To characterize the administrative lead-up to the 12th Annual Love Parade in Berlin it might be more appropriate to invoke the violent, thrashing mosh pits of the grunge scene from a decade ago rather than the pulsing, rhythmic harmony expected of a rave, of which the Love Parade may be the world's largest and most celebrated. Held on July 14 each year since 1989, the Love Parade in recent years has drawn more than a million people for a day-long dance/party/festival all set to the distinctive drive of techno-music. The Love Parade has become so popular that in 1997 it spawned an alternative, opposition festival called the Fuck Parade, which has been held each year on the same day at another location in Berlin, promising a more authentic, less commercialized rave.

German Law Journal reported last November on the German Government's plans to take the extraordinary move of seeking a constitutional ban of the extreme right-wing National Democratic Party of Germany. At the end of January, 2001, the Federal Government filed its motion for a ban of the NPD with the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. At the end of March, 2001, the Bundestag (Federal Parliament) and the Bundesrat (Federal Legislative Chamber of the States) followed with separate motions. The Federal Constitutional Court now has before it three separate actions, raising distinct claims and presenting distinct evidence, seeking the constitutional excommunication of the NPD. The motions present a unified front from every political sector of the German constitutional order: the executive, the legislature and the Länder (federal states). This lock-step approach to the effort to ban the NPD was part of the master-scheme of Federal Interior Minister Otto Schily, who pressed hard to gain support for the move to seek a ban from all mainstream political parties and all the Länder, at least in part to limit the political fall-out in the case that the Constitutional Court finds against the motions.

On June 26, 2001 the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice) handed down a new decision regarding the liability of experts towards third parties (Reg. No. X ZR 231/99). While the Court appeared to have taken a somewhat new direction, the latest judgement must be considered in the context of a steadily evolving jurisprudence related to the effect on third parties of contracts involving the transfer of expertise, especially in light of a third party's reliance on this expertise. Parties contracting for expert testimony or evaluation regularly do not, at least not explicitly, take a third party into consideration in their contractual dispositions. Problems arise, however, when in the performance of the contract a third party, often the buyer or a bank seeking an evaluation of a client's creditworthiness, substantially relies on this expert evaluation produced pursuant to the contract. Where the seller defaults, the bank (in this example) may attempt to directly sue the expert.

On July 19, 2001, the European Commission announced that it had reopened proceedings regarding the German system of fixed book prices, asserting anti-competitive effects on cross-border Internet bookselling. The Commission's announcement constitutes a new chapter in a long-running dispute over the legality of the so-called Sammelrevers system that dominates the book trade in Germany and, mutatis mutandis, other European states. The trigger in the present occasion was certain practices alleged of German publishers and book wholesalers regarding the application of the Sammelrevers to direct cross-border sales of books to final consumers. The ongoing integration of the continent's economy and the constant introduction of new technologies and ways of distribution have led many commentators to speak in terms of the German book trade vainly “struggling to hold back the tide of unfettered competition.”

The Council of Europe on July 3, 2001, released the Second Report on Germany prepared by its European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI). (1) ECRI is a mechanism to combat racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance that was established by the Heads of State and Government of the Member States of the Council of Europe at their Summit in Vienna on October 9, 1993, and improved during the Strasbourg Summit held on October 10–11, 1997.

In three high-profile cases the Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG — Federal Constitutional Court) was recently called upon to exercise its authority to issue a temporary injunction in proccedings referred to as einstweilige Anordnungen (provisional measures). Article 32 of the Bundesverfassungsgerichtgesetz (BVerfGG — Federal Constitutional Court Act) provides: In a dispute the Federal Consitutional Court may deal with a matter provisionally by means of a temporary injunction if this is urgently needed to avert serious detriment, ward off imminent force or for any other important reason for the common good.