My short intervention has two parts: First, I want to congratulate the team of the German Law Journal on ten years of successful work from the perspective of a German reader. Second, I want to praise the transnationalization of legal culture, the subject of this conference.

The 10th anniversary of the German Law Journal marks ten years of a seminal project to transform legal scholarship and adapt it to globalization.

As the transnational sphere becomes dominant, globalization means more than interdependence. It entails profound change to the academic systems as currently understood. These systems were formed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as national institutions. Academics were (and often still are) public servants; future academics — particularly those representing the interests of the state in core areas like education, law, forestry, and theology — can only become public servants after they undergo state examinations. National institutions have financed academic scholarship in order to achieve effective administration, national fame, and economic profit. Accordingly, academic scholarship organized itself into national associations, nurtured national publication bodies, whose public voice spoke in the mother tongue. Certainly, international contacts were maintained with varying intensity, and comparative law has had an enduring and prominent history in many legal fields. However, these contacts had a national foundation that largely determined orientation, style, media, means, career and reputation. Under the bell jar of the nation state, national academic communities developed strikingly individual characteristics.

It is a privilege to address such a distinguished audience of judicial and legal professionals, including Minister Zypries and Professors Miller and Zumbansen, and to celebrate with you the 10th anniversary of the German Law Journal. In the past decade the German Law Journal has played an important role in improving our understanding of German, European, and international law and jurisprudence, especially by illuminating the political, historical and cultural context in which legal decisions are made at each of those levels. I would especially like to commend the joint projects that the German Law Journal has initiated with American law students. This is a wonderful way to build links within the transatlantic legal community. And, of course, what many of my American colleagues and I find particularly helpful is that the German Law Journal is published in English!

First and foremost, in the name of the German-American Lawyers' Association (DAJV) I wish to congratulate the German Law Journal on its 10th anniversary! The German Law Journal has contributed extensively to the reversion of the “one-way traffic” of the transfer of law, at least on some points, which typically flowed from the U.S.A. to Europe. I can still remember quite well that, at the time Germany gradually arose from the shadowy existence of an “emerging market” in the area of capital markets, time and again it was emphasized that German law was indeed compatible with a world market—if only it was available in the English language. The German Law Journal recognized this deficiency and has contributed significantly to the spread of awareness and understanding of German law abroad.

I am delighted to be here to celebrate with you the tenth anniversary of the German Law Journal. The mere existence of a publication like the German Law Journal is remarkable, but what is even more impressive is that it is of such a high intellectual quality.

It is proper that we have come to Berlin to celebrate this remarkable transatlantic enterprise. It is true that the German Law Journal was born in Karlsruhe and that it emerged in its current form – as an online, monthly, peer-reviewed, English-language forum for commentary on developments in German, European and International law – at the University of Frankfurt. But one advantage of Internet publishing is the detailed information editors can gather on their readers, including the almost absurd statistic that tracks the frequency with which the German Law Journal website is accessed from each of Germany's Postleitzahl districts. Berlin is the right place for this event because we know from that data that the largest block of our German readers, by far, is based here in the German capital.

There are many ways to theorize transnational law. As always, there is a mainstream, and there are “sidestreams.” However, it may be more interesting to consider from which direction such theories develop. Here, in appreciation of what the German Law Journal did to transnational legal conversations, I suggest to consider three directions in transnational legal studies: (1) theorizing from above; (2) theorizing from below; and (3) theorizing from inside. As you will see, much of the theories are in the German Law Journal (GLJ).

It is difficult to put a label on a historical period. Human history is full of variety, complexities and contradictory developments. Consequently, the precondition of grand theories of history is often their openness to unjustified simplification. On the other hand, some orientation is indispensable, and for this, general descriptions are helpful if one stays aware of their limited function and value. With this in mind it is possible to state that the post-war period is marked by what one may call a universalistic stance.

Many warm thanks for the opportunity to participate in this seminar honoring the German Law Journal. I am especially pleased to be addressing you here at the Free University, which generously hosted my stays in Berlin as both a Humboldt and a Fulbright Scholar.

Transnational Commercial Law is an interdisciplinary research field which is concerned with the institutional organization of global economic exchange processes. From the perspective of institutional economics there are basically four different types of governance mechanisms which may be employed to institutionally support exchange. These are (1) uniform governance, where exchange is organized outside the market as intra-firm-trade and problems are solved by virtue of hierarchical coordination, (2) bilateral governance, where exchange between independent parties is self-stabilizing as long as the value of a continued relationship is higher than the profit from defecting, (3) trilateral private governance, where third-party institutions such as arbitration, reputation-based sanctions, and private norms are involved, and finally (4) trilateral public governance, where conflicts are solved by reference to state commercial law, courts, and public enforcement.

Due to the Europeanisation of law, and the constitutionalisation of the European Union in particular, the Habermas argument seems to be quite appealing to many. Globalisation is interpreted as having curbed the State's capability to impose norms on the transnational process of expanding markets. This evolution seems to have not only reduced the action potential of the State but, at the same time and even more importantly, it also has reduced the value of citizenship. Citizenship can no longer be the core element of the relationship between the individual and the State in the postmodern society. It cannot be constituted via a direct relationship with the State, which at the same time constitutes the realm of deliberation because the diffuse networks of transnational inter-relationships beyond the State cannot be reflected by the process of public deliberation. The space of the State is, on the one hand, too small. On the other hand, it may appear to be too big. Against this background Europe cannot be regarded as the bearer of the European acquis étatique (the acquired state).

Values define an important link between law and culture. Giving consideration to the title of the German Law Journal's Tenth Anniversary Symposium, “The Transnationalization of Legal Cultures,” I will address how European law has affected the transnationalization of values.

Criminal law is different, it is often said, from other areas of law in that it is rooted in and thus depends on national heritage to a great extent. This uniqueness is recognized by European institutions, as expressed by General Advocat Mazák in a case concerning the protection of the environment by means of criminal law:

“In many respects, criminal law stands out from other areas of law. Availing itself of the most severe and most dissuasive tool of social control – punishments – it delineates the outer limits of acceptable behaviour and in that way protects the values held dearest by the community at large. As an expression essentially of the common will, criminal penalties reflect particular social disapproval and are in that respect of a qualitatively different nature as compared with other punishments such as administrative sanctions.

On July 2 and 3, 2009, both old and new friends of the German Law Journal (GLJ) gathered in Berlin for a symposium in celebration of the Journal's tenth anniversary. The two-day symposium, hosted in partnership with the Budesministerium der Justiz (the Federal Ministry of Justice) and the Law Faculty of the Freie Universität, brought together renowned justices, scholars and practitioners as well as law students from North America and Europe to discuss the transnationalization of legal cultures.