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This chapter traces the history of the ordinary as well as extra-ordinary will types in German law. It commences with an analysis of private wills in 19th-century Germany and relates the debates surrounding the introduction — at the last conceivable moment and against protracted opposition — of the holograph will into the BGB. Yet, judicial experience with it in the first four decades of the 20th century was anything but encouraging. The problems were solved, eventually, by legislative reform: the Testamentsgesetz of 1938 laid the foundations of the holograph will as it has come to be established as a generally accepted part of modern German law. The chapter analyses the way in which modern courts and writers interpret the form requirements of the holograph will. It then traces the development of public wills, of emergency wills, and of wills made during a sea voyage in German law.

This chapter discusses form requirements, intent to create legal relations, and consideration (and estoppel). It argues that estoppel remains something of a puzzle. Each of the leading explanations is vulnerable to certain fairly obvious objections. The best overall explanation for estoppel is provided by the promissory view — a view that regards the doctrine basically as a means of avoiding the consideration rule in situations in which its formal function is not needed. Estoppels, in this view, are just ordinary promises.

Acceptance of IFRSs as a basis for financial reporting by foreign companies listing in the United States, without a mandatory reconciliation to US GAAP, was a chief objective of the IASB, as it had been of the IASC before it. In 2005, the Chief Accountant of the US Securities and Exchange Commission published a roadmap that, for the first time, set a target date for lifting the reconciliation requirement. Even faster than expected, the SEC lifted the reconciliation requirement in 2007. Under the leadership of Christopher Cox, chairman of the Commission, the SEC proceeded to consider the use of IFRSs, instead of US GAAP, by domestic registrants. A roadmap proposal was published in 2008, raising expectations that IFRSs might truly become the global accounting standard.

Rule 27 UPCARoP is the counterpart to Rule 16 (examination as to formal requirements of the Statement of claim) and codifies an examination duty of the Registry with regard to the form requirements of the Statement of defence. This advance examination of certain form requirements ensures, as required by Art 41(3) UPCA, efficient and cost-effective case management and serves to safeguard the acceleration (‘expeditious decisions’) enshrined in the Preamble to the UPCA. Paras 2–5 set out the procedure in the case of deficiencies and serve to draw the defendant’s attention to the imminent consequences thereof. For details, → Rule 16 UPCARoP.

Chapter 6 explains that offence of hate speech as crime against humanity-persecution (CAH-persecution) is fragmented as the ICTR concluded that non-advocacy hate speech deprives the target group of fundamental rights so can be charged as CAH-persecution. But the ICTY disagreed in Prosecutor v. Kordić (2001), finding that non-advocacy hate speech is insufficiently grave to serve as the actus reus for CAH-persecution. The 2007 Media Case Appeals Chamber judgment failed to resolve the split. The ICTR’s approach to instigation, admixing Civil Law and Common Law conceptions, has puzzled jurists regarding its relationship to incitement. Moreover, given an ambiguous “contribution” element, recent jurisprudence has arguably saddled instigation with a “but for” causation requirement and has appended a doctrinally indefensible element to its base “prompting” actus reus: a “different forms of persuasion” requirement. The offense of ordering is problematic because it excludes inchoate liability -- criminalizing commands by a superior only if a subordinate actually carries them out.