Since 1990, both the U.S. and Germany have substantially reformed their corporate governance regimes as part of an emerging paradigm of international finance capitalism increasingly dependent on securities markets and private shareholding. Corporate governance reform and the emergence of finance capitalism, however, present a double paradox. First, the development of financial markets and the increasing importance of market relations, often linked to the diminution of state power, have been accompanied by a substantial and ongoing expansion of law and regulatory capacity into the private sphere to boost shareholder protections. Second, center-left parties in both countries took advantage of economic crises to press for pro-shareholder reforms against center-right opposition allied with managerial elites. This article explains these developments by analyzing reform processes in United States and Germany over the past decade. It argues that changing economic conditions empowered reformist state actors, and that they have played a central and largely autonomous role in driving the substantial institutional change underway in contemporary capitalism. The analysis also suggests that political conflict over corporate governance is likely to intensify, on the right and the left, as it impinges on the basic allocation of power within corporations and thus the political economy.

Lawyers are trained to apply rules to certain situations, and thus determining whether a particular behaviour is norm-conformant or not. It is generally assumed that rules as such exist and are applicable in a given situation. While there might be a debate about identifying the appropriate normative set among competing legal frameworks, it is generally taken as a given that binding rules exist and that they are habitually complied with. With regard to international relations, this basic ontological outlook contrast somewhat with the analytical conceptions taken by other disciplines which rely on other explanatory variables – notably power and interest – to account for the behavioural patterns of states.

The new Insolvency Statute (Insolvenzordnung – InsO), which came into force on 1 January 1999, sets a discharge of residual debts (Restschuldbefreiung), sections 286 – 303 InsO. When the debtor is a natural person, he or she can request the discharge on the basis of two different insolvency proceedings: either in accordance with the regular insolvency proceedings or in accordance with the consumer insolvency proceedings. The discharge of residual debts has both a social and an economic function. On the one hand, it serves as personal protection for the debtor, especially his rights of privacy and dignity (allgemeines Persönlichkeitsrecht); it will give debtors a new perspective. On the other hand, the provisions intend to (re)integrate debtors into economic life, thereby avoiding illegal employment.

In German post-war history, hardly any other trial concerning economic criminal cases attracted as much interest as the so-called Mannesmann trial. This is for two main reasons. First, the facts that form the basis of the decision, that is, the hostile takeover of the German Mannesmann AG by the British Vodafone, attracted much attention and sparked public discussion about eliminating the very possibility of hostile takeovers in general in Germany. Second, interest in the case was due to the magnitude of the bonuses granted and the significance this had for the public at large. As a consequence of this trial and the settled payments, the debate around the appropriateness of executive compensations, existing prior to the case, grew more acute. After all, the current draft law to disclose executive pay resulted from these debates about the size of the compensations.

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among the women, although puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture.

What is so fundamental in terms of the protection of human rights in Europe that it requires the same standards for all countries and what, by contrast, would be better dealt with by each State's organs in line with verbigratia Michael Walzer's-related notion of “thick morality”?. Where should the line be drawn between unity and diversity notwithstanding the resulting risk of human rights cultural relativism associated to the latter?. On what grounds could the axiomatic universality of human rights possibly be connoted in a continent which prides itself on possessing the most developed regional system for the protection of human rights world-wide in view of the resulting risk of legal contagion to other systems for the protection of human rights and, even, to general international law that such a practice can trigger?. At the end of the day, these are the sort of questions that the study of the margin-of- appreciation doctrine raises. The Trojan Horse-like character of the Strasbourg's judge-made margin-of-appreciation doctrine within the European human rights protection system has long since bothered human rights lawyers. Cases of reliance on this review doctrine have been generally criticised as denials of justice for individuals, abdications by the Court of its duty of adjudication in difficult or sensitive issues or as a judicial diluting technique of the strict conditions laid down in the European Convention of Human Rights. This line of criticism, aimed at what from the viewpoint of some occupants of the bench is seen as “a well established and legitimate part of the convention's jurisprudence”, has been reinforced by the entry of 21 new Eastern and Central European contracting parties to the Council of Europe following the 1989-1991 events. With a current membership of 46 States, all of which have ratified the 1950 Rome Convention, it is further feared that the doctrine will increasingly become an open door for abusive limitations in the exercise of human rights in states who traditionally leaned towards human rights cultural relativism. Against this background, I will briefly look into the technical criteria used by Strasbourg's judicial interpreters to factually implement this “much maligned notion” or, as one commentator has put it, this “manière pseudo-technique d'évoquer le pouvoir discrétionnaire que les organes de Strasbourg ont estimé reconnu aux Etats par la Convention dans certains cas”. I will, secondly, provide a basic overview of the general doctrinal positions one can adopt regarding this long debated question.