In one of his speeches the President of the United States of America took the responsibility to free the world from all globally operating terrorist groups. Honestly, is a realistic end to such a task foreseeable? Or does the former Operation „Infinite Justice”, which was recently renamed „Enduring Freedom” lead to infinite or enduring war?

In the middle of the 19th century Jurists Forums were founded in several European countries, including Germany, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Italy and Hungary. The aim of the institution was to assemble practitioners and academics, in order to discuss contemporary legal problems with the goal of influencing jurisprudence and legislation. The activities of the Deutscher Juristentag (German Jurists' Forum) were interrupted after Hitler came to power, primarily because the German Jurists' Forum refused to exclude its Jewish members. The organization was resurrected after the Second World War, and has taken a leading role in influencing the jurisprudence of the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH — German Federal Court of Justice), for example in the area of product liability and family law.

At the best of times, the issue of immigration is sensitive and related debate heated. At times such as these, it cannot be expected to be handled sensibly. The decision of the German Interior Minister following the terrorist attacks in the United States not to submit proposed immigration legislation to Cabinet on September 26 was, from this perspective alone, wise. Historical examples of the mistakes in policymaking that can result from deficient democratic discourse are legion and are most commonly made during times of political crisis. Unfortunately, the resultant mistakes may be thereby all the graver, as the policies concern issues of fundamental national importance.

As professor Antonio Cassese rightly said in a public speech on September 26, the terrorist attacks on the US not only caused an unbearable number of innocent victims, but they are also disrupting some of the most important international legal categories that seemed to be consolidated until September 11, 2001.

For the first time in the \“New Market\”\'s history, a claim for damages against Infomatec, a NEMAX-company has been ruled in favor of plaintiff. Nemax is the index in which New Market companies are quoted. On September 26, 2001, the Landgericht (Regional Court) Augsburg granted a compensation worth DM 100.000 for a former shareholder of Infomatec [\“company\”]. This article will first give a brief survey of the facts as well as an explanation of the so-called \“Ad Hoc-notifications\” under German securities law before outlining the Court\'s holding.

The following essay was written prior to the tragic events of September 11, 2001, in an effort to reflect on an aspect of international law\'s confrontation with violence, national identity, and adjudicated forms of justice. Since the attacks in the United States, numerous commentators have expressed the need to act within the rule of international law. This essay speculates on the meaning of that notion. It is neither prescriptive in terms of policy nor reformist in terms of doctrine. Rather, it is part of an ongoing effort to discern the aesthetic significance, if not the rationality, of international law.

In the first place, I should like to stress that the emphasis of my rather ambitious-sounding subtitle is on ‘speculation’, and not on ‘the future of international law’; for one, it is, at least at the time of writing, entirely speculative to think about the mid- and long-term consequences of the September 11 attacks, since, so far, the announced response to the attacks by the United States, the ‘West’ and the ‘civilised world’, has not yet happened. We are in a strange state of limbo, where everything seems possible, from secret James Bond-type operations to outright military attack of Afghanistan by the US and NATO troops, from civil war in Pakistan to biological —or even nuclear-counterattacks by the terrorist fold, from ‘business as (almost) usual’ to ‘the world is out of joint’. At such times, to speculate is not only all one can do, but it is, I believe, positively encouraged for those who professionally and/or passionately deal with the structure and meaning of social reality, as, inter alia, international legal academics do. Secondly, the emphasis is also on speculation because, evidently, it would be quite preposterous to pretend to set out, in a very brief comment written ‘out of the moment’, what all this will come to mean for so richly textured an academic discourse as international law. Yet international law and international lawyers are in everyone's mouth at this moment, and so it seems precisely apt to ‘speculate’ —and no more—, in rough sketch, about the consequences the events of September 11 and their political-military aftermath could have on the theory and practice of the ‘law of nations’.