Bøger i SpringerBriefs in Law serien

This book describes how statements made by non-state actors affect the scope of an individual's criminal responsibility and how they should be taken into account by domestic criminal courts. Sentencing is only possible on the basis and within the limits of the law. In the 21st century, this law increasingly means regulations formulated by various non-state actors: international organisations, human rights tribunals or statutory bodies. The content of these regulations does not only refer to states, but often has a direct impact on the legal situation of individuals. Two worlds collide here. Strict criminal law is influenced by fluid regulations issued by entities that have not been empowered to exercise the right to punish. The book presents an interpretative method to support the court's inference in the cases outlined above, based on the using the concept of two interrelated norms: the norm of the individual and the norm of the court.

In recent years, there has been a worldwide intensification in the use of investment screening mechanisms. This surge is connected with political re-orientations, the rise of new economic powers, and security concerns. Despite the considerable effects that investment screening may have on international investment and trade, there is hardly any literature examining the consequences to be drawn from relevant WTO rules for investment screening. However, the importance of WTO law for such instruments is substantial not least due to the broad scopes of application of the GATT and GATS agreements. The risk that screening activities could be challenged before the WTO is underlined by pertinent panel reports. This book in particular uses the 2019 EU Screening Regulation as an example for illustrating the relevance that WTO law has for investment screening. It concludes that in the light of relevant WTO rulings screening activities undertaken for public order and security reasons may face considerable hurdles not least in the general exceptions and security exceptions of the GATT and the GATS.

Does the Sexual Offences Act (SOA) 2003 provide for consent to be vitiated in all the circumstances we think it should? Can, and should, section 76(2)(b) (the impersonation provision) be read to include a different class of identity deceptions? How should the concept of personal identity be understood in this context?While the concept has had some airing in the courts, and the distinction between identity and attributes of the person softened, the law on rape still fails to give proper effect to identity deception and leaves many questions unanswered. This book offers a novel take on the problem of sexual deception. Through meticulous interrogation of the meaning and normative implications of the concept of personal identity, it challenges the law¿s restrictive approach and argues that qualitative identity is, like numerical identity, normatively important. This book provides a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of the philosophical, theoretical, and psychological experimental literature on personal identity, marshalling relevant insights to support a broader reading of the impersonation provision. The argumentative thrust of the book is an extended equivalence thesis, which links numerical with qualitative identity. In this task, it engages in capacious exploration of different kinds of impersonation, at each juncture leading the reader to a more permissive understanding. Guided by the principle of consistency, the central thesis is that certain deceptions about personal traits should be unlawful based on existing prohibitions with which there is equivalence. A central contribution of the book is the articulation of a theoretical framework to support a richer understanding of identity, giving due attention to its qualitative aspects. This new framework is applied at stage three of the equivalence thesis to explain the relationship between individual traits and identity change. By implication, a potentially wide scope of consent-vitiating deceptions is endorsed. This presents a challenge to those who would defend more stringent limits. The book thus invites further discussion on the implications of this approach for the law on rape and indicates areas for further research and attention.

This open access book examines regulating an environment that has no jurisdiction, is fully anonymous and infinitely vast? Welcome to the Metaverse, an online virtual reality that is expected to add billions to the global economy. The Metaverse offers a new type of virtual economy with practically endless business opportunities. The question is how to prevent these opportunities from being abused to commit money laundering and finance terrorism (MLFT).This book explores the current European Union legislation designed to prevent MLFT in connection with the Metaverse. It analyses the legislation in relation to the three traditional stages of MLFT: placement, layering and integration. Furthermore, some additional risks specific to the Metaverse are discussed, such as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and the high level of anonymity. The book concludes that the current legislation is not suitable for facing the new challenges of the Metaverse. In turn, the book putsforward a novel approach to regulating and enforcing MLFT legislation: using a system of smart assets equipped with AI to prevent and detect MLFT. In addition, it makes recommendations on how to improve the legal framework with regard to the new challenges arising from the Metaverse. Particular attention is given to creating a legal framework that incorporates the use of smart assets and the Internet of Things, in order to provide a safe environment for potential users and society.With a solid background in financial law and technology, the author successfully creates a novel system of regulation and enforcement that is based on the use of automatic enforcement, whilst keeping sufficient legal safeguards in place for potential Metaverse users.This book will be of interest to anyone interested in the Metaverse. Whether you want to regulate it or open your own virtual business, it¿s a must-read!

The book starts with an analysis of what is new in the Digital Services Act. The aim is to see whether this new Regulation is appropriate both for not halting technological innovation and for addressing the risks that technological innovation poses to society and to the people who use digital services. The focal point is the risk of discrimination as people are often helpless in the face of the potential discriminations in the digital services sector. In particular, the book analyses how the Digital Services Act can make a concrete contribution to the protection against discrimination. To this end, it focuses on the responsibility of digital service providers and the fact that discrimination may also depend on the way in which algorithms and artificial intelligence systems are used. Therefore, a comparison is made between the Digital Services Act and the proposed Artificial Intelligence Act. The comparison discloses that the risk-based approach is the common thread followed by the EU in regulating the digital market. The book elaborates also on the practical implications of the risk-based approach. Highlighting advantages and limitations leading the author to conclude that the risk-based approach is the way forward only if the differences between risk and danger, the limits of law, and the limits of the tendency to humanise artificial intelligence systems are considered. With specific reference to the risk of discrimination, the need for a systemic and multi-level approach is highlighted, which reinforces the contribution that can be made not only by the Digital Services Act, but also by more general and cross-cutting legislation as those on data protection and unfair commercial practices.

The book offers a provocative review of thinking about privacy and identity in the years encompassing and disrupted by the two world wars of the first half of the twentieth century ¿ focusing (in particular) on the socio-technological transformations associated with modernism. It argues that, with many of the most interesting modern thinkers of the period dead or marginalised (or both) by 1948, their ideas about how rights such as privacy should develop to accommodate the exigencies of modern life failed to find much of a voice in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet they anticipated in surprising ways some of our ¿new¿ ways of thinking in more recent times. After a brief introduction, the chapters are framed in terms of case studies on the right to privacy, the right to data protection and the right to be forgotten, each finishing with a consideration of how these rights require further rethinking in the digital century.

This book formulates a human right to research in Africa based on an in-depth examination of the available international and regional human rights instruments as well as those relevant to the national contexts of African countries. The imbalances in the African copyright ecosystem regarding access to information for research and education became painfully apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. African libraries and knowledge curators found themselves ill-equipped to perform their role of enabling access to information. As teaching, learning and research are increasingly done on digital platforms, learners and researchers continue to grapple with the challenges of accessing materials owing largely to the protection of these resources under copyright law. Access to information, which is needed in order to exercise the right to science and culture, faces a significant challenge posed by the exercising of exclusive rights by copyright owners without a legal mechanism that properly balances copyright from a human rights perspective.To achieve such a balance, there is an urgent need to revise the African copyright system from the perspective of human rights law. Can it be done by establishing a human right to research? In view of the existing broad freedom of expression, and the right to science and culture, education, and property in global, national and regional human rights regimes, is a specific right to research in Africa necessary and justifiable? If so, what should its minimum core components be? Are there international and national regimes already in place that could support the formulation of a human right to research in Africa?This book offers a valuable resource for law- and policymakers in the fields of copyright and human rights, judges, lawyers, public interest groups, researchers and students, librarians and authors, as well as the general public.

This is an Open Access book.Amid the growing debate about models of judicial governance and their relationship to democratic quality, this book offers a systematic and empirical study of this relationship. The book thereby contributes to filling in this gap for the European continent. Taking an interdisciplinary politics and law perspective, and combining empirical and theoretical considerations, the book addresses the important link between democracy and judicial governance. In particular, it provides for three interconnected contributions. First, the book provides for a comprehensive classification of European countries into different models of judicial governance. Second, the book analyses empirically the relationship between the design of judicial governance and the quality of democracy. Third, building on those findings, the book presents policy reflections for the reform and improvement of mechanisms for judicial governance in European countries.The book seeks to refine our knowledge about the relationship between judicial governance and democracy, making an important academic and social contribution. In an era in which many democracies backslide and deconsolidate, it assesses to what extent existing mechanisms for judicial governance have contributed to the stability and quality of democratic systems in which they are implemented. Furthermore, the book puts forward reflections to improve the role of organs for judicial governance in fostering the quality of democracy. Since the book introduces in an accessible form key concepts of Judicial Governance, it will be of interest for the general public as well as academics and students in the fields of Law and Political Science. The book also addresses policy makers, as based on our empirical knowledge about the interaction judicial governance and democracy it puts forward ideas for a design of judicial governance that is more capable of protecting democratic systems of government.

The European Union is one of the most outward-oriented economies in the world, and free trade is one of its founding principles. As such, instruments intended to ensure that international trade is conducted on a level playing field have been part of the EU¿s policy toolbox since the beginning of European integration. Adapting to the current changes in international trade, these instruments have since undergone major reforms. This work provides an overview of the EU¿s legal framework on the use of its trade defence instruments, in particular measures under the Trade Barriers Regulation, the Basic Anti-Dumping Regulation and the Basic-Anti Subsidy Regulation. The book shares valuable insights into how EU institutions currently apply these instruments and places their application in the broader political context in which international trade takes place, which has been shaped e.g. by developments related to the United Kingdom¿s withdrawal from the EU and the ongoing blockade of the WTO Appellate Body.

This book calls for the urgent regulation of satellite mega-constellations in outer space, proposing a new model of ¿international regulatory coordination¿, in order to ensure the sustainable balance of science and advanced telecommunications. We are currently witnessing expansion of the Internet off our planet. The proliferation of new space-based internet connectivity has been accompanied by much discussion about the potential impact on astronomy. Scientists are increasingly concerned that mega-constellations proposed by SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon and Facebook, might wreak havoc on scientific research and transform our view of the stars. These commercial operators plan to launch hundreds of thousands of satellites into Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) in the coming decade, representing a 1000% increase on objects currently in orbit. This book examines this new space race in the context of historical rivalries, for it is clear that mega-constellations are being actively pursued by a US administration determined to dominate LEO as tensions with China rise. This creates a risk of interference with earth-based scientific activities that use optical and radio frequency techniques to study the universe. This book examines these developments in the context of the Outer Space Treaty (OST), which provides all States with the freedom of scientific investigation, exploration and use of outer space, while balancing this with obligations to avoid interference with the space activities of other States. It draws upon interviews with some of Europe¿s leading astronomers in order to highlight the extent to which the issue will require legal and regulatory reform of mega-constellation licensing processes, to ensure the integrity of astronomical science is preserved. The race to dominate LEO also comes at a time when the monopolistic power of Facebook, Amazon and other TechGiants, is under renewed scrutiny in western democracies. The author argues that a new governance framework for launch and operational licenses is urgently required, in which impact risk assessments, scale and proportionality, and stakeholder consultation processes should play important roles. It is now vital that the astronomical community ¿ whose skill-set does not generally involve leading regulatory strategies ¿ engage with those who can support its leadership in exerting a renewed influence. The diplomacy of science, which played a vital role during the Cold War and the establishment of global commons, must be reinvigorated for the New Space era.. It is now vital that the astronomical community ¿ whose skill-set does not generally involve leading regulatory strategies ¿ engage with those who can support its leadership in exerting a renewed influence. The diplomacy of science, which played a vital role during the Cold War and the establishment of global commons, must be reinvigorated for the New Space era.

This is an open access book.Animals are the traditional blind spot in human rights theory. This book brings together the seemingly disparate discourses of human and animal rights, and looks at emerging animal rights as new human rights. It approaches the question whether animals can and should have human rights through a comprehensive review of contemporary human rights philosophy, discussing both naturalistic and political justifications of human and animal rights. On philosophical as well as practical grounds, this book argues that there are compelling conceptual, principled, and prudential reasons for modernizing the human rights paradigm and integrating animals into its protective mandate. Moreover, this book proposes the novel One Rights approach as a new (post-)human rights paradigm for the Anthropocene. One Rights advances a holistic understanding of the indivisibility and interdependence of human and animal rights. This book explores how thesystematic subjugation, exploitation, and extermination of animals simultaneously contributes to some of the gravest social and environmental threats to human rights, such as animalistic dehumanization and climate change. This book submits that, in light of their socio-political and ecological interconnectedness, human and animal rights are best protected in concert. The themes of this book are part of a larger conversation about postanthropocentric legal paradigms emerging in the Anthropocene. For human rights to survive in this era of anthropogenic crises, we need to abandon the toxic ideology of human exceptionalism and embrace a more inclusive version of (post-)human rights that tends to the nonhuman. This book intends to show that a holistic One Rights approach promises to achieve better rights-protective outcomes for humans, animals, and their shared planetary home.

This book addresses the legal protection insurance market and continues the collection and analysis of data carried out by Legal Protection International aisbl (at the time, the International Association of Legal Protection Insurance) in recent years. Its first part covers the fundamentals of and recent advances in the legal protection insurance market, while the second presents a study on the relevant legal framework for offering Legal Technology services as a legal protection insurer in Germany. In this context, the study also defines the term "e;Legal Technology"e;, categorises Legal Technology services ("e;application-oriented categorisation"e;), analyses the relevant European legal framework and highlights the connections to the upcoming European Artificial Intelligence Act.

Further, it highlights issues of energy justice, a growing and an emergent topic which is also at the core of the energy law principles and the key drivers of why new energy law is formulated.The text aims to outline the principles and central logic behind energy law.

It surveys a number of domains, including criminal law, tort law, contract law, family law, and medical law (particularly the realm of moral enhancement technologies) asking for each: (a) Does the existing law seek to promote personal morality?

Increasingly, the need to understand the root causes of the dimensions of internal displacement and the dimensions in which this displacement manifests have become a pertinent rhetoric in the discussion on internal displacement.

This book offers a comparative review of the ultra vires doctrine in corporate law.

The book goes on to examine the concept of a higher doctorate in law as a possible means of strengthening the concept of a law doctorate in legal academia.This book was written against the backdrop of the recently adopted Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning higher education.

Written by an award-winning professor with over 25 years of experience, this book explains comprehensively the different facets of law teaching from the law teacher¿s perspective. It uniquely covers numerous topics which have been ignored by the legal education literature so far, but which are of immense importance for the success of law students, law schools and¿last but not least¿the day-to-day work of law teachers themselves. These topics include the goals of law teaching, the factors that lead to successful law teaching, special characteristics of good law teachers, different ways of preparing for in-class success, face-to-face versus online teaching, the in-class teaching experience, assessments, teaching evaluations, the design of new courses and programmes, the teacher¿student and the teacher¿teacher relationship, the importance of teaching administration as well as the future of law teaching in the digital age. The author approaches various themes from the viewpoint of his own experience. He tells his very personal stories of classroom success and failure, of enthusiasm, fun and disappointments when dealing with law students, of accomplishments and frustrations when considering learning outcomes and of surprises when dealing with red tape. He thus allows the readership to grasp different aspects of law teaching in a very hands-own way and facilitates the understanding of the underlying often rather complex human-to-human relationships. This book should be in the bookshelf of any law teacher. As it covers a wide spectrum of so far unexplored legal education issues, it is also an invaluable source at the start of a law teaching career, but also for established law teachers who wish to reflect on their own teaching approaches. A rich body of cross-references to the existing literature makes the book a powerful tool for research on any aspect of legal education. Last but not least, the author¿s ironic sense of himself andof the law teacher profession makes the book a very entertaining read for anybody who always wanted to know what law teaching really is (and is not) about.

This book assesses the consequences of Brexit for the control of illicit trade in tobacco products in the UK and EU. trade and fiscal measures) and enforcement frameworks in the UK and suggests possible post-Brexit scenarios in control of tobacco illicit trade.

This book highlights how conversion via communication is one of the most important issues in legal thinking. But a jurist will not solely master specific social behaviors or become the manager of large-scale political fields of law as a legal scientist.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of national security exceptions in international trade and investment agreements.

At the same time, artificial intelligence, deep learning, machine learning, cognitive computing, blockchain, virtual reality and augmented reality, belong to the fields most likely to affect law and, in particular, administrative law.

This book provides an essential overview of trade between Brazil and China, analyzes the regulatory framework for Brazil's foodstuff exportation and China's foodstuff importation, and identifies the main products, market shares, barriers to market access, and e-commerce strategies.

This open access book offers an analytical presentation of how Europe has created its own version of collective actions. In the last three decades, Europe has seen a remarkable proliferation of collective action legislation, making class actions the most successful export product of the American legal scholarship. While its spread has been surrounded by distrust and suspiciousness, today more than half of the EU Member States have introduced collective actions for damages and from those who did, more than half chose, to some extent, the opt-out system.This book demonstrates why collective actions have been felt needed from the perspective of access to justice and effectiveness of law, the European debate and the deep layers of the European reaction and resistance, revealing how the Copernican turn of class actions questions the fundamentals of the European thinking about market and public interest. Using a transsystemic presentation of the European national models, it analyzes the way collective actions were accommodated with the European regulatory environment, the novel and peculiar regulatory questions they had to address and how and why they work differently on this side of the Atlantic.

This book analyses the ability of existing international law to address common vulnerabilities in connection with the recent emergence of small satellites, and how finding consensus in this context can pave the way to the sustainable development of space.

This book examines tax incentives for investors in start-up companies through a critical analysis of Australia's early-stage investors (ESI) program, and a comparison of that program with the United Kingdom's Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) upon which it is loosely modelled.

This open access book shows the factors linking information flow, social intelligence, rights management and modelling with epistemic democracy, offering licensed linked data along with information about the rights involved.

The idea of the Good Life - of what constitutes human thriving, is, implicitly, the foundation and justification of the law. The law exists to hold societies together; to hold in tension the rights of individuals as against individuals, the rights of individuals as against various types of non-humans such as corporations (and vice versa), and the rights of individuals individuals as against the state (and vice versa). In democratic states, laws inhibit some freedoms in the name of greater, or more desirable freedoms. The only justification for law is surely that it tends to promote human thriving.But what is the Good Life? What does it mean to live a thriving life? There has been no want of discussion, at least since the great Athenians. But surprisingly, since human thriving is its sole raison d'etre, the law has been slow to contribute to the conversation.This book aims to start and facilitate this conversation.It aims to:-make lawyers ask: 'What is the law for?', and conclude that it is to maximise human thriving-make lawyers ask: 'But what does human thriving mean?'-make judges and advocates ask: 'How can a judgment about the best interests of a patient be satisfactory unless its basis is made clear?'

This book strikes a balance between international sporting governing bodies' interests and values enshrined in rules regarding sporting nationality on one hand, and athletes' rights under EU law on the other.