The shortcomings identified in German bribery law—such as the limited criminalization of bribery of parliamentarians and other members of domestic assemblies, coupled with the absence of trading in influence offenses, and furthermore, certain limits in the criminalization of bribery of foreign and international officials and of private sector bribery—represent significant lacunae in the law.

Derrida's death caused a surprising reaction in the media, being responsible for a great number of articles, commentaries and announcements. It seems that now, with his death, one of his inventions – the most famous and misinterpreted one which is widely used to define his philosophical style and which is known as “deconstruction” – has finally been understood. Fortunately, in the most respected newspapers in Brasil, articles with a good survey of Derrida's work were published not only by journalists but also by literary critics, economists, lawyers and psychoanalists. But, unfortunately, the philosophers, or the ones that call themselves philosophers, seem to have insisted on ignoring the fertility of his thoughts.

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?

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.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that even when using trusted legal tools, courts may run into challenging problems. Governments reacted to an unprecedented (at least in the context of post-WW2 era of fundamental rights) global crisis by adopting measures that drastically limited fundamental rights in order to protect the lives and health of many. Courts, of course, were entrusted with protecting fundamental rights against governmental overreach. The question was, how strict should the courts be when reviewing governmental acts. On the one hand, they could have relied on substantive proportionality assessment. This option, however was virtually ignored and most courts have opted for a deferential approach. This article analyzes both of these approaches, their strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately it argues that a third option - semiprocedural review - is the best way out of this judicial conundrum. Relying on comparative as well as theoretical arguments, it argues that semiprocedural review is the best way to deal with challenging empirical question - even under conditions of epistemological uncertainty.

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).

In January 2003, two Yemeni citizens were arrested by German police forces at the airport of Frankfurt. The arrest took place pursuant to the request of an American judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The action was considered to be a blow against international terrorism and should have demonstrated the functioning of the German-American cooperation in the war against this scourge. However, due to general considerations as well as the concrete circumstances of the case, the extradition of the two persons took more time than would be expected from a smoothly running cooperation. All legal remedies were exhausted in the Yemenis’ efforts to avoid extradition to the United States, and even now, an individual complaint has been brought before the European Court on Human Rights in Strasbourg. The two Yemeni citizens were finally extradited more than ten months after their arrest in November 2003.

Application of international treaty and customary international law at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is increasingly recognized by scholars as problematic regarding legal certainty. This Article seeks to illustrate why this is and to propose reform. Through comparing judicial approaches in the application of international law at the CJEU to its approach in internal case law, it is argued that in the frequent absence of proportionality in external case law the Court has utilized, redeployed, or varied other judicial devices in an effort to retain the discretion which proportionality affords. These are argued to effect legal certainty and established concepts of justice within the EU legal system. Accordingly, it is submitted that proportionality should be transplanted fully and openly to external relations case law and that support for this can be extrapolated from existing literature.

During the past decade, economic crime has been in the public focus in Germany like never before. Major cases, such as the embezzlement proceedings against former Deutsche Bank CEO Ackermann—the so-called Mannesmann proceedings—or the corruption incidents within the Siemens group, have shed more light on illegal behavior in the economic sector. These cases revived an interest in economic criminal law that had not been present since the 1980s when the first wave of economic crime regulation after the establishment of economic criminal law as an academic subject and as a central part of criminal policy had passed. This article analyzes the status and development of economic criminal law. First, it will deal with criminological aspects before turning to the forces in economic crime development. Second, it will examine the changes made in substantive, procedural, and soft law. It includes recent developments, such as the privatization of public investigations and the concept of compliance, as a means to prevent and discover criminal behavior.

Blindfolded Justice never cracks a smile. Laws don't joke around. In Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle, People's Judge Azdak instructs us that “the law must always be dispensed with complete seriousness.” “Because it's such a serious matter,” Solomon would have said. “Because it's so stupid,” Azdak explains, “and gone before you know it.”

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.