At a special session in Brussels on January 30, 2012, 25 out of the 27 EU Member States agreed on the so-called "Fiscal Compact" to overcome Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. The new Agreement introduces important instruments, like the so-called "debt brake" and the possibility to enforce the Member States' adherence to budgetary objectives by the ECJ. After twelve Member States - less than half of the signatory powers - have ratified the Fiscal Compact, it will step into force.

It can be foreseen that the Fiscal Compact will profoundly change the relation between the EU and its Member States. Against this backdrop, ECSA-Austria and the Interdisciplinary Association of Comparative and Private International Law – IACPIL are organizing a public debate on the treaty with Paul Craig from the University of Oxford.

Paul Craig is Professor for English Law at St. John’s College, University of Oxford, since 1998. His working focuses are Constitutional and Administrative Law and European Law. Professor Craig is widely known for textbooks like “The evolution of EU law” (with G. de Búrca, OUP, 2. Edition 2011), “The Lisbon Treaty” (OUP 2010), and “EU Law” (with G. de Búrca, OUP, 4. Edition 2008).

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Als jener Rechtsmaterie, der die Regelung höchstpersönlicher und privater Angelegenheiten zukommt, ist dem Familienrecht ein genuines Maß an Emotionalität eigen. Es fällt daher mitunter schwer, die Rationalität in Legislativakten und Entscheidungen nachzuzeichnen. Die PodiumsteilnehmerInnen werden je aus praktischer, politologischer und soziologischer Sicht die Notwendigkeit nach Rationalität im Familienrecht als besonders brachliegendes Feld und auch weites Land ansprechen.

Den politologischen Auftakt wird Prof. Birgit SAUER setzen. Sie geht anhand verschiedener Beispiele (bspw gemeinsame Obsorge, Adoption durch eingetragene Partner) der Frage nach, was unter Rationalität im Politikprozess verstanden werden kann, welche Elemente einer rationalen Debatte entgegen stehen und welche Rahmenbedingungen aus politikwissenschaftlicher Sicht für rationale Entscheidungen gebraucht würden.

Sodann wählt RAin Dr. Helene KLAAR aus ihrem reichen justiziellen und politischen Erfahrungsschatz aktuelle und unsachlich diskutierte Rechtsfragen, im Bereich des Kindschaftsrechts aus. Sie analysiert anhand verschiedener Beispiele inwieweit das von allen politischen Lagern ins Treffen geführte Instrumentarium des Kindeswohls zur rechtlichen Einschreibung bestimmter weiblicher Rollenbilder verwendet wird.

Daran anschließend wird RA Dr. MARSCHALL das Unterhaltsrecht am Maßstab des Gender-Mainstreaming einer kritischen Analyse unterziehen und auf ähnliche legislative Unstimmigkeiten aufmerksam machen. Die propagierte Objektivität und Rationalität positivrechtlicher Maßstäbe scheint auch von juristischer Perspektive in Frage gestellt und verstärkt den Ruf nach legislativem Handlungsbedarf.

Schließlich wird Dr. ZARTLER die Reihe der Stellungnahmen mit einem soziologischen Befund abrunden, wonach Rechtsnormen teilweise überholt oder sogar überschießend sind und in vielen Bereichen mit der familialen Realität des Alltags kontrastieren. Abschließend stellt sich daher die Frage ob das “law in the books” und das “law in action” gar so weit von einander entfernt sind, dass rationale Entscheidungen zum reinen Wunschdenken werden?

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Eine Reihe von Grundbuchsämtern innerhalb der EU betreiben bereits intensive Zusammenarbeit im Rahmen des so genannten „European Land Information System“ (EULIS) Projekts. Dies passiert dergestalt, dass nationale Grundbuchsämter mit dem Ziel des grenzüberschreitenden Datenzugangs miteinander via Internet verbunden werden. Im Zuge einer Fortführung des Projekts soll nun neben dem Datenzugang auch der gegenseitige Datenverkehr ermöglicht werden. Diesem sogenannten „CROBECO-Projekt“ („Cross Border Electronic Conveyancing“) liegt ein Pilotprojekt zugrunde, in welchem zu prüfen war, ob eine Übertragung von Immobilien in Spanien auf der Grundlage einer von einem niederländischen Notar beurkundeten Auflassung wirksam erfolgen könnte.

Die Reaktionen zu diesem Projekt könnten nicht unterschiedlicher ausfallen:
- Für die Grundbuchsämter in den Niederlanden, in Spanien und inzwischen auch in Portugal ist dies ein rein technisches Projekt, bei welchem technische Fortschritte auch im internationalen Rechtsverkehr Rechtsfolgen zeitigen.
- Notare hingegen befürchten, dass diese Initiative für Käufer und Verkäufer von Grundstücken große Risiken heraufbeschwören könnte.
- Aus unionsrechtlicher Sicht geht es indes um die Weiterentwicklung des europäischen Binnenmarktes, u.a. für Dienstleistungen.

Sollte man also vorsichtig sein?

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One constitutes oneself as a comparatist by rejecting the fixity of conceptually homogenized understandings and by marking a third location that is neither one nor the other but, disputing the territories of both, something else besides. For the comparatist-at-law, the third space is distinguishable from the laws being compared (it is neither outside or astride those laws) while not being reducible to a composite of the pre-existing laws. In the third space, there takes place a re-articulation projecting meaning beyond any signification obtaining in the situated laws. As it displaces them, the third space can properly be regarded as effectuating an othering of those laws. The third space introduces another other to the comparison-at-law (when it comes to comparison, one plus one makes three). Indeed, emerging beyond any antecedent information, beyond any ”either/or” or ”both/and” scenario, the third space offers a space of contestation and transaction disrupting each law’s assumed totalization, a translational space where meanings are dismantled or deconstructed, but also acts as a powerful site of reconstitution and meaning productivity. In the third space, new knowledge is fabricated. It is crucial, therefore, not to think of the third space as a dialectical arrangement à la Hegel, which would be much too strongly predicated on ideal temporal sequencing and on the no less ideal unfolding of the thesis/antithesis/synthesis scheme — which would mark the termination of a process. Instead, what we have in the third space — through the thirding of legal knowledge — is the unfolding of an interminable heterothesis.

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Dr. Maria Berger, Richterin am Europäischen Gerichtshof, wird über die Rolle der Europäischen Grundrechtecharta in der Rechtsprechung des Gerichtshofes berichten. Ihr Vortrag wird sich mit aktuellen Fragen zu Art 6 EUV (neu) auseinandersetzen und unter anderem die folgenden Themengebiete behandeln:

• Anwendungsbereich der Grundrechtecharta
• Interpretationsgrundsätze der Grundrechtecharta
• Verhältnis von allgemeinen Rechtsgrundsätzen und Grundrechtecharta

Dr. Camelia Toader, Richterin am Europäischen Gerichtshof und Professorin an der Universität Bukarest, wird über die Rolle des EuGH bei der Rechtsfortbildung im Privatrecht sprechen. Ihr Vortrag wird sich mit Fragen bezüglich Rechtsschutzversicherungen und Fragen des Arbeitsrechts auseinandersetzen. Im Besonderen wird Frau Dr. Toader diese Themen anhand der folgenden aktuellen EuGH-Entscheidungen diskutieren:
 

• Rechtssache C-199/08, Eschig, vom 10. September 2009
• Rechtssache C-293/10, Stark, vom 26. Mai 2011
• Rechtssache C-29/10, Koelzsch, vom 15. März 2011

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Some ten years ago Austria and Germany have adopted corporate governance codes. These codes were modelled after the English corporate governance code. The two codes and rules of corporate law based on these codes have become firmly established in the Austrian and German legal system. They have been absorbed into the national jurisdiction.

The presentation will examine the effect these transplants have had on Austrian and German law. Has the adoption of English corporate law rules led to convergence? Have the rules changed as a result of the transplantation? To what extent has Austrian and German law interpreted the transplanted rules in light of their origin?

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Each country shapes its family law to a great extent in accordance with the traditions, customs and religious values inherently dominant in its own country. Therefore, what is usual and natural in one jurisdiction could be regarded as a strange practice in another. Religious marriages and divorces are typical examples of institutions which can be perceived in a multitude of different ways due to cultural particularities. Thus, conflicts arise between the laws of countries with different legal philosophies and cultural traditions. The difficulties become greatest when the conflict is between the laws of countries without any common legal or cultural tradition. Prof. Dr. Ekşi will discuss the following essential question: to what extent are religious marriages such as polygamous marriages, proxy marriages, muta marriages, arranged and forced marriages recognized as valid in private international law. Prof. Dr. Ekşi will also focus on the recognition of administrative and religious divorces which is another extremely difficult issue to reach a proper conclusion for. It will also be discussed in a comparative manner whether divorce by a letter of the husband or talaq or khula, whether religious divorces in Jewish Rabbinical law or in Islamic law are recognized under national private international laws as well as international conventions or the Brussels II Regulation.

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Comparative lawyers have been fascinated by the challenges that are thrown by legal transplants. In mixed jurisdictions where two or more legal traditions have taken root comparative jurists are able to observe how these legal traditions sometimes conflict and sometimes mingle with each other.

In the case of Sri Lanka where Colonial masters found fairly well developed indigenous laws the introduction of their laws have had to be done in not a destructive way but in a complimentary manner. The British Colonial administration which is responsible for forming the present state of law and legal system in Sri Lanka respected not only the indigenous laws but also the Roman Dutch law that had been introduced by their predecessors the Dutch.

Legislative reforms during the British Rule continued into the post-colonial period and have modernized the law but not completely uprooted the indigenous laws and legal traditions. In a similar vain judges, both British and Sri Lanka, have interpreted relevant statutes and customary laws to minimize friction between local customs and the received laws.

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Against the background of globalization, contemporary international economic law has the features of internationalization of national norms and domestication of transnational provisions. By its side, a case law is emerged which is relied upon by both institutional and ad hoc dispute resolution bodies.

As services and investment are inseparable in nature, the dichotomies between the norms governing international trade and those regulating international investment are transcended. At the same time, the number of participants in both trade and investment has greatly increased and will continue to grow.

These developments have posed challenges to the current regime. The international community must consider alternatives for improving the system of international economic law and give directions to its future development.

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The US law of international commercial arbitration is for the first time the subject of a "Restatement of the Law" by the American Law Institute -- a project designed, like all US Restatements, to bring coherence and some progressive thinking to a body of American law in great need of that. Portions of the Restatement (notably recognition and enforcement of international awards) have been completed and approved. Others (notably confirmation and annulment of awards) are in draft form. And still others (notably enforcing the arbitration agreement, judicial intervention in arbitral proceedings, and investor/state arbitration) still remain to be launched.

Professor George Bermann, of Columbia Law School and Chief Reporter of the Restatement, will present both the general lines of debate surrounding the Restatement, and identify and discuss the most salient concrete issues that have arisen and have been -- or will soon be -- resolved.

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Professor Dr. Nicolás Etcheverry Estrázulas will discuss following issues:

• the search for universal ethics
• Do we need universal standards in ethics?
• If so, can we find them? Where?
• a possible definition of ethics
• trying to understand the nature of man
• Senses – Reason – Will – Affections. How do they interact?
• How do all the above contribute to our freedom?
• Can we define truth and righteousness?
• the main issues of ethics
• Can we teach how to handle freedom?
• different ways of approaching and understanding freedom
• Finally, what is freedom really?
• Looking for role or life models: Do we have them?
• What is or should be the purpose of ethics?

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Legal practitioner Dr. Wolfang Breyer teaches as a guest professor at the University of Vienna in the summer term of 2011. He is in charge of the newly designed specialization programme “International Construction Law” (degrees awarded: MLS or LL.M.). In his lecture, he will talk about the following issues:

• overview of relevant international standard construction model forms – with special focus on the FIDIC
• comparative examination of important key points, such as approval/acceptance, contractual penalties, payment, extent and duration of liability
• choice of law according to the model forms
• conflicts with binding national law and consequences

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