Open Access

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Water plays an essential role in human life as well as in various sectors of the economy, it is a strategic and crucial factor for achieving social and economic development and supporting ecological systems. However, the world's water resources are exposed to considerable and continuing pressure since the water use rate has increased twice as quickly as the rate of population growth during the 20th century, which led to malfunctions in the balance between renewable and available water resources and the growing demand for water. Therefore, the issue of water is the main challenge to humans in the 21st century. Particularly affected by water scarcity is the Middle East, where the availability of water is less than 1,700 m3 per capita per year. This dissertation focuses on the Syrian water sector, considering both aspects of administrative modernization and stakeholder approaches for ensuring the creation of an enabling environment capable of improving water management in Syria. The central goal of this research is to introduce a set of institutional, legislative and economic measures that can be used to rationalize and maintain the water resources in Syria to apply Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). Quantitative and qualitative data and methods were scrutinized to provide an overview of the status and problems of the water sector, as well as perspectives for innovative water management and corresponding modernization policies in Syria. The thesis tackled the research questions defining the main challenges of the Syrian water sector and examining its existing enabling environment as well as its suitability for achieving sustainable water resources management. Furthermore, the study evaluated the existing governance regime and the institutional framework of the Syrian water sector, checked the availability, and estimated the degree of application of its management instruments. The research also examined the ongoing process of development and financing of waterinfrastructure and finally estimated the overall impact of water resources management in Syria on economic, social, and environmental aspects. Finally, the study provides optimized recommendations and potential solutions for the development of the Syrian water sector according to the IWRM paradigm.

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The papers collected in this volume were submitted in a dialogue seminar which took place in Bangkok form the 17th to the 21st of August 1992. The seminar was organized by the Office of the Juridical Council of Thailand and the Post-Graduate School of Administrative Sciences in Speyer, under the direction of Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Heinricht Siedentopf.

From today's viewpoint it seems almost inconceivable that there once was a time where academia functioned without peer review processes, which are now so much part and parcel of the academic environment. Peer review is mainly taken for granted and we assume that it generally works well in estimating the worth of academic outputs of differents kinds (publications, grant proposals etc.) However, the process itself is not free of criticism and much can still be done to improve review quality. In this paper I explore and question the purpose and function of peer review, engage with various problems that can occur in the process, and make suggestions for ways in which peer review might be improved. It is based on empirical research, participation in various peer review forms and observation of accreditation practice.

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This thesis explores the principles of administrative punishment under the European Con-vention of Human Rights (ECHR). Administrative punishment, for its part, is gaining popularity across European legal systems because it is a flexible, speedy and cost-efficient option. More precisely, it allows public authorities to inflict punishment without having to undergo a judi-cial action. The procedural safeguards that the concerned individual can expect are accor-dingly lower. However, whilst at the national and European Union levels the academic atten-tion grew in line with the gradual expansion of the use of administrative punishment, the same cannot be said regarding the legal framework of the Council of Europe (‘CoE’). Compre-hensive scholarly works on the subject matter are still missing and only a few authors are researching administrative sanctions within this framework more profoundly, i.e., in a cross-cutting manner. This is regrettable because nowadays, one can speak of a rich and congruent body of admini-strative punishment under the CoE’s law. Not only has the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) admitted administrative sanctions within its remit since the famous Engel case in 1976, but it also interprets all relevant terms found in the letter of ECHR such as ‘criminal charge’, ‘penal procedure’, and ‘penalty’ autonomously and in harmony with one another. Autonomous interpretation of these key terms by using Engel criteria means that administra-tive sanctions can, and often are, put under scrutiny (as long as they bear ‘punitive’ and ‘de-terrent’ hallmarks). All in all, the following normative sources can be said to comprise the ius puniendi administrativus within the legal framework of the CoE: First, Article 6 ECHR, which ensures the procedural protection for administrative sanctioning by enshrining the right to a fair trial and its various components, i.e., by laying down a range of participatory and defence rights, as well as the possibility to have access to judicial review and the presumption of inno-cence. Secondly, Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the ECHR, which stipulates ne bis in idem prin-ciple precluding double jeopardy. Thirdly, Article 7 ECHR is essential in giving substantive pro-tection to the subject-matter, and lays down the requirement of legality including regulatory quality, non-retroactive application of administrative sanctions, and no punishment without personal liability. Finally, Recommendation No. R (91) 1 of the Committee of Ministers to the Members States on administrative sanctions of 13 February 1991 as a ‘soft’ yet authoritative legal act creates boundaries for acceptable administrative sanctioning. All of these normative sources form the backbone of the research. This thesis intends to fill the aforementioned academic gap and contribute to the legal scho-larship. It furthermore aspires to be a useful source for practitioners working within the field of public law who are empowered to regulate on or impose administrative sanctions. For this reason, the following research questions are tackled: What is a sanction? What purposes does it serve in a legal system? What is an administrative sanction in particular? What are its role and idiosyncratic features? What aims does it follow? How can it be differentiated from other types of public admonition, i.e., from criminal law measures? How do the CoE and the ECtHR conceptualize an administrative sanction? What guarantees stipulated by the ECHR are applicable to these sanctions? To what extent do they apply? Are there any limitations? If so, then what are the implications thereof on the individual rights? Is the current level of pro-tection in the field of administrative punishment regarding fundamental rights sufficient? The thesis has furthermore sought to verify the following hypothesis: “The ECtHR acknowled-ges certain minimum requirements stemming from the ECHR from which the administrative authorities imposing a punitive administrative measure upon the individual, cannot deviate”. The hypothesis was drafted similarly to the wording of Article 6 (3) ECHR, which, together with other paragraphs of this Article, enlists fundamental individual guarantees for (any kind of) punishment (“Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights […]”).

The aim of this paper is to create an analytical framework for comparative study (FÖV project “The Transformation of the Civil Service in Europe”). It explores the scope and denotation of the terms “civil service” and “civil servant”. Its main argument is that a comparative legal ana-lysis should distinguish the notions of public service and civil service. Public service concerns a type of professional activity related to the exercise of all public power (legislative, executive and judicial). Civil servants are officials employed by the executive; they have special duties and responsibilities and are often subject to specific requirements. The employment regime is not decisive for the status of civil servant, due to the fact that government officials in Europe are employed both under public or private (labour) law. Nonetheless, they should enjoy stability of employment and exercise their competencies on a regular basis, not ad hoc.

This research report presents the results of an international mail survey on the implementation strategies of innovative and modernizing public organizations in Germany, Great Britain and the U.S. The aim of the survey was to discover country-specific differences in the implementation of administrative modernization in various areas of modernization. The survey was undertaken in 1996 among former quality award participants of German, British and American national quality awards. The data collected include organizational level responses from 400 different well-performing public organizations. A first data analysis shows that British public organizations are the most managerialist ones, American public organizations take a medium position and German public organizations are behind in most modernization areas. For most modernization strategies, the Anglo-American hypothesis proved to be a valid assumption, which means that British and American implementation strategies are more similiar than German and American strategies of administrative modernization. The study starts with an extensive discussion various theoretical and methodological issues in the context of comparative 'New Public Management'. The following chapter is devoted to empirical issues involved with the use of quality awards as a source of empirical data. In accordance with the structure of this study, a two-level comparative analysis, the study proceeds to analysize contextual macro-level variables before it jumps into the empirical subgroup analysis of the survey data on modernization strategies. Last, but not least, the study concludes with hypothesis testing and by producing some tentative qualitative and quantitative country-specific profiles of administrative modernization. The research report is written in English. A modified German version of this research report will be published in early 1998 in the series 'die innovative Verwaltung' by Raabe-Verlag, Stuttgart et al.

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The report outlines the basic issues, research questions, approach and methods of the project, the progress made thus far, and the steps to be taken next. Using the approaches and methods of political science and comparative policy research, it consists in a comparative analysis of the implementation and enforcement of national permitting and inspection systems for large industrial installations including Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), and Major Accident Prevention (MAP). The study is being conducted on a broad selection of EU member states (D, DK, E, F, I, NL, S, UK) using five languages, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish in all the process of data collection and devising the research instruments. In the context of growing policy debate on international trends toward environmental integration, such as the EU Directive on IPPC the main objective of the project is to explore and analyse the existence and extent of an integrated approach in the national environmental laws and administrations of member states, the different problems involved in its achievement and practical implementation and enforcement, the factors of various types that account for the similarities and variation identified in the countries included, and the degree of adaptation of the national systems necessary to meet the requirements of implementation of European legislation. The report proceeds first by discussing the basic practical and theoretical issues involved in integrated pollution control and permitting. Then, after a comprehensive review of previous research and sources, some conceptual discussion and definitions are presented which, together with the research questions, form the basis of the proposed comparative analytical framework. These lead to the concrete empirical methods proposed in the fourth section. In the fifth section a comparative descriptive overview of the formal legal-administrative aspects of the countries in the study is presented. Finally a description of the steps taken so far and forthcoming steps is found in the last section. Country overviews based on preliminary interviews are attached as Annex I to this report. Annex II contains a list of institutions interviewed. Annex III presents the guidelines for the expert interviews to be conducted in the eight countries.

This article offers an in-depth analysis of the relationship between European law and the case-law born of the European Convention. The author addresses the tension between the drive for legal certainty and the need to expand fundamental rights. By offering an overview of the legal reality that this tension has created, the author seeks to find the balance between needless plurality and rigid certainty. Through this overview, the author argues that the promotion of fundamental rights must be organised along lines of harmony and not of uniformity. To do this, he offers a detailed analysis of the respective approaches to the detention of asylum seekers and to the privilege against self-incrimination. The article thus traces the increasingly inter-referential nature of Strasbourg and Luxembourg jurisprudence, arguing that this trend has the potential to promote fundamental rights, as long as the jurisdiction of human rights’ legislation is significantly expanded. The author goes on to discuss the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, looking at the ways in which it grew out of jurisprudence from both legal systems and how this cross-pollination may change the expansion of fundamental rights in a wider sense.

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Vortrag auf einer Konferenz des American Institute for Contemporary German Studies am 24.6.1996 in Washington, D.C.

Provided for under the Treaty of Lisbon, the accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights is destined to be a landmark in European legal history because it will finally make it possible for individuals and undertakings to apply to the European Court of Human Rights for review of the acts of European Union institutions. After nearly three years of negotiations, a draft agreement on European Union accession was adopted on 5 April 2013. In the light of the draft agreement, this publication offers a concise analysis of the reasons for European Union accession to the Convention, the means by which this is to be achieved and the effects it will have.

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The role of the city changed within the knowledge economy. Knowledge has become the most important resource of urban prosperity and universities are considered the hope of city development (Van Winden 2009). Previous research has elaborated various dimensions in which universities interact with their home cities (or regions). They refer to economic impacts (e.g. Behr 2004; Florida 2006; Van Winden 2007; Gabe 2012), differ between forms of the spatial and structural integration of the university into the area (e.g. Larkham 2000; Kunzmann 2004; Gerhard 2012) or focus on social impacts of universities in the urban environment (e.g. Chatterton 1999; Sage et al. 2011; Smith 2004; Smith/Hubbard 2014; Gerhard, Hoelscher & Wilson 2017). All of these rely on a specific concept of space. However, they are lacking the neutral consideration of a fundamental factor of city development in university towns: students as urban agents (Russo/Tatjer 2007). Students constitute a considerable part of the population in university cities. As such, they need to play a key role in the analysis of the urban space. Drawing on a systematic literature review (Machi & McEvoy 2016), it is shown within this presentation that whenever students are subject to urban studies, either their role is conceptualized with a negative connotation (‘Studentification’: most important Smith 2004, 2008) or mainly depicted as leading to urban devaluation. As a counter draft to the prevailing approaches, the concept of ‘Student Urbanity’ (Steinmueller 2015) is introduced as an unbiased approach to the analysis of students as a source of urban processes of change. Using official (urban) statistics as well as observations and maps, the presentation highlights the results of a comparative case study, which exploratively tested this model in the cities of Heidelberg (Germany) and Montpellier (France) (Steinmüller 2015). Starting with the identification of distribution patterns of students’ residences, urban areas with a significantly high share of them are analysed with regard to the following research questions: - Which (social-)structural and spatial characteristics can be observed in these areas? - How do the students shape the urban space and infrastructure within the detected areas? - Which tendencies of revaluation respectively devaluation emerge from this influence? The presentation makes an empirical case for ‘Student Urbanity’ showing the relations between urban space and university with regard to students as agents of the development. It concludes with the discussion of this new student role as potential sources of reurbanisation as well as urban inequalities.

The use of social science knowledge in the policy of administrative reforms results in a remarkably reflexive connection between science and practice. In the case of the Federal Republic of Germany, too, which is being dealt with here, the state administrations have become significant promoters of the policy of science. Within the scope of social sciences not only the administrative science, but also diciplines such as the political science increasingly serve as an advisory science for public agencies. In this way part of the problems of science and practice is reflected in the use of social science knowledge in the policy fo administrative reforms.

The lecture explains the interrelations between the rule of law and its interpretation in the EU and the judicial independence

In our publication “The Youth Check in Germany” we provide detailed information about Regulatory Impact Assessment for the young generation in Germany.

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Fiscal equalisation refers to attempts within a federal or at least significantly decentralised system of government to reduce fiscal disparities among subnational jurisdictions by using monetary transfers, either explicitly defined as equalisation transfers or linked to other types of grants or spending programs. At first glance, there might be considerable differences between the European countries in terms of organizing and financing local governments. However, a number of problems being faced are remarkably similar: Revenues available to local government should match their responsibilities and tax resources should be sufficient to enable them to keep pace with changes in fiscal needs. Since it could be difficult to maintain a good balance between evolving responsibilities and own local revenues, any fiscal imbalance raises the case for financial transfers between different tiers of government. This book presents a collection of essays which mainly concentrate on different systems of fiscal equalization at the local level in Europe. Features of the equalization system as well as their recent reforms are discussed. Showing the influence of progressing European integration.

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Comparison between the Belgian, Dutch and Swedish system of legal protection against expropriation

This paper constitutes a first didactic foray into the research project 'Property Tax as Financing Instrument of Megacities in BRICS states'. It assesses the property tax system of the BRICS states with consideration for how property taxes should be designed and used. In addition, a model to assess the efficiency with whi the property tax is appleid will be developed. This model will later be used to conduct an assessment of the property taces of the BRICS states' megacities.

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After 25 years of transformations of higher education systems in Post-Soviet countries, the single Soviet model of higher education has evolved into fifteen unique national systems, shaped by economic, cultural, and political forces, both national and global (Johnstone and Bain 2002). International agencies such as the World Bank and the OECD have lobbied for certain policies, while the Bologna Process has created isomorphic pressures, many post-soviet countries have yielded to albeit with different motivations and unclear outcomes (Tomusk, 2011). Comparative research on these developments, however, is scarce and has primarily discussed them in terms of decentralization, marketization and institutional autonomy (Heyneman 2010; Silova, 2011). My PhD thesis conducted between 2014 and 2017 at the University of Leipzig and the Higher School of Economics (Moscow), has reconstructed the developments in terms of driving forces and path dependencies at national, regional and global level have promoted convergence and divergence in the governance of higher education in post-Soviet higher education space, studying in detail the three Post-Soviet, non-EU Bologna signatory states Russia, Moldova and Kazakhstan. Drawing on work by Becher & Kogan (1992), Clark (1983), Jongbloed (2003), Paradeise (2009); Hood (2004); Dill (2010) and Dobbins et al. (2011), the research has conceptualized and analyzed the governance of higher education systems by analyzing change actor roles, power, structures and processes in four areas: 1. Educational Standards, quality assessment, and information provision; 2. Regulation of admissions to higher education; 3. Institutional structures, decision-making and autonomy; 4. Higher education financing and incentive structures. Explanatory approaches draw upon perspectives of path dependence and models of institutional change drawing on work by North (1990), Steinmo (1992), Weick (1976), Pierson (2000) and Witte (2006). The study rests on the one hand on extensive literature analysis of previous academic publications, reports by international organizations such as the World Bank, OECD, and the EU, national strategy papers. Furthermore, over 60 semi-structured expert interviews were conducted with representatives of State organizations, HEIs and other stakeholder groups engaged in the governance of higher education. The outcomes of interviews were used to situate developments in the particular social-political and societal contexts and to triangulate policy documents with various stakeholder perspectives, in order to reconstruct how and why certain policy changes came about, were implemented or abandoned. The results show a differentiated picture: Powerful ministerial control over HEIs remains everywhere, but the means are changing. While in Moldova the political volatility and underfunding have all but made substantial reforms impossible, Russia and Kazakhstan have adopted governance and management practices from New Public Management in idiosyncratic ways. While Kazakhstan has embarked on an authoritarian-driven decentralization program, Russia has created a two-tier system of state steering through financial incentivization and evaluation on the one hand, and tight oversight, control and intervention on the other.

This chapter analyses the impact of the Internet and the shift in communication processes on the States’ obligations emerging from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It claims that the environment created by the Internet is different from the traditional one; that is, it substantially empowers a range of private actors such as social media and other Internet platforms. That is why in the light of the actual development of the ECHR’s standards, both the strict distinction between positive and negative State’s obligations, and an overall prefe-rence for the latter are anachronistic. This chapter claims that it is crucial to keep developing European minimal safeguards in horizontal online relations when human rights violation is a result of a State’s non-compliance with the positive duty. Against this backdrop, this chapter centers around the influence of the Internet on the exercise and protection of selected human rights and the changing nature of communication processes, as well as the game-changing shift caused by the growing power of private actors. It also includes a detailed analysis of the scope and content of positive State’s obligations emerging from the use of the Internet, focusing on substantive obligations (i.e., the legal framework and the allocation of responsibilities), as well as on the issue of the public guarantees for online pluralism and procedural obligations (the duty to provide responses to allegations concerning online ill-treatment inflicted by private individuals).

The picture regarding the protection of fundamental rights in Europe today increasingly looks like a patchwork, due to a lack of coordination at different levels. Developments reinforcing that picture include the emergence of different methodologies for the application of funda-mental rights, Constitution-based challenges to European law by national Supreme Courts, codifications of existing case-law and the creation of so-called « hybrid » institutions. The resulting complexity is a challenge for domestic courts, a threat to the confidence of citizens and detrimental to the fundamental rights themselves, their special role and authority being gradually eroded by a general relativism. EU-accession could have an anti-patchwork effect and represent a chance for a general coordination of fundamental rights in Europe. Beyond making the Convention binding upon the EU, it would also have a pan-European (re)structu-ring effect by confirming the Convention as the minimum benchmark providing both the bedrock and the framework for any other national or European fundamental rights as well as for the necessary judicial dialogue on the latter. Good progress has been achieved since the resumption of negotiations for EU-accession, justifying cautious optimism as to the possibility to find adequate solutions to the outstanding issues.

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The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020 and its consequences constitute a veritable capacity test for the European Union, challenging not only the single Member States, but also the European Union’s ability to provide policy responses that address pandemic control as a union-wide “public good” in different dimensions related to inter alia public health, but also the freedom of movement or the single market. Against this backdrop, this article attempts to take stock of the Union’s early reactions to the first wave of the Covid-19 outbreak. After a brief introduction, we reflect on crisis manage-ment theories, power distribution in the EU, and the EU’s institutionalised crisis reaction capacity. Subsequently, crisis reaction in selected policy areas in the European Union is analysed, before we finish with a concluding section. We find some evidence for the pace-making function of the Franco-German tandem in the form of informal, decentralised action, as well as for a relative weak performance of institutionalised crisis management mecha-nisms on the EU level, but instead a centralisation towards the centre in the form of the European Commission.

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Population ageing is likely to have a long-lasting negative impact on the financial sustainability of European pension systems. As a reaction to this, some European nations have adopted automatic adjustment mechanisms that connect the amount of starting pensions to the development of demographic and economic factors, such as life expectancy and the old-age dependency ratio. Lacking such measures, other countries account for the financial problems of their public payas- you-go pension schemes by ad hoc amendments to their national legislation. This paper provides empirical evidence that national legislation linking life expectancy at retirement age and the level of old-age pensions attenuates opposition against reforms seeking increases to the statutory retirement age. Using multinomial logit models fitted on individual- level survey data, I analyze the probability that individuals accept a potential increase in retirement age among respondents in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. The results show that national institutional contexts explicitly binding pensions to the development of life expectancy attenuate opposition against a potential increase in the statutory retirement age. The implications of the study are of particular importance for policy- makers looking to resolve the problem of constantly increasing oldage dependency ratios in Europe. This requires the application of an incentive structure that increases the acceptability of later withdrawal from the labour market. Analyzing survey data from the late 2000s, this study demonstrates that an explicit attachment between the level of starting pensions and life expectancy at retirement age is particularly useful in motivating longer working careers when life expectancy is on the rise.

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Der Vortrag befasst sich mit der grund- und polizeirechtlichen Einordnung digitaler Versammlungsüberwachung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Einsatzes von Drohnen

This volume documents the papers of the German experts given on the occasion of the Second Dialogue Seminar with the Juridical Council of Thailand which took place from August 5-8 1993 in Rayong, Thailand.

Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) is already being employed to make critical legal decisions in many countries all over the world. The use of AI in decision-making is a widely debated issue due to allegations of bias, opacity, and lack of accountability. For many, algorithmic decision-making seems obscure, inscrutable, or virtually dystopic. Like in Kafka’s The Trial, the decision-makers are anonymous and cannot be challenged in a discursive manner. This article addresses the question of how AI technology can be used for legal decisionmaking and decision-support without appearing Kafkaesque. First, two types of machine learning algorithms are outlined: both Decision Trees and Artificial Neural Networks are commonly used in decision-making software. The real-world use of those technologies is shown on a few examples. Three types of use-cases are identified, depending on how directly humans are influenced by the decision. To establish criteria for evaluating the use of AI in decision-making, machine ethics, the theory of procedural justice, the rule of law, and the principles of due process are consulted. Subsequently, transparency, fairness, accountability, the right to be heard and the right to notice, as well as dignity and respect are discussed. Furthermore, possible safeguards and potential solutions to tackle existing problems are presented. In conclusion, AI rendering decisions on humans does not have to be Kafkaesque. Many solutions and approaches offer possibilities to not only ameliorate the downsides of current AI technologies, but to enrich and enhance the legal system.

After the invocation of security exceptions became more common, the first panel report ever on how to apply them has recently been issued in the Russia – Measures Concerning Traffic in Transit case. While this panel addressed the application of the security exception in a situation of threat to international peace and security, the question must be raised whether its approach also applies to the invocation of security exceptions for economic reasons. In this context, the present chapter focuses on the methodical preliminaries to applying security exceptions: Its application in WTO dispute settlement does not only prompt the question of the jurisdiction of WTO panels and the Appellate Body, but also pertains to the issues of standard of proof and standard of review. A related methodical issue concerns the feasibility of the expansive interpretive approach applied to the general exceptions to the security exception. Reading it in the same tune runs the risk of nullifying the concept of multilateral trade regulation altogether, even more so as the security exceptions miss the usual safeguard against abuse, i.e. the requirements of the general exceptions´ chapeau. The lack of such safety valve confirms that security exceptions are of a different character compared to other exceptions. This difference, however, may be difficult to maintain if security exceptions are also used to defend economic security interests. Finally, the application of security exceptions may - as debated with regard to other WTO exceptions - be subject to an inherent limitation against exterritorial application, which would restrain its scope of application in cases in which security measures against a third country intend to affect also the trade of WTO members, and could become relevant in assessing US sanctions against Iran.

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Der Forschungsbericht ist aus der mehrjährigen Kooperation des Council of State der Regierung Thailands und des Forschungsinstituts zu den Grundlagen einer rechtsstaatlichen Verwaltung entstanden. Er faßt die von der deutschen Seite erstellten Berichte zu der Implementation eines Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetzes und zu der Errichtung einer selbständigen Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit in Thailand zusammen. Diese Referate wurden auf den Dialogseminaren von 1996 und 1997 vorgetragen und diskutiert. Das auf dem deutschen Beispiel aufbauende Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz ist im Frühjahr 1997 in Kraft getreten und bedarf einer konsequenten, aber auch realistischen Implementation in der täglichen Verwaltungspraxis der thailändischen Verwaltung. Mit einem Gesetzentwurf zu einer Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit, der seit dem Herbst 1997 dem Parlament vorliegt und damit zugleich eine Forderung der neuen Verfassung Thailands erfüllt, hat sich das Dialogseminar im August 1997 befaßt. Dieser Entwurf folgt kontinentaleuropäischen Rechtstraditionen und ist ein wichtiges Element der Rechtsstaatlichkeit, die auch durch unabhängige und spezialisierte Verwaltungsrichter gewährleistet werden soll. Der Forschungsbericht enthält die englischsprachigen Übersetzungen des deutschen Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetzes und der Verwaltungsgerichtsordnung jeweils im Stand vom 1. Januar 1998.

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The lecture explains how some of the well-established institutions of constitutional law are being questioned. It explains also how the experience of the XX-century atrocities and the emergence of the authoritarian regimes in Europe impacted on the State Theory, Political Science and Constitutionalism.

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For several decades public entereprises have been criticised for their poor economic performance. Many economists take it as "conventional wisdom" that publicly owned enterprises are inefficient by their very nature. This seemed to be proved by what is probably the most cited survey worldwide, that was written by Megginson and Netter (2001). They claim: "Research now supports the proposition that privately owned firms are more efficient and more profitable than otherwise-comparable state-owned Firms" (p. 380). The objective of this paper is to question the proposition that public enterprises ar necessarily less efficient as their private counterparts. In doing so, we argue that profits are not a reasonable performance measure for public enterprises. However, our main focus is to present a much more comprehensive review of the empirical evidence than was provided by Megginson and Netter. The evidence indicates that theses authors' conclusions were biased in favour of privatization despite the evidence indicating that the true pictures is much more differentiated.