Germany has made a reservation under Article 23 Hague Evidence Convention and does not execute letters of request “issued for the purpose of obtaining pre-trial discovery of documents as known in Common Law countries.” Long-time readers of this blog may recall that we had posts like “Is Germany’s Position on Pre-trial Discovery of Documents under the Hague Evidence Convention Softening?” (2015) and even “Germany’s Position on Pre-trial Discovery Softens!” (2017) before. Spoiler alert: Germany’s position did not change. Shortly after the 2017 post, the Legal Committee (Rechtsausschuss) of the Bundestag killed the proposed softening of Germany’s reservation under Article 23. With this note of caution, we report on a new attempt at changing Germany’s position. Read More
German Bar Association – Civil Litigation Committee
The German Bar Association (Deutscher Anwaltverein – DAV) comprises 252 local bar associations and more than 61,000 individual lawyers. It represents the interests of the German legal profession at the national, European and international level. I am honoured to have been appointed to its Civil Litigation Committee (Zivilverfahrensausschuss).
RoboJudge 1932
In the legal community, judicial decision-making aided by or based on artificial intelligence is a hot topic. RoboJudge is the catchword, and you come across articles and seminars titled “Robojudges – the future or fiction?” and the like. When I attended a panel discussion on the topic recently, I recalled reading a similar thought many years go. It was a piece by Kurt Tucholsky, one of the most important journalists of the Weimar Republic (and a lawyer by training), published in 1932:
The Best Jazz Album 2021 – A Comparative Survey
This time last year, I was busy reading through and analyzing the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. This year, I went for something completely different: I looked at Best Jazz Album 2021 compilations put out by different publications. I started with the NYT and Guardian lists and was surprised that there was no overlap at all between these two lists This made me to look further, but the key finding remains. There are relatively few albums that appear on more that one list – jazz critics appear to embrace diversity. I ended up compiling and comparing five lists with a total of 78 entries in one table, while listening to a very wide range of music. Read More