At the Nice summit in December 2000, we witnessed the solemn proclamation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which can be seen as the remarkable product of a revolutionary process. The Convention that drafted the Charter had adopted the approach ‘as if’ it were to be incorporated into the European Treaties. However, the question as to the final status of the Charter had not yet been decided when it was proclaimed. Instead, the issue was placed on the post-Nice and post-Laeken agenda and is currently being discussed in the Convention on the future of Europe.

Robert Kagan's Of Paradise and Power is the latest attempt, following Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations, to provide us with “The Answer,” an analysis of the way the world works to take away some of the pain of the uncertainties which have dogged us since the end of the Cold War. The pattern has been the same: first an article in a journal, striking a chord with a wider than usual readership and then the press in general, aided by an arresting sound-bite –(the titles in the case of Fukuyama and Huntington, the tag from the first page of Kagan's Policy Review article: “the Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus.”). It is through such caricature, given just enough resonance to contemporary anxieties and provoking just enough outrage, that a viewpoint can gain currency among the journalists and policy wonks who set the parameters of the policy debate surrounding governments and legislators. To reinforce academic respectability, the articles were then expanded into books, to reveal, or create, the philosophical and historical underpinnings of the original argument. The timing of these publications creating a stir is everything: those moments when the worrying complexity of international relations cry out for the simplicity which a caricature can offer, when there is a demand to make the hard-to-calibrate risks in world affairs comprehensible through their replacement by goals achieved or threats cut and dried.

Business disputes, especially those with an international context, are often decided by an arbitral tribunal. As of January 1, 1998, the Federal Republic of Germany has adopted the UNCITRAL Model Law for domestic and international arbitrations taking place in Germany. Consequently, German parties have increasingly chosen arbitration as a means of dispute resolution. Moreover, international parties are also discovering Germany as a suitable place for arbitration. The reason for this trend is not only the acceptance of the well-known and arbitration-friendly Model Law. Germany as the designated place of arbitration compares favourably with its international competitors given its very efficient court system that willingly supports arbitral tribunals, if required. Furthermore, a large number of polyglot German lawyers who are well-versed in the laws of foreign jurisdictions are qualified to conduct arbitral proceedings at a high standard for – compared to their Anglo-Saxon competitors – a relatively low price.