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This chapter examines the problems that arise when the territorial principle is applied to transnational or cross-frontier offences. It begins by looking at the general rule, under which an offence is regarded as being committed in England and Wales if (and only if) it is completed there. It then examines the issues raised by cross-frontier participation in such offences (as where D, in Scotland, procures the commission of an offence by E, in England), and by inchoate offences with cross-frontier elements (as where D and E, in England, conspire to commit a robbery in France). The chapter considers ‘cybercrime’ and other offences involving computer misuse. It addresses two of the longest-established ‘special cases’, namely homicide and perjury.

The criteria for statehood are flexible enough to allow a variety of entities with differing circumstances to be classified as States. It cannot be assumed that all territorial entities will have the same rights and obligations or the same particular status; nor that because an entity has special or unusual characteristics, it cannot qualify as a State under those criteria. The recurring problem of ‘special cases’ in this field thus involves a relation between two fundamental principles: the principle that the status of an entity is to be determined not by reference to any overall concept but to the specific circumstances and constituent instruments; and the principle that statehood is a general legal status with a certain, sometimes fairly nominal, set of consequences. It follows that in analysing the problems which arise here, general descriptions — such as ‘internationalised territory’, ‘protectorate’, or ‘fief’ — are unhelpful.

The third chapter analyses in detail and last step of proportionality analysis, namely balancing. The authors defend a wide-scope theory, allowing for definitional generosity in rights reasoning. The flexibility of the balancing procedure is demonstrated not to violate the rule of law. The proper place of moral argument in proportionality is explicated with the help of elements of Alexy’s Theory of Legal Argumentation (OUP, 2009), namely the special-case thesis and the distinction between internal and external justification of legal propositions. The counter-argument that balancing would amount to mere calculation is rejected. The challenge of incommensurability is elaborated in detail. It is demonstrated how an inviolable core content of rights has to be constructed. The claim to correctness is not lost in balancing, and balancing is not over-emphasized within proportionality analysis.

Every theory of legal argumentation has to determine the relation between legal certainty and correctness, which essentially includes justice. This, in turn, requires that the specific character of legal argumentation be expounded. The special case thesis, developed in A Theory of Legal Argumentation (1989), is an attempt to achieve both. The thesis says that legal discourse is a special case of general practical discourse. Habermas criticizes the special case thesis in his book Between Facts and Norms (1996). Counterarguments against four of his objections are presented in this chapter. They concern the relation between legal and moral discourse, the rules and forms of legal discourse, the problem of unjust law, and the question of whether general practical arguments acquire a specific legal nature in legal discourse.

The introduction unpacks the book title’s meaning, which combines Ernst Troeltsch’s designation of post-war Germany as a “dreamland of the armistice,” a country cautiously optimistic about Germany’s future in a new Europe, and the art historian Fritz Saxl’s description of the Warburg project as investigating a “humanist dreamland” in art over time. It argues that the historical setting and the intellectual project shared the preoccupation with the relationship between symbols and meaning. Borrowing Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the “social conditions of possibility,” the introduction argues that Weimar-era Hamburg offered conditions for cultural and intellectual life distinct from those of other German cities. While much scholarship has focused on Berlin and anti-humanist trends in Weimar, the introduction makes the case for a turn to Hamburg, whose “free city” status and cosmopolitan spirit, often referred to as its “special case” offer a corrective to our portrait of the Weimar Republic.

This chapter is concerned with writs, and principally with the ‘original’ writs which commenced an action at common law. Though designed as a means of administrative regulation, a decision to stop inventing new ones made them definitive of the common law. The procedures initiated by each type of writ – the ‘forms of action’ – dominated English law until the nineteenth century. The principal varieties of writ were praecipe (demanding a right) and trespass (complaining of wrong). The latter were at first limited to trespasses with force against the king’s peace, but this requirement was dropped around 1350 and writs of trespass ‘on the case’, tailored to a plaintiff’s facts, enabled the common law to begin its escape from the formulary system and to develop a wide range of new remedies. Some account is also given of judicial writs, which controlled process once a suit had been originated.

The final chapter sums up the book, with two major conclusions: 1. Far-reaching results of language planning are possible if the planning is consistant with the dominant contemporary ideology. This happened during the nationalist period 1814-1917, which must be viewed as a successful period. 2. If language planning involves crossing important sociolinguistic boundaries, it will need extensive backing from a powerful political movement in order to succeed. From 1917 to 1966, during the sociopolitical period, language planning policy of this type was attempted, but did not succeed. The pan-Norwegian language planning policy was terminated 2002. This decision by Parliament ended the country’s attempt to develop a merged written standard, and thus accepted a permanent two-standard situation. As for the spoken language, wide-spread dialect use continues unabated to this day and is generally seen as normal linguistic behaviour. All this suggests that linguistically, Norway will continue as a special case into the forseeable future.

The last chapter examines the question whether the VCDR is indeed an unmitigated success story. It acknowledges the popularity of the instrument and the clarification it brought to several points of diplomatic law, but it also analyses difficulties that have arisen within its lifetime. These are based partly on the wording of the VCDR itself, but partly also on the need for a co-existence of diplomatic law and rules from other fields of international law, and partly also on technological and sociological developments which manifested themselves only after the entry into force of the Convention. The chapter concludes with a reflection on solutions which international law may offer to the current problems even today, but also on solutions whose adoption with effect for the future may protect some of the most important objectives of the VCDR, including the furthering of international peace and understanding.

The discourse model of legal argumentation is presented in this chapter as a reaction to the weaknesses or deficiencies of alternative models. The most important alternative models are the model of deduction, the model of decision, the hermeneutic model, and the model of coherence. The discourse model connects the institutional or real dimension of legal argumentation with its non-institutional or ideal dimension. The result is the special case thesis. It combines institutional arguments, based on the authority of positive law, with substantive arguments, based on practical reason. This connection of the real dimension of legal argumentation with its ideal dimension is a central element of the institutionalization of practical reason.

The underlying principle governing the application of assets in liquidation and bankruptcy is distribution in accordance with a system of priorities in which a creditor’s place is determined according to his status prior to the commencement of insolvency proceedings and the debtor’s assets are shared among creditors rateably according to the size of their admitted claims. This scheme is commonly referred to as pari passu distribution, based on equality; however, in view of the scheme of priorities that is in operation, the term pari passu is to a large extent misleading and its continued usage has been controversial. Arguably the term ‘pari passu distribution’ is best regarded as a convenient, although not wholly accurate, shorthand term to describe the collective scheme of distribution of the debtor’s estate in insolvencies