Modern global food supply chains are characterized by extremely high levels of concentration in the middle of those chains. This paper argues that such concentration leads to excessive buyer power, which harms the consumers and food producers at the ends of the supply chains. It also argues that the harms suffered by farmers are serious enough as to constitute violations of the international human right to food, as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and more specifically, in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. World competition law regimes cannot ignore these human rights imperatives. To a certain extent, these imperatives can be accommodated under existing consumerist competition law theories by the interpretive mechanism of conform-interpretation. However, when one comprehends the truly global scale of modern food supply chains, it becomes obvious that conform-interpretation alone will not suffice. Instead, the protection of a minimum level of producer welfare congruent to those producers’ right to a minimum adequate level of food must find a place among the aims of any credible theory of competition law. Moreover, the same globalized nature of these food supply chains means that current doctrines of extraterritorial jurisdiction of competition control have also to be revised.

Legal principles are an essential element of jurisprudence. They help to systemize, to comprehend and to further develop a legal order. Although International Internet Law is quite a new legal subject, some principles begin to evolve. The article addresses five emerging core principles of International Internet Law: (1) The principle of internet freedom, (2) the principle of privacy, (3) a modified principle of territorial jurisdiction adapted to cyberspace, (4) the principle of interstate cooperation, and (5) the principle of multi-stakeholder cooperation.

The relationship between human rights law and business has emerged in recent years as one of the most topical to be discussed and put on the agenda almost worldwide. The activities of corporations in this globalized environment have often served as the catalyst for human rights violations; due to the lack of institutional protection, some corporations are able to exploit regulatory lacunae and the lack of human rights protection. On 9 April 2010 Professor John Ruggie, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General on human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, submitted his fifth Report under the title “Business and Human Rights: Further steps toward the operationalization of the ‘protect, respect and remedy’ framework.” The objective of this short article is to examine his 2010 report and to establish whether this Report has contributed to clarifying standards in the field of human rights and business.

The example of the German Law Journal has been very important for the creation of a new legal journal, the Italian Journal of Public Law. First, that example was very persuasive due to the importance of the traditional ties between the German and Italian legal cultures. Second, following that example, unlike most e-journals in the legal field in Italy, the Italian Journal of Public Law devotes considerable attention to theoretical issues. Its goal is essentially to serve as a bridge between legal cultures and this explains the choice of English as the working language. This does not imply, however, a demise of the national tradition, in particular as far as the distinctiveness of public law is concerned. Openness towards other legal cultures implies, rather, an even stronger awareness of the existence of a variety of approaches or methods, in contrast with the faith in “the” legal method, conceived in a unitary way, which characterized part of the last century.

The German Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice) has to frequently adjudicate cases related to terrorism. The “War on Terror” has reached the German judiciary shortly after its proclamation as a reaction to the 9/11-attacks. Ever since, German criminal law is grappling with the question of how to harmonize security interests on the one hand with individual rights and liberties on the other. The expansion of the criminal law is a real threat for the previously liberty-oriented criminal law. The court decision discussed in this case addresses a specific aspect of terrorism: the financing of terrorist activities. As there is no special law prohibiting such kind of behavior, the judges had to apply section 263 of the German Criminal Code, which deals with fraud, and combine this with sections 129 a and b of the German Criminal Code, which makes being merely a member of a criminal organization into a criminal offence. A highly sensitive field of law that is put under scrutiny by anti-terrorism measures is procedural law. As secret investigation measures through electronic surveillance become more prevalent and sophisticated, the admissibility of the evidence, which was gained mainly by intelligence, becomes more and more questionable. The court decision discussed in this paper proves the willingness of the Federal Judges in Germany to reduce individual liberty rights in order to enhance the effectiveness of criminal prosecution.

Law is a discipline which allows us to combine a high level of doctrinal craftsmanship with an equally high level of theoretical reflection and (re-)construction of legal-political developments. For the academic scholar, law is practice, theory and doctrine, each requiring a distinct set of goals, a distinct set of methods and a distinct level of abstraction. For some time, the international legal discipline has been described as lacking in theoretical development. This consideration may have motivated the conveners of a Kelsen-Schmitt-Arendt conference series when they decided that it was time for a re-engagement with the theories of Kelsen, Schmitt, and Arendt. The first workshop on constitutionalism will be the object of this commentary.

Kelsen, Schmitt and Arendt have experienced unexpected and innovative reception in recent years: Schmitt has contributed to questions such as the problematic role of human rights, the institutionalization of politics as conflict, as well as new applications of the state of exception. Kelsen's international writings as well as his democratic theory have borne a fruitful re-reading, and Arendt, who has been widely read, and written about in the social sciences for several years, has finally reached the law faculties.

The primary interest of this comment lies in the question of how international legal scientific work can make use of legal and political theory. A whole range of politico-legal developments in the European and international arenas are currently creating new forms of institutions, obligations, and types of engagement between legal orders. The velocity and the diversity of these developments are challenging traditional frameworks, paradigms, and analytical tools of the discipline. This task of conceptualization asks for and lends itself to theorization. Which approaches to theory are available for legal scholars, and what kind of insights do they offer? The conference offered the chance to witness different examples of how theory can be accessed. What role is there for theory in international law and what is its potential?