent. This uniqueness is recognized by European institutions, as expressed by General Advocat Mazák in a case concerning the protection of the environment by means of criminal law:

“In many respects, criminal law stands out from other areas of law. Availing itself of the most severe and most dissuasive tool of social control – punishments – it delineates the outer limits of acceptable behaviour and in that way protects the values held dearest by the community at large. As an expression essentially of the common will, criminal penalties reflect particular social disapproval and are in that respect of a qualitatively different nature as compared with other punishments such as administrative sanctions.

Multiple laws and regulations in Western Europe have been enacted on the premise that headscarves and face veils constitute an existential threat to the constitutional identity of the respective legal systems. Thus, the logic of militant democracy as a justification for restricting fundamental rights have been applied in order to restrict the freedom to manifest one’s religion. Yet, the politicymakers claiming to defend the constitutional identity through militant democracy have not been able to prove the existence of a concrete, imminent threat against the state from the women who wear headscarves or face veils. Nonetheless, the European judiciaries have taken the political claim at face value and allowed the restrictions without compelling the political decision-makers to provide substantive justifications. Thus, the cases of headscarves and face veils offer a prism, through which we can study fundamental paradoxes of liberal democracy and constitutionalism.

This article focuses on the strategy to replace the UK Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) with a home-grown Bill of Rights to lessen the influence of the European Court of Human Rights' case law. Without attempting to disregard the national-specific elements, the discussion of these questions is very relevant for all States confronted with the influence of Strasbourg. The tension between coherence, efficiency and autonomy is overarching. The article therefore approaches the issue not only from an outsider's perspective but also, where relevant, from a comparative constitutional law perspective. Both perspectives seem to be largely absent from the current (academic) debate. Firstly, this article analyzes the current relationship between the UK Supreme Court and the Strasbourg Court, which reveals that the judicial arguments in support of a mirror principle are not so much based on section 2(1) HRA, as they are, in the domestic courts' relationship with Strasbourg, on concerns about international obligations, hierarchy, effectiveness of the Strasbourg Court, coherence and efficiency. Internally, judicial arguments are founded on concerns about separation of powers, limited jurisdiction, and accustomedness to the precedent system. In the second part, this article focuses on the potential impact of a home-grown Bill of Rights on the current relationship between both courts; concluding that a home-grown Bill of Rights will most likely cause domestic courts to receive less latitude by Strasbourg and will not absolve domestic judges from the duty of taking into account the Strasbourg case law.

The accepted approach of competition law to non-horizontal mergers, largely based on the Chicago School of Antitrust Law and Economics paradigms, is criticized on both sides of the Atlantic as too lenient, disregarding developments of economic theory, and no longer adequate in the reality of the digital economy. Current economic research confirms the legitimacy of fears about the effects of non-horizontal concentrations that were raised before the Chicago School put them into doubt. The disbelief in the accuracy of the former US non-horizontal mergers policy resulted in the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice adopting new Vertical Merger Guidelines. The changes introduced were considered insufficient, which led to the unilateral repeal of the guidelines by the FTC and the start of work on new guidelines introducing a stricter approach. The new U.S. 2023 Merger Guidelines introduced far-reaching changes taking into account the modern views of economists and empirical research on vertical mergers. Comparatively, the EU Commission’s Non–Horizontal Merger Guidelines still do not fully correspond to what empirical research and contemporary economic theories say about the possible effects of vertical mergers. Thus, the revision of the EU guidelines seems necessary.

Governance in Afghanistan is a complex matter. Afghanistan today is not only the territory of Pashtuns, Tajiks, Northern Alliances, Taliban and Al Qaeda, all of whom are competing for power. Afghanistan is also a social field of other political actors like Germany, the UK, the US, the UN and of the “Six plus Two” group. Is it governance without government?

On January 15th 1958, the German Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court - FCC) pronounced a judgement deemed to be a prime example for the Court's early jurisprudence concerning the scope of fundamental rights in Germany: The Court's famous “Lüth”-decision resulted from a constitutional complaint brought by Erich Lüth, former member of the Hamburg senate.* In the early 1950s, Lüth had called upon film distributors and the public to boycott Veit Harlan's tearjerker movie Unsterbliche Geliebte (Immortal Beloved). Cause for his appeal was Harlan's prominent role in the Nazi propaganda machinery as Goebbels' protégé and director of the movie Jud Süss in 1940, which counts as one of the worst anti-semitic films released during the Nazi regime. After having lost several civil lawsuits, Lüth asserted the violation of constitutional rights. Over six years later, he was to be proved correct: The Federal Constitutional Court ruled that Lüth's complaint was covered by the right to freedom of speech guaranteed in Art. 5 of the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz). The Court stated that the fundamental rights as laid down in the Grundgesetz are not only of importance as subjective rights protecting the individual against state intrusions on the private sphere. As a whole they also unfold an objective dimension in representing society's crucial values. Therefore, they govern the entire legal order - including civil law and private law relations! This was indeed understood as a staggering conclusion with which the Court went far beyond the issue at stake. Since Lüth, German legal discourse characterizes this phenomenon as the third-party or horizontal effect of basic rights (Drittwirkung).

The aim of this Article is to re-conceptualize the debate about the (theoretical) relationship between international and national law, which has been debated for centuries. Generally, the floor is divided between dualism as developed by Heinrich Triepel and monism developed mainly by Hans Kelsen. In the light of new developments since their inception, I argue that these theories can no longer comprehensively explain the relationship between international or European Union (EU) and national law. Yet, the Article is based on the conviction that a common denominator of international and national law is elementary (i.e. here “the law creators' circle,” in German, “Die Theorie des Rechtserzeugerkreises,” in short “TREK”) in order to solve possible norm conflicts between different but overlapping legal orders. Therefore, pluralism is also limited in my eyes because it does not offer a satisfying prescriptive account. This common legal framework, however, must not be understood as the “constitutionalization” of international (or EU law) either, as this easily implies too many substantial values, which are not (yet) a common reality.

Human existence and dignity, just like human unity itself, are not actually rights. The essence of humanity, as regards the law, is inaccessible. Because of this, human life and dignity are included in the catalogue of human rights and in modern constitutions as the sources of rights, as inviolable values beyond the law. The law must guarantee that these inviolable values are respected and protected.

In pursuit of solutions to curb cybercrime, legislators engage in an analysis proportionally weighing freedom of expression and other societal interests. The balance between the two concepts differs dramatically across different jurisdictions. This Article looks into a widely discussed legislative package regulating the online domain, enacted by the Sixth Convocation of the Russian Parliament (2011–2016)—the State Duma. The authors operate under the assumption that the Russian approach might have a broad spillover effect. With this in mind, the authors outline the current status quo regarding Internet regulations in the EU, disentangle and contextualize the legislation under scrutiny, emphasize Russian influence over Eastern European countries, and describe the tumultuous relationship between the Russian Federation and the European Court of Human Rights.