Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh. A Britishborn Muslim arrested by Indian authorities in connection with the kidnapping of four British and American backpackers in Kashmir in 1994. Released in exchange for the passengers and crew of Indian Airlines flight IC 814 hijacked to Kandahar, Afghanistan on December 25, 1999. Suspected of al-Qaida links and sentenced to death by a court in Pakistan for the kidnap and murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl in January 2002. India, U.S.A. and the U.K. – three countries caught up in a web of Islamic terrorist links and activities.

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.”

In a long awaited judgement delivered on 5 November 2002, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that it is incompatible with the freedom of establishment guaranteed in Arts. 43 and 48 EC for a member state to deny a company formed in a member state which moves its central place of administration to another member states, legal capacity (and standing to sue or be sued in courts). Against the expectations of many German legal commentators and the recommendation of the Advocate General, the ECJ also held that where a company incorporated in another member state exercises its freedom of establishment in another member state, that other member state is required to recognise the company's legal capacity (and capacity to be a party to legal proceedings) which it enjoys under the laws of its state of incorporation.

Frankfurt, financial center of continental Europe, is home to the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Deutsche Bundesbank (the German central bank) as well as to Deutsche Börse AG (German stock exchange). Most of the important German private banks have their headquarters there, and many banks from abroad have established their subsidiaries in Frankfurt. Besides, the biggest German and international law firms have their largest German offices in the financial district of the City. Unsurprisingly, the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, one of the biggest universities in Germany, has used this advantage of location for building up and expanding its research and teaching program in Business Law and Economics. Both located in the University, the Institut für Ausländisches und Internationales Wirtschaftsrecht – AIW (Institute for Foreign and International Business Law) and the Center of Financial Studies, which is internationally well-known for its research on financial markets, financial intermediaries and monetary economics, are highly reputed.

It has became common for some States, international or regional organizations to establish a link between good governance, respect of human rights and the democratization of States. This idea is now a condition for development aid. Paragraph 1 of Article 5 of the Lomé Convention between the European Community (EC) and African, Carribean and Pacific States (ACP) of 15 December 1989, revised at Maurice 4 November 1995, provides that the politics of development and cooperation are closely linked to the respect and the enjoyment of fundamental human rights, to the strengthening of the rule of law and good governance. In Paragraph 2, cooperation is established as an instrument for promoting the enjoyment of economic, social, politic and cultural rights. The democratic clause contained in Article 5 of the Lomé Convention, and for which the respect of human rights, democratic principles and rule of law are essential elements of this Convention, firstly favours the achievement of positive actions in this framework and dedicates these elements as topics of common interests and a matter of dialogue. The European Union has stressed its willingness to develop a positive approach to these essential elements, which are the bedrock of the EU-ACP relationship besides being fields of cooperation and Community support. For that purpose, the Cotonou Agreement signed on 23 June 2000 strengthens this approach in Paragraph 2 of Article 9. The EU clearly places these essential elements at the heart of its partnership and defines the shared values that underpin this kind of relationship. It is in the spirit of common commitment to the respect and promotion of universal values that this approach has been taken.

During Germany's recent general elections the Freien Demokratischen Partei (Free Democratic Party – FDP) sought to position itself as the focal point of the heated political race between the Christian Democratic Union / Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), led by Bavarian Governor Edmund Stoiber, and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), led by incumbent Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. By staking out the ideological middle ground and employing a well-packaged campaign, the FDP hoped to assure itself the role of coalition partner in any government formed after the September 22nd general election. The FDP, in a first for one of the smaller political parties, ran its photogenic Chairman, Guido Westerwelle, as an independent candidate for Chancellor. The party also set for itself the goal of obtaining 18% of the popular vote (a target nearly triple its performance in the 1998 general election), making “18/2002” the party's campaign slogan. Had the FDP succeeded in obtaining only 9% of the popular vote (half its goal), it would have indeed played the controlling role in post-election negotiations over a coalition government. As it turned out, however, the FDP stumbled through debilitating controversy up to the last minute of the election and ended with a mere 7.4 percent of the vote. Incumbent Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was able to turn to the Green Party (which charged to a surprising 8.6% of the vote), his coalition partner of the last four years, to break his party's deadlock with the CDU/CSU and remain in power.

In times of a continuously expanding proliferation of investment and financing possibilities in the hands of banks, investment funds and individual capital investors, particular attention should be paid to the effects that new financial instruments are likely to have not only on concrete financing and investing modes but also on the further development of legal rules in this field. As the German capital market has been considered unable - at least until the widely marketed Deutsche Telekom IPO - to get rid of its persisting prejudice of being structurally lagging behind other countries’ systems, the legal treatment of emerging financial instruments deserves greatest attention. The rocket science of new financial instruments challenges law's aim to rightly assess the real quality of these instruments and to strike an adequate balance between the interests involved against a national policy background and EU demands. While the past few years have been a time of great legislative activity in the field of company and capital market law in Germany, only a closer look at court decisions reveals the true pressure resulting from a fast moving capital market on traditional legal perceptions. The so-called Aktienanleihe-Decision by the Federal Court of Justice, [FCJ] (Bundesgerichtshof - BGH) of 12 March 2002 marks an important step in the ongoing process of Germany's developing capital market law.

Established in the wake of the Nice Treaty debacle by the December 2001 European Council Laeken Summit, the Convention on the future of Europe is a radical political experiment. The Convention has been meeting in Brussels under the chairmanship of ex-heads of state Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Giuliano Amato and Jean-Luc Dehaene since February this year. It combines a novel political formula with an immense open-ended remit. Its 105 members represent the governments and parliaments of the EU15 and of the 13 candidate accession states, and the European Parliament. For the first time national parliaments and the European Parliament are sitting jointly with governments. This is also the first occasion on which the accession states have participated as equals in the EU (technically they are non-voting, but consensus is the aim). The Convention takes its mandate from the Laeken Declaration, which proclaims that “the Union stands at a cross-roads.” The complexity, juxtaposition and inter-relation of the questions which the Declaration raises, and the urgent historic decisions which accompany these – as well as explicit expectations from many quarters – earn the Convention the label ‘constitutional'. Media and academic comment alike favour comparisons with the 1787 Philadelphia constitutional convention – neither a recent nor a local precedent (but one with obvious additional appeal for the Euro-federalist tendency). A more empirical reference is the Convention that drafted the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. For a recent survey of the Convention's progress see The Economist.

The Pfizer and Alpharma judgments, both delivered by the Court of First Instance (hereinafter “the Court”) on 11 September 2002, provide us with interesting precisions on the interpretation and scope, within the European Communities’ legal order, of the much discussed precautionary principle. In particular, they attest to the Court's willingness to leave the Community institutions a certain margin of appreciation in this field, while ensuring that the judicial review of such decisions is thorough enough to prevent abusive reliance on the precautionary principle.

The way legal systems should deal with hate speech is a contested matter. The term “hate speech” itself suggests that it is a form of speech, and speech is generally protected in liberal states. However, this “speech” is either motivated by hatred or expresses hate, and such communication might not rise to the level of discourse that merits constitutional protection at all.

The destruction of the World Trade Center and a wing of the Pentagon by three highjacked civilian airliners and the crash of a fourth in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001 constitute without a doubt the high point of terrorist attacks on the United States to date. The terrorists’ methods, their destructive force and the attacks’ economic and political effects are all without precedent. After September 11, the organisation responsible was quickly identified, namely a terrorist group based in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, headed by a Saudi expatriate, Osama bin Laden. After a request for his extradition was denied by the ruling Taliban, the United States and the United Kingdom conducted airstrikes against targets in Afghanistan beginning on October 7. As soon as late November 2001, the Taliban's fate was sealed. The uninterrupted bombardment of the US Air Force helped the Northern Alliance gain decisive ground in its campaign against the regime. On December 15, 2001, the various Afghan opposition groups signed a treaty on the Petersberg near Bonn, Germany, that established an interim government. The government's establishment put an end to the Taliban's rule, but it did not put an end to international terrorism with its various goals and interwoven structures.