The book consists of a thorough introduction and 12 essays specially written for a joint conference of British and German scholars held at the University of Warwick (U.K.) in 2000. The papers draw on the German and British experience of human rights in the development of law. From an English perspective the conference and the collection of essays coincide with the coming into force of the Human Rights Act in October 2000, a defining moment in English legal history. The German contributions address the question of human rights in a broader European context as well as on the background of half a century's experience with human rights in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany and the jurisdiction of the Federal Constitutional Court which had a significant impact on various fields of law.