Do states take court decisions into account when formulating policies? If so, how do they process new judicial input and make policies in response to them? While self-interest and incentives are the usual elements involved in a rational choice explanation of policymaking, behavioralist scholarship casts doubt on whether decisionmakers are able to identify and pursue their interests in a rational manner. We draw on rational and behavioral approaches to formulate different expectations about the process of policymaking and updating in the context of maritime delimitation. We focus on how states formulate policies about the appropriate method of maritime delimitation given relevant decisions of the International Court of Justice. Using a dataset of continental shelf delimitation policies, we find evidence that at least some states change policies in line with court decisions. However, we are unable to distinguish between mechanisms consistent with rational choice and those suggested by behavioralism. We discuss why behavioralist explanations of policymaking processes are difficult to test in a large-N setting. Moreover, we discuss why additional evidence from interviews also proves insufficient, notably due to actors’ tendency to rationalize state policies. We end by suggesting how these problems can be addressed in future research.

Italy belongs to the European Union, and more, it belongs to it since the very beginning. Whose status as a founding member of the European Community could be better documented than Italy's signing the Treaty of Rome in 1957? Such historic and symbolic weights surely justify high moral expectations. This might have been one of the messages brought to Italian S. Berlusconi by the European J. Fischer last month “Be a respectable and progressive European partner and the European Union can successfully face the two challenges of the immediate future: EMU and Eastern enlargement.” In a subsequent discussion at the European University Institute in Florence on 17 January 2002, the German Foreign Minister explained his convictions by passionate verbal and non-verbal arguments. ‘This is today's Europe', he announced proudly, when showing a one-Euro coin to a baffled audience. The powerful gesture was unmistakable: Europe had entered another stage in its gradual evolution to an ‘ever closer Union'. Not only the ‘Monnet method’ but also the ‘money method’ would ensure the further inseparability of the national economies and merge them into the internal market. With excitement Mr. Fischer recalled the envy of his British colleagues when Euro-kits were distributed at a Council meeting to the representatives of the Euro-zone in December. [Indeed, at a Press Conference held in the Foreign Ministry in Berlin on 14 January 2002, Fischer recalled that the British colleagues were utterly excited about the starter kit and “behaved almost like a gang of children at the sight of a marvel” The Editors].

Certain rulings of the World Trade Organization Appellate Body and recent EC Commission decisions on State aids have brought new attention on an old issue: States can use their tax systems to provide subsidies. The basic assumption against subsidies is that markets should not be distorted by government's intervention. However, a system of taxation without government is unthinkable. A different criterion must lead to the distinction of measures necessary to the effectiveness and fairness of the tax regime from tax measures that distort competition.

Over the last decades, various groups seeking international legal recognition of new human rights claims have succeeded in their endeavors. Some movements have crafted such convincing demands that their participation has even become an implicit condition of the legitimacy of the resulting human rights documents. But what are the bases of claims for new human rights, and how do they help to confront the argument that human rights’ expansion also entails their dilution? This Article explores narratives based on two different concepts, namely the political-science concept of affectedness and the legal-ethical concept of vulnerability. It does so by drawing on the process for the recognition of peasant human rights at the United Nations. The Article explores what it understands as the peasant critique of existing human rights by looking at the differences and interrelations between affectedness and vulnerability-based argumentation. It argues that an approach premised purely on affectedness, and thus focused on participation, is less empowering than one that includes a regard for vulnerability, which serves as a heuristic device for identifying and challenging inequalities, demands substantive outcomes, and can serve to craft a convincing theoretical account of human rights protections.

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.

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.

Parallel to exponential proliferation and ever-increasing allegations of human rights violations by transnational corporations, the sparks produced by the friction between the normatively distinct disciplines of business and human rights have invited scrutiny across the media, academia, and industries alike. Given the fact that regulatory capacities of home and host states have evidenced an inability to keep pace with the developments, concerted efforts at the international level are imperative. By constructing its own benchmark of adequacy with reference to regulatory instruments' underlying objectives, this Article explores whether the existing regulatory framework is adequate, with a particular focus on the UN Framework and UN Guiding Principles—currently the most robust regime yet. The Article's analysis centers on (1) the terminologies utilized, (2) the human rights due diligence mechanism, and (3) access to remedies requirements, to reveal their inherent inadequacy with the hope of warning against uncritical acceptance and to inform future developments.

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.”

On 7 February 2006, a chamber of the European Court of Human Rights gave judgment in the much awaited ‘Ostrava case’, which challenged the placing of disproportionate numbers of Romani children in ‘special schools’ for the learning impaired in the Czech Republic. This practice, widespread across Central and Eastern Europe, amounts in effect to racial segregation and denies Romani children access to a standard of education comparable to their non-Romani peers. The Ostrava case, taking eight months to assemble and seven years to reach judgment day in Strasbourg, represented the centre-piece of the litigation strategy of the Romani rights movement. The decision of the Strasbourg Court to ignore the evidence of indirect racial discrimination by a 6-1 majority represents not only a setback for those working for the improvement of the situation of the Roma – widely acknowledged as the most disadvantaged, discriminated and marginalised group in Europe – but also for the crystallisation of non-discrimination norms in Europe.