This book originated as a doctoral thesis at the Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität in Munich, Germany. Writing this preface concludes several years of hard but exciting work. It took me three years to produce the thesis, which I handed in on 3 April 2003. Subsequently, I updated the manuscript so that the text of this book reflects the state of the law as on 15 March 2005. Certain earlier-dated legal materials not accessible to me as on the latter date have not been taken into account. It has been my ambition to deal with the topic of the book in a comprehensive manner, . to cover all salient issues concerning.
