The debate over a European constitution is fully underway. (1) The issue will play an important role at the 2004 intergovernmental conference, especially if negotiations over a new model for the division of competencies between the Union and its constituent Member States is taken up at the Conference. The various points of inquiry — a Charter of Fundamental Rights, institutional reform, the division of competencies, financing, eastward expansion, finality — belong together and they beg for a solution that is fully conceptualized. With this in mind, the German Federal Government is justified in making sweeping, well thought out proposals. At the same time, the French government is equally correct to promote practical solutions while expressing a healthy suspicion of the formation of a federal state of Europe, which is the holiest of all possibilities for the Germans. Against this background, let me begin by saying a few things with respect to the legal nature of a possible constitution for the EU, before I move on to a presentation of more practical conclusions. II.

On July 18, 2001, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (German Federal Constitutional Court) will issue its ruling in the application for a temporary injunction, brought by the Länder (Federal States) of Bavaria and Saxony, to block the August 1 effective date of the new federal Lebenspartnerschaftgesetz (LPartG — Registered Lifetime Partnership Act for Homosexual Relationships). This act has been the subject of considerable controversy including the claims at the heart of the Federal States' challenge to the constitutionality of the statute. This article will: (a) briefly survey the social evolution that has necessitated the regulations in this statute; (b) describe some of the statute's provisions; and (c) end by summarizing some of the sometimes harsh and often very emotional arguments involved in the debate over the LPartG and raised as part of the challenge to the statute's constitutionality in the proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court.

Part of the fallout from what appears to have been a flawed, if not disastrous, EU treaty summit in Nice at the end of last year is the rank acknowledgment that relations between Germany and France are strained. To believe the international press, it's as bad as can be. The Economist titled its recent story on the Franco-German rift “Divorce after all these years?” The headlines in the Paris based, American edited International Herald Tribune have been even more alarmist: “Germans Try to Ease Friction with French,” “Paris-Berlin Tensions Worry Two Old Hands,” and “The French-German Question. Leaders Talk of Relationship That Remains Undefined.”

On December 12, 2000, the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) issued its judgment concerning the controversial “shock” advertising campaign of the Italian fashion designer and retailer United Colors of Benetton. Momentaufnahme reported on the oral arguments before the FCC. (No. 3/2000 - Nov. 15, 2000). The Second Senate of the FCC found the 1995 decisions of the Federal Court of Justice (FCJ), which upheld bans on the Benetton advertisements, to be unconstitutional because the bans constituted an infringement of the constitutionally protected right to freely express one's opinion. The Benetton marketing campaign used large format photography depicting provocative issues, including: a duck smothered in oil, apparently from an oil-spill; children being exploited as laborers in a third-world factory; and a naked buttock bearing the stamp “H.I.V. Positive.” Publication of the Benetton advertisements had been challenged as “unfair competition” by a leading consumer protection group (Zentrale zur Bekämpfung unlauteren Wettbewerbs e.V., Bad Homburg).

To characterize the administrative lead-up to the 12th Annual Love Parade in Berlin it might be more appropriate to invoke the violent, thrashing mosh pits of the grunge scene from a decade ago rather than the pulsing, rhythmic harmony expected of a rave, of which the Love Parade may be the world's largest and most celebrated. Held on July 14 each year since 1989, the Love Parade in recent years has drawn more than a million people for a day-long dance/party/festival all set to the distinctive drive of techno-music. The Love Parade has become so popular that in 1997 it spawned an alternative, opposition festival called the Fuck Parade, which has been held each year on the same day at another location in Berlin, promising a more authentic, less commercialized rave.

The Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) has repeatedly had to deal with regulation of the medical professions. (1) The frequency of decisions in this area result from the clash between two fundamental values: One is the constitutionally recognized “occupational freedom” (Art. 12 I GG), the other is the health of the population, which justifies the numerous regulations for the medical professions. (2) A recent decision of the Second (Three-Judge) Chamber of the First Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG 1 BvR 881/00 — decided on October 18, 2001) is a further instance of this conflict.

After the terrorists' attacks of September 11, 2001, a lot of war rhetoric came out of the public and private sphere within the United States of America. On October 7, 2001, however, the rhetoric turned into reality as President George W. Bush countered the terrorist attacks and the threat of future terrorism with military means. While waging that new war U.S. governmental officials constantly make one important point, and that is that the United States are just exercising their right of self-defense. Moreover, on the day after the attacks, the Security Council of the United Nations unanimously reaffirmed the inherent right of self-defense as recognized by the Charter of the United Nations. Does that mean that international law is just that clear?

Suggested Citation: Peer Zumbansen, Contracting in the Internet: German Contract Law and Internet Auctions, 2 German Law Journal (2001), available at http://www.germanlawjournal.com/index.php?pageID=11&artID=65 “One Click, one buy, delivery within 48 hours”. Similar offers for goods of all kinds are common to the internet today. And yet, there is a great number of intricate problems involved with doing business in the internet. The uncertainties of doing business online have prompted an abundance on legislation, both on the European as well as the national level. Still, when turning to the courts for a clear doctrine of, say, the conclusion of contracts in the internet, there remains a considerable void. Cases addressing the question whether the fundamental contract rules apply to internet transactions have generally answered in the affirmative. But when the particularities of contractual governance in the internet are involved, the jurisprudence grows thin. In this respect two recent decisions by lower Courts in Germany that deal with the question of internet-auctions, merit closer attention. The Landgericht Münster's (Regional Court of the city Münster) ruling from the beginning of last year provoked considerable irritation and thereby illuminated how much the field remained in need of intensive judicial attention. In the same time period, the Amtsgericht Sinsheim (Local Court of the city Sinsheim) had simply affirmed conclusion of contract through an onlineauction in a similar case. The decision of the Münster Court was recently overruled by the Oberlandesgericht Hamm (OLG [Higher Regional Court in the city Hamm]). The appeal of the OLG Hamm decision to the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH [Federal Court of Justice]) is still pending. Because of their importance to the rapidly growing internet market place and the largely unresolved questions regarding contract law in that realm, the Landgericht Münster and OLG Hamm decisions merit attention, especially in anticipation of the BGH's ruling on the issues they raise.

The first real casualty of Germany's burgeoning Mad-Cow crisis must be the great pride Germany takes in its reputably efficient, high quality and “green” agriculture industry. The second and third casualties were the Federal Ministers of Agriculture and Public Health, both of whom recently handed over their resignations to Chancellor Schroeder under sharp criticism that they ignored the potential for a German Mad-Cow crisis, which broke when the first German cases were registered in late November, 2000. Hundreds of beef cattle will meet a similar, premature end. We must wait to learn whether German consumers will become casualties of the crisis.