Andreas Moberg – författare

This book presents the very first, interdisciplinarily grounded, comprehensive appraisal of a future “Common European Law on Investment Screening”. Thereby, it provides a foundation for a European administrative law framework for investment screening by setting out viable solutions and evaluating their pros and cons.

Daimler, the harbour terminal in Zeebrugge, or Saxo Bank are only three recent examples of controversially discussed company takeovers in Europe. The “elephant in the room” is China and its “Belt and Road Initiative”. The political will in Europe is growing to more actively control investments flowing into the EU. The current regulatory initiatives raise several fundamental, constitutional and regulatory issues. Surprisingly, they have not been addressed in any depth so far. The book takes stock of the current rather fragmented regulatory approaches and combines contributions from leading international academics, practitioners, and policy makers in their respective fields. Due to the volume’s comprehensive approach, it is expected to influence the broader debate on the EU’s upcoming regulation of this matter.

The book is addressed to participants from academia as well as to representatives from government, business, and civil society.

This volume addresses contemporary challenges, enabled by modern technology, that concern upholding freedom of speech where it conflicts with social rights, such as respect for private and family life, and with economic rights, such as the freedom to conduct business or the right to free movement.

Today, there are already demands for “old-school clarity”: truth filters on social media platforms, horrendous sums of liability for platforms that encourage (overly)thorough cleaning up. However, it is equally true that private individuals “regulate”: they decide what is found on the Internet and who may post on a given platform. Accounting for all interests at play and striking a “fair” balance that avoids both a public and private over- and under-regulation is a complex matter. The authors of this volume not only provide reflections in their highly topical contributions, but also share their understanding of what constitutes a fair balance within the larger frame of freedom of speech in a digital age.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to radically transform our society. It may lead to a massive increase in the capabilities of humankind and allow us to address some of our most intractable challenges. It may also entail profound disruption to structures and processes that have sustained our society over centuries. These developments present a unique challenge to the socio-economic constitutional arrangements which govern our world at national, regional and international level. The deployment of increasingly powerful AI systems, able to function with increasing degree of autonomy, has led to concerns over loss of human control of important societal processes, over the disruption of existing economic, social and legal relationships, and over the empowerment of some societal actors at the expense of others, together with the entrenchment of situations of domination or discrimination. It has also made increasingly clear how tremendous the potential benefits, that these technologies may bring, are to those who successfully develop and deploy them. There is therefore great pressure on governments, international institutions, public authorities, civil society organisations, industry bodies and individual firms to introduce or adapt mechanisms and structures that will avoid the potentially negative outcomes of AI and achieve the positive ones. These mechanisms and structures, which have been given the umbrella term ‘AI governance’, cover a wide range of approaches, from individual firms introducing ethical principles which they volunteer to abide by, to the European Union legislating an AI Act, which will prohibit certain types of AI applications and impose binding obligations on AI developers and deployers. The fast pace of innovation in the development of AI technologies is mirrored by the fast pace of development of the emerging field of AI governance, where traditional legislation by public bodies is complemented with more innovative approaches, such ashybrid and adaptive governance, ethical alignment, governance by design and the creation of regulatory sandboxes.

The chapter “AI and Sensitive Personal Data Under the Law Enforcement Directive: Between Operational Efficiency and Legal Necessity” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.