Die Durchsetzung öffentlichrechtlicher Forderungen ausländischer Staaten durch deutsche Gerichte

Anatol Dutta studies whether or not domestic courts should be allowed to enforce claims based on penal, revenue or other public laws of foreign states. Up to now, the answer to this has always been in the negative, the reason for this being a principle establishing the non-enforceability of such claims, in common law the so-called Revenue Rule. The author first analyzises this principle from a comparative perspective, after which he illustrates the the legal inadequacies of the non-enforceability principle. Although at first sight, the Revenue Rulemight seem justified by international law and constitutional law, neither of these grounds legitimate its application. Similarly, national procedural law fails to provide a basis for the Revenue Rule, in particular because international conventions as well as EC and EU law oblige the states to enforce some of their public law claims mutually. As the Revenue Rule does not act to bar the enforcement of public law claims, the author concludes by examining the conditions under which a court should enforce a foreign public law claim.