The incendiary image of German soldiers, serving as members of a proposed UN peace keeping force assigned to the Palestinian territories, formed the emotionally-charged and highly controversial backdrop to the Constitutional Court's recent consideration of the constitutionality of Germany's military/civil service obligation. The conflict in the Middle East aside, the military/civil service obligation has also emerged as a hot domestic issue as the campaign for the September federal elections catches its stride. Given this political climate it is hardly surprising that the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) opted to dismiss, on procedural grounds, two cases that posed distinct but related challenges to Germany's military/civil service obligation. It is, however, precisely the Court's explicit recognition of the politically-loaded nature of questions concerning Germany's military/civil service obligation that makes its decision in the first of the two cases remarkable.

The first directives regulating the use and trade of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were adopted at the Community level in 1990. These acts formed a core of the Community gene technology legal regime and harmonised the authorisation procedures prior to both contained use and deliberate release of genetically modified organisms. Accordingly, no GMO may be placed on the European Union market without obtaining a written consent for it and only after an appropriate environmental risk assessment has been carried out. Under the old Deliberate Release Directive 90/220, 18 GM products were allowed to be placed on the Community market following either the Commission decisions or Member States consent and over 1000 were notified to the Member States authorities for experimental purposes.