With the progressive “accession” of the German Democratic Republic to the Federal German Republic after the reunification in 1990, Germany had to deal with a number of impediments emanating from the attempt to reconcile different political, social and legal models that developed during the forty years of separation between East and West Germany. Among these was the issue of how the property order in Germany would be influenced by seeking to integrate two such different socio-political and legal systems. As the discussion below indicates, the demands placed by this issue on the courts, legislature and administration of the newly reunified Federal German Republic still cause repercussions.

In recent times, an increased awareness in public international law of the significance of human rights has given rise to the idea of direct access to compensation claims by individuals in the case of severe human rights breaches. This development has led to a number of actions for compensation in various jurisdictions. The Bundesgerichtshof (BGH – Federal Court of Justice) recently joined the series of decisions from higher courts addressing compensation claims for human rights breaches, handing down its landmark decision on compensation claims by Greek citizens whose parents were killed in a massacre in Distomo during the Second World War.

In its § 142(1) the American Restatement of the Law of Restitution provides that “[t]he right of a person to restitution from another because of a benefit received is terminated or diminished if, after the receipt of the benefit, circumstances have so changed that it would be inequitable to require the other to make full restitution.” The notion that the recipient of an unjustified benefit must in principle return not more than the enrichment that has actually “survived” in his hands, is not only fundamental to the American law of restitution, but can also be found in English and German law.

While International Law becomes more and more specialized, a tendency towards Fragmentation becomes visible: more and more sub-regimes of International Law emerge, leading to an increased number of rules. With the creation of more sub-regimes, cases are becoming more likely in which more than one sub-regime is involved and the question arises, which sub-regime's rules take precedence. Recent examples for such collisions of regimes include the relation between Free Trade and the Protection of the Environment in the Yellowfin-Tuna Case between the United States and Mexico which was settled only in January 2002, the Tadic-Nicaragua Debate and the Swordfish Case between the European Community and Chile, including the need for some form of internal order or hierarchy within International Law.

The doctrine of legitimate expectation was authoritatively accepted as part of South African administrative law in the landmark case of Administrator, Transvaal v Traub in 1989. In that case Chief Justice Corbett extended the scope of application of the rules of natural justice, specifically the audi principle, beyond the traditional “liberty, property and existing rights” formula to cases where something less than an existing right, a legitimate expectation, required a fair procedure to be followed. This acceptance followed the trend in other Commonwealth jurisdictions to extend the application of the rules of natural justice and hence afford greater procedural protection to individuals affected by administrative decisions. Although Chief Justice Corbett expressly stated that the content of the expectation may be substantive or procedural in nature, the protection of that expectation, if found to be legitimate, was exclusively procedural. Since the Traub decision, the doctrine of legitimate expectation has been deeply entrenched in South African administrative law to extend the scope of procedural rights afforded individuals affected by administrative action. It is now an established principle of South African administrative law that a person, who has a legitimate expectation, flowing from an express promise by an administrator or a regular administrative practice, has a right to be heard before administrative action affecting that expectation is taken. The doctrine, has however, by and large, remained one that provides procedural protection in South Africa. In a number of recent decisions by South African courts, ranging from the High Court to the Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court, there have been increasing calls for the application of legitimate expectations beyond procedural claims.

Certain rulings of the World Trade Organization Appellate Body and recent EC Commission decisions on State aids have brought new attention on an old issue: States can use their tax systems to provide subsidies. The basic assumption against subsidies is that markets should not be distorted by government's intervention. However, a system of taxation without government is unthinkable. A different criterion must lead to the distinction of measures necessary to the effectiveness and fairness of the tax regime from tax measures that distort competition.