A foreign jurist, on looking into the German literature on constitutional law, will soon and suddenly be struck by a peculiarity of this scholarship: the unusually strong emphasis on a marginal area of constitutional law, namely, the state of emergency. The inquiry is, of course, well-known in other countries, but the passion for, and the theoretical effort expended on, this marginal area is unique to Germany.

However, this disinterest on the part of other constitutional lawyers, and the recent decline in interest on Germany's part, could yet change, turning the marginal area into a highly current issue. Combating terrorism raises questions for which the German patterns of argumentation, fine-tuned in the academic debate on the law of state of emergency, may provide a useful framework for discussion. The questions arising in the context of the struggle against terrorism test the limits of positive regulations in extreme situations, leading ultimately to the same underlying dilemma as the law on state of emergency, though with different terminology. In this sense, the constellation of legal issues involved in combating terrorism could be considered as the law on state of emergency “incognito.” However, the various argumentative patterns for law on state of emergency have not yet been directly transferred into the very timely legal discourse on counterterrorism (and no such attempt is made here), but such a transfer of argumentation suggests itself. As such, the topic has a “potential currency,” even if traditional issues of state of emergency themselves no longer count among the most current issues.

European Union (EU) regulation of the free circulation of goods may be considered an eminent jurisprudential achievement; in fact, it has emerged from and been strengthened by the judgments of the European Court of Justice (hereinafter “the Court”).

In particular, the Court's engagement with the prohibition on quantitative import restrictions and other measures having an equivalent effect established by Article 28 European Convention (EC), has paved the road towards integration. This was especially true of the Court's “milestone” decisions in Dassonville and Cassis de Dijon.

The judicial parameter established by those judgments was built upon the interpretation of “quantitative restrictions” as encompassing any “measures hindering trade.” Although this has proven to be, for a limited period of time, an efficient instrument in pursuing Treaty goals, like the creation of a single European market, it has also produced a few side effects, including: (a) an excessive broadening of the field of Article 28 EC's application; and, consequently, (b) an increase in the number of claims the Court has had to examine. This has placed the Court in the position of having to weigh, more and more frequently, the content of national policies in order to determine whether the restrictions they impose can be justified.

On 22 November 2005, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivered a judgement in a preliminary ruling procedure from the Arbeitsgericht München (Labour Court Munich), answering questions concerning the interpretation of Clauses 2, 5 and 8 of the Framework Agreement on fixed-term contracts, put into effect by Council Directive 1999/70/EC of 28 June 1999, and as regards the construction of Article 6 of Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation. Essentially, the Arbeitsgericht wanted to know whether a statutory provision exempting employees of 52 years of age and older from limitations to the conclusion of fixed-term contracts was compatible with Community law.