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 negative, the reason for this being a principle of non-enforceability of such claims, in common law the so-called Revenue Rule. The author analyses this principle from a comparative perspective, after which he addresses the legal criticism of the principle of non-enforceability. Only at first sight, the Revenue Rule could be justified by international law and constitutional law. National procedural law, either, does not provide a basis for the Revenue Rule, especially 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 bar the enforcement of public law claims, the author finally examines the conditions under which a court has to enforce a foreign public law claim.

Dutta, Anatol, Die Durchsetzung öffentlichrechtlicher Forderungen ausländischer Staaten durch deutsche Gerichte Studien zum ausländischen und internationalen Privatrecht, Vol. 172, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2006 464 pp.