Harmonized regulatory frameworks have become increasingly important. This is especially so following the global financial crisis, where there have been calls for a harmonized international response to securities regulation. Examples in the EU include MIFID and the Takeover Directive. MIFID regulates securities traders and stock exchanges. It contains rules that indicate the obligations on exchanges and traders vis-à-vis matters such as achieving the “best execution” of trades. The Takeover Directive regulates mergers and acquisitions, their regulations include regulations on anti-takeover provisions, compulsory acquisitions, and the method of paying for acquisitions. These impose a ‘weak’ form of harmonization: member states can opt out of some provisions, many provisions are vague (and require definition by domestic regulators) and member states retain the right to legislate around the harmonized framework. These directives have not received universal support.

All around the world people suffer from acts of violence committed by armed non-state actors or transnational organized criminals, from abuses attributable to corporations, or from unlawful acts of international organizations, among others. Sometimes, the power of these and other actors matches and even surpasses that of states, and the formal separation between legal systems creates gaps that can lead to the impunity of abuses attributable to such actors, resulting in a failure to address their unlawfulness.

The relationship between the Court of Justice of the European Union (henceforth: Luxembourg Court) and the European Court of Human Rights (henceforth: Strasbourg Court) has been one of the prevailing issues in the human rights debate in Europe. The main crater in the relationship between the two courts is the fact that Strasbourg could not call directly into responsibility the Luxembourg Court due to the fact that EU is not a party in the ECHR, whereas the Luxembourg Court is not likely to obey a Strasbourg ruling without having any international legal obligation to do so. This situation has thus far led to many observations that have called for the accession of the EU to the ECHR, a step that would legalize the relationship between the EU and the Council of Europe, offering critics of human rights an assurance that the EU's human rights regime will become externally controlled by a specialized human rights court.

Since 1961, research assistants, doctoral students as well as post-doctoral researchers from universities all over Germany – and meanwhile also from Austria and Switzerland – come together once a year to debate current topics of public law. Over the last decades, the annual meeting has developed into an important forum for young public law scholars; they present their ideas, get a glimpse of the world of academia, and get to know their colleagues. From March 13th to March 16th, 2012, the 52nd Assistententagung took place in Hamburg. The meeting was organized by the three law schools located in Hamburg: the University of Hamburg, one of Germany's largest universities; the Bucerius Law School Germany's first private law school; and the Helmut-Schmidt-University, one of two German universities of the Federal Armed Forces (Bundeswehr). With collectivity as the general topic of the conference, the organizers provided a rather broad but nonetheless useful framework for the thirteen presentations given over the three days. While the presentations approached the concept of collectivity from different perspectives settled in different fields of the law, the relationship between individuals and groups as well as the significance of an overarching community interest appeared as recurring themes of the discussion.