The book analyses the phenomenon of ‘public interest’ in a comprehensive manner in different areas of law, both public and private. The term ‘public interest’ can be found in a wide range of legislation and it is used extensively in judicial practice and public administration. Yet, it has received surprisingly little attention from academia. As a result, it is used for various, often contradictory purposes. Justifications of its application are rarely convincing and the concept is often confused with similar legal institutions, which, however, serve quite different purposes. Sometimes, it is considered to be a common denominator of a number of different categories and consequently mixed up with terms like state interest, society's interest, public welfare, etc.

The book's objectives are therefore manifold. Above all, it aims to provide a definition of the notion of public interest, flesh out its structure and determine its main attributes, particularly against the background of the notion of private interest. Achieving this goal requires an analysis of the concept's philosophical underpinnings, historical developments and its application in different times and socio-economic conditions. Therefore, the book begins with theoretical contributions to the concept of public interest, stating their general positions and importance in law and in legal interpretation. However, the book's purpose is first and foremost to help practitioners to apply the concept of public interest with an understanding of its substance and normative function as well as its relationship to other relevant legal institutions. The individual contributions focus on the concept's application in a vast spectrum of legal disciplines, ranging from constitutional and administrative law to corporate and insolvency law, from criminal law to environmental law, and from competition law to labour law. To provide concrete examples of legislative and judicial practice, the book focuses on three jurisdictions – Austria, the Czech Republic and the European Union.

Even when analysing concrete areas of law, the individual contributions are guided by a common framework for analysis: Can public interest as a legal notion be understood as a unified concept, or does it have a relatively separate position and fulfils different functions in different legal disciplines?