It is a well-established fact that German criminal trial courts are unacceptably and unreasonably overloaded. The German Federal Constitutional Court—Bundesverfassungsgericht, BVerfG—and the Federal Supreme Court of Justice—Bundesgerichtshof, BGH—frankly admit this fact. Even those legal scholars who are critical towards trial courts emphasize such overloading. This overloading is aggravated in the context of austerity measures, which seem to be based on a system that can briefly be described as follows: In principle, the BGH is not, if ever then only slightly, affected, and the State Courts of Appeals—Oberlandesgerichte, OLG—are not affected in an extensive manner. In contrast, the trial courts fare differently: The Higher District Courts — Landgerichte, LG—are typically severely affected by such austerity measures, while the Lower District Courts — Amtsgerichte, AG—are affected brutally. Pursuant to the authors’ view, this practice demonstrates an evident disregard for the trial courts, despite the fact that their speedy as well as convincing settlement of criminal cases is of the utmost importance for the law in action and a constitutive element of criminal proceedings under the rule of law. Hence, the guarantee of an effective criminal justice system — Gewährleistung einer effektiven Strafrechtspflege—is rightly recognized as a fundamental element of the rule of law.

Governments periodically receive accusations of over-spending. These accusations are sometimes warranted. Some commentators propose that strict tax and expenditure limits (TELs) and/or balanced budget requirements (BBRs) may resolve excessive expenditure. Governments can implement TELs and BBRs through constitutional amendments, statutory schemes, or non-binding aspirational goals. They have been proposed as a remedy to allegations of over-spending in some European countries. However, it is not entirely clear if TELs or BBRs are effective or will resolve excess expenditure. I analyze TELs and BBRs as implemented in the United States and Australia. I argue that the Australian model of aspirational TELs and BBRs is beneficial if there is a political will to enforce them. However, if there is no such political will, then statutory (as opposed to constitutional) TELs and BBRs best strike a balance of flexibility and constraint.

The one-sided focus on shareholders’ interests inherent in shareholder value-orientated corporate policies presupposes that there is a functioning system to protect the economic interests of the other stakeholder groups (creditors, employees, customers, suppliers, etc.). This is an important constraint on the maximization of the market value of equity, which as a target variable cannot be equated with a market price on the stock exchange, or with a short-term profit or yield target, and certainly not with a pending bonus payment sum. Conversely, the postulation that the primary focus must be on shareholders’ interests loses its validity as a guiding operational principle if neither individual contractual agreements nor protective statutory rules can safeguard a minimum level of protection for individual stakeholder groups. Given the incompleteness of contracts, it is not sufficient to refer to the possibility of self-protection in contracts—this loophole must be closed by regulations and by corporate governance.

“Ljudski rod ne mrzi toliko one koji čine zlo, ni samo zlo, koliko onog ko imenuje zlo.”

Writer Radmila Karlaš lives and works in Banja Luka, the political and economic center of Bosnia and Herzegovina's (BiH) entity Republika Srpska (RS). Four years ago, Radmila left journalism because, in her own words, journalism had been “reduced to serve only the centers of power in BiH.” Since then she has published two novels, Four Leaf Clover and The Silence of Mestizos. Both works deal with the direct experience of war in BiH, with the phenomenon of evil in human nature, and attempt to demystify the process that has led her homeland into the situation in which it now finds itself. The novels also analyze the war crimes committed against the non-Serb population in Radmila's hometown, Banjaluka, and in Prijedor, a town in the northern-western part of BiH.

The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) provides with respect to the free movement of goods that “[q]uantitative restrictions on imports and all measures having equivalent effect shall be prohibited.” In contrast, the TFEU provides that, with respect to the free movement of persons, services, and capital, restrictions at the national level on such rights are similarly unlawful.

Within the Council of Europe, the relationship between the ECtHR and the member states is crucial for the survival and effective functioning of the Court. The ECtHR is currently overwhelmed by applications, the bulk of which emanate from a relatively small number of states, notably Russia, Rumania, Turkey, and the Ukraine. The backlog of cases will soon be toppling the vertiginous mark of 160,000, the adjudication of which alone would take the Court more than six years. The sheer number of cases exemplifies the system's urgent need for reform. Lately, discussions have been heavily influenced by considerations of subsidiarity, which the earlier Interlaken Declaration-as well as the recent Brighton Conference-emphasized as the key for the future relationship between the ECtHR and member states. Discussions about the principle's proper role in the relationship between member states and the ECHR, however, are far from over. This is due to questions regarding the principle itself, as well as to the factual realities dominating in the ECtHR-national court relationship. The principle often focuses on a strict separation of competences at two different levels, the national and the international, and many understandings of that principle require that the two levels stand in a more or less hierarchical relationship. This is difficult to assume in the Council of Europe context, where, compared to the EU, neither the doctrine of direct effect nor the principle of primacy in application reigns. Moreover, Strasbourg's emphasis on subsidiarity appears to focus on the responsibility of the member states to remedy human rights violations. In line with that argument, scholars have opined that the ECHR system should focus on an approach in which the ECtHR would be involved only if there are good reasons to depart from interpretation at the national level. Nonetheless, others recently doubted the overall usefulness of such an understanding of subsidiarity, since those member states responsible for the lion's share of new applications to the ECHR often neither possess a functioning judiciary nor functioning judicial or executive institutions, in general.

The recent judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Case Concerning Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy; Greece Intervening) marks the climax of a series of legal proceedings before Greek, Italian, and German courts, as well as the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) stretching over a period of more than fifteen years. The international community had eagerly awaited the ICJ's findings on the issue at the heart of the dispute, namely the scope of state immunity before foreign courts in cases concerning claims arising from serious violations of international humanitarian law. While most expected the Court to rule in favor of Germany and to uphold state immunity in principle, it was unclear whether the Court would acknowledge the increasing erosion of immunity with respect to serious violations of human rights or international humanitarian law. To the disappointment of many, the Court took a conservative approach and rejected the idea of an emerging exception from state immunity.

The right to private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention, or ECHR) is one of the widest rights in European human rights law. Applicants often rely on the norm when they seek to justify all kinds of behavior, which may be limited or even outlawed through domestic law. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that in the case of A, B and C v. Ireland, which was decided by the European Court of Human Rights in December 2010, the applicants relied on Article 8 to complain about the restrictive anti-abortion law in the Republic of Ireland. Contrary to predictions that A, B and C v. Ireland could become “Europe's Roe v. Wade,” referring to the U.S. case which led to the permissibility of abortion under U.S. law, the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) held that Article 8 did not include a right to have an abortion.

Publications on the history of international law written during the Cold War can almost be counted on one hand. A pragmatically-oriented generation studied practical areas like UN Charter law, international trade law, or international environmental law, while the theory and history of international law played only a secondary role. An intellectual history of international law, asking which ideas and concepts inspired and formed international law writing, hardly received any attention.