Spontaneous Order; Organization and the Law; European Civil Society; Ernst-Joachim Mestmaecker

Spontaneous Order, Organization and the Law contains 29 contributions authored by renowned lawyers from all over the Globe to honor one of our time’s most significant private law scholars, Prof. Dr. jur. Dr. rer. pol. h.c. Ernst-Joachim Mestmäcker, Director (emeritus) of the Max Planck Institute for Foreign Private and International Private Law in Hamburg, on the occasion of his 75th Anniversary. They were previously published in European Business Organization Law Review (EBOR), Volume 2, 2001. The papers presented at an academic symposium to celebrate the occasion are included in the Annex, entitled “Principles for European Integration – Roads to a European Civil Society”.

Professor Mestmäcker has developed the theory of the private law society. His scientific work covers all aspects of commercial law, making use of economic methods and drawing on philosophical insights, yet, at all times, paying close attention to exact knowledge of all relevant facts. Accordingly, the contributions in this book cover a very wide spectrum of subjects, each nonetheless representing a focal point of the Jubilar’s research. Those range from theoretical questions of hybrid governance across national jurisdictions, the changing role of the state, competition as a basic element of the social market economy, and international economic relations in the 21st Century, to regulatory reform of European telecommunications, the public spirit of the corporation, venture capital funding for biotech pharmaceutical companies, and other questions of corporate law, competition law, civil law and constitutional law, arising in Europe – East and West, the US, Japan and Israel.