For want of an effective and accessible universal system for redress of international human rights abuses, victims of human rights violations increasingly seek reparations in domestic civil courts. In the United States in particular, the federal courts, since the 1980 Filártiga decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, have already decided on a remarkable number of civil suits alleging human rights violations committed abroad, the most recent example of this trend being a class action of members and supporters of opposition political groups in Zimbabwe who invoke the so-called Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) against President and Foreign Minister Robert Mugabe with respect to alleged acts of torture. According to the proponents of such lawsuits, international human rights litigation in domestic civil courts can serve as an important tool in the worldwide effort to enforce international norms concerned with the protection of the individual which may complement criminal prosecutions of the offenders. As stated by Professor Stevens, who has litigated many of the international human rights cases in the U.S. federal courts, \\\“civil lawsuits for human rights violations […] serve a role similar to tort litigation in a domestic forum: to offer victims of violence a legal remedy which they control and which may satisfy needs not met by the criminal law system.\\\”

In a recently published decision the Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG – Federal Constitutional Court) was concerned with the basic right of free speech of PKK sympathizers. The decision draws a fine line between, on the one hand, preventative measures which aim to inhibit radical associations and, on the other hand, the protection of free speech which lies at the core of democracy. The Court's decision touches upon the debate about security triggered by the events of September 11th and Germany's proactive stance towards right-wing radicalism, characterized by the Court's present consideration of an application to ban the extreme right-wing National demokratischen Partei Deutschlands (NPD – National Democratic Party of Germany).

On May 22, Mr Rolf-Ernst Breuer, until then speaker of the managing board of Deutsche Bank AG (“Bank”), stepped aside to let Mr Josef Ackermann take his place in the small circle of leading managers of Europe's biggest banking institution. Mr Breuer takes the chair of the Bank's supervisory board, as is often practice for the departing Speaker in German stock corporations. This would – in and by itself – be less noteworthy were it not marking, at the same time, possibly a fundamental change in German company structure. The French newspaper, Le Monde, asked already ahead of time whether the event ought to be seen as a cultural revolution and other commentators are readily applying likewise vocabulary. Mr Ackermann has, for some time now and under immense press coverage, been ventilating his strong desires to change the inner workings and structure of the Bank's managing board and it is all but easy to decipher whether or not he ultimately will succeed in doing so and which other changes his initiatives eventually will bring about. The structural overhaul inside the Bank certainly takes place at a time where the Bank is facing financial pressure.

“ROBBEN ISLAND IS A VERY SPECIAL PLACE in the new South Africa. No one in South Africa [and few elsewhere] refuses an invitation to come here“; with these words Justice Pius Langa, Vice-President of the South African Constitutional Court, aptly alluded to the symbolic significance of the place chosen as the venue for this first International Human Rights Academy. Indeed, it turned out to be quite an ingenuine idea on part of the Academy's organisers -namely Prof. Jeremy Sarkin from the University of Western Cape (UWC), Prof. Leo Zwaak from Utrecht University, and Prof. Johan Vande Lannotte from Ghent University, as well as Prof. Asbjorn Eide from the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights- to bring, for the first time ever, thirty-five participants from twenty-two countries to the place where Nelson Mandela served eighteen of his 27-years in prison and about which one of his fellow inmates, Ahmed Kathrada, who is now the Chairperson of the Robben Island Council, said that “we [the ex-prisoners] would want Robben Island to reflect the triumph of freedom and human dignity over oppression and humiliation, of courage and determination over weakness, of a new South Africa over the old”. As such, it was, perhaps, the ideal place to devote a good two-and-a-half-weeks (from April 3 to 20) to human rights in all their shades and colours.

April marked the end of two, intertwined eras at the Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG – Federal Constitutional Court). Not only did Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jutta Limbach conclude her distinguished service as the Court's President and the Presiding Justice of the Second Senate; significantly, President Limbach's retirement also marked the end of the tenure of the first female President of the prestigious and powerful Federal Constitutional Court. It is, however, difficult to decide whether it does Ms. Limbach's legacy more honor to refuse to remark the later of these points, treating her tenure as President from a gender-neutral perspective and thereby giving life to the issue of gender-equality that is so important to her. This question is made somewhat less perplexing for an English-language commentator, who must not employ the gendered forms of nouns as required by the German language. While Ms. Limbach served as a Richterin and Präsidentin (the female forms of the German words Richter and Präsident – judge and president) in the German language, in the English language she was simply and fully (fully neutral with respect to gender) Justice and President. Nonetheless, if only at the level of pronouns, the issue persists in the English language as well: does President Limbach's retirement merit reflection as the conclusion of the tenure of a remarkable Jurist and public figure or the conclusion of the tenure of a remarkable female Jurist and public figure?

Frankfurt, financial center of continental Europe, is home to the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Deutsche Bundesbank (the German central bank) as well as to Deutsche Börse AG (German stock exchange). Most of the important German private banks have their headquarters there, and many banks from abroad have established their subsidiaries in Frankfurt. Besides, the biggest German and international law firms have their largest German offices in the financial district of the City. Unsurprisingly, the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, one of the biggest universities in Germany, has used this advantage of location for building up and expanding its research and teaching program in Business Law and Economics. Both located in the University, the Institut für Ausländisches und Internationales Wirtschaftsrecht – AIW (Institute for Foreign and International Business Law) and the Center of Financial Studies, which is internationally well-known for its research on financial markets, financial intermediaries and monetary economics, are highly reputed.