SpringerBriefs in Law – serie

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. It argues that some rules governing athletes’ eligibility in national teams in their current form, notably certain waiting periods, quotas for naturalised athletes or athletes having previously played for another country, and rules prohibiting the change of sporting nationality, constitute a disproportionate restriction on athletes’ rights under EU citizenship, free movement of persons, competition law or fundamental rights. Accordingly, the book subsequently presents concrete recommendations for international sporting governing bodies on how to reconcile their interests and values with the rights that athletes enjoy under EU law. As such, it offers an essential guide for these bodies and their representatives, as well as for athletes, academics and practitioners in the fields oflaw and sports.

This book investigates under which circumstances vertical unbundling can lead to a more efficient market result. The assessment is based on an interdisciplinary approach combining law and economics. Drawing on the assessment, circumstances are subsequently presented under which unbundling might become necessary. Additionally, less severe means of regulatory intervention are suggested in order to protect competition. Given its scope, the book is chiefly intended for scholars and practitioners in the field of economic policy and regulation law; in addition, it will give interested members of the public a unique opportunity to learn about the underlying rationales of regulation law and regulation economics.

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. This model of democracy for the web of data brings new challenges for the social organisation of knowledge, collective innovation, and the coordination of actions. Licensed linked data, licensed linguistic linked data, right expression languages, semantic web regulatory models, electronic institutions, artificial socio-cognitive systems are examples of regulatory and institutional design (regulations by design). The web has been massively populated with both data and services, and semantically structured data, the linked data cloud, facilitates and fosters human-machine interaction. Linked data aims to create ecosystems to make it possible to browse, discover, exploit and reuse data sets for applications. Rights Expression Languages semi-automatically regulate the use and reuse of content.

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. The rise of small satellite constellations has produced a paradigm shift in the use of space capabilities, suddenly making them far more available and affordable. This development has in turn sparked substantial global interest in finding ways to capitalize on the new opportunities and to mitigate the challenges posed by these mega-constellations. This work targets precisely that need, offering a valuable asset for readers from the commercial space industry, investors, lawyers, researchers, academics and policymakers alike.

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. The book also addresses the importance of consumer health and the latest developments regarding the United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection. Lastly, based on the statistics for Brazil’s food exports to Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau as separate customs areas, the book explores the role of Macau and calls for intensifying its links with Portuguese-speaking countries, including Brazil.

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 discusses the necessity and perhaps urgency for the regulation of algorithms on which new technologies rely; technologies that have the potential to re-shape human societies. From commerce and farming to medical care and education, it is difficult to find any aspect of our lives that will not be affected by these emerging technologies. 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. The book examines universally applicable patterns in administrative decisions and judicial rulings. First, similarities and divergence in behavior among the different cases are identified by analyzing parameters ranging from geographical location and administrative decisions to judicial reasoning and legal basis. As it turns out, in several of the cases presented, sources of general law,such as competition or labor law, are invoked as a legal basis, due to the lack of current specialized legislation. This book also investigates the role and significance of national and indeed supranational regulatory bodies for advanced algorithms and considers ENISA, an EU agency that focuses on network and information security, as an interesting candidate for a European regulator of advanced algorithms. Lastly, it discusses the involvement of representative institutions in algorithmic regulation.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of national security exceptions in international trade and investment agreements. The subject has gained particular relevance in the past few years, as both the United States and the Russian Federation have invoked national security as justification for trade-restrictive measures in the context of WTO dispute settlement proceedings. The book describes the evolution of security exceptions in international economic law, from the GATT 1947 to the most recent economic treaties, such as the 2017 Buenos Aires Protocol for Intra-Mercosur Investment and the 2018 USMCA. Further, it presents an overview of the rich array of adjudicatory practices addressing national security clauses, covering the decisions of WTO dispute settlement bodies, the ICJ, and numerous investment arbitral tribunals. To this end, the book addresses the debates surrounding the alleged self-judging character of security exceptions and the standards of review applicable where the exception is considered to be justiciable.

This book highlights how conversion via communication is one of the most important issues in legal thinking. A major aspect is its link with language – legal texts, judgments, opinions and legal concepts included. Further, conversion is connected to all social positions in law. 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. A continuously changing integration opens up to his views on reality as it presents itself incessantly. Law and its functionaries are in a never-ending process of change in all domains of culture, which mark the 21st century. Conversions thus concern the riddle of wisdom and automatism, of individual privacy and social fixations, of philosophical considerations and converting flows.

This book assesses the consequences of Brexit for the control of illicit trade in tobacco products in the UK and  EU. Based on the currently applicable legal framework, it examines the significance of a possible non-application of the acquis communautaire in the UK in matters relating to anti-illicit trade in tobacco legislation. It also analyses the modes of future cooperation between the UK and the EU in this area, as well as possible regulatory scenarios and their consequences. The book comprises six main sections. After the introduction (Section 1), Section 2 discusses the state of play of Brexit and possible outcomes of Article 50 of the Treaty of European Union procedure. Section 3 illustrates the data and trends of illicit tobacco trade in the UK. Section 4 describes the relevant legal (e.g. trade and fiscal measures) and enforcement frameworks in the UK and suggests possible post-Brexit scenarios in control of tobacco illicit trade. Section 5 focuses on the relevance of arrangements between governments and the tobacco industry in the control of illicit trade. Section 6 then analyses the relevance of key EU and global anti-illicit trade initiatives. Lastly, Section 7 the book offers some recommendations and conclusions on how the UK could control illicit trade in tobacco after Brexit.

Adopting a practical perspective, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the Directives adopted by the European Union concerning the rights of and safeguards for suspected and accused persons in criminal proceedings.It is the result of a collaboration between scholars and legal practitioners, and the first work of its kind to examine all relevant rights and safeguards in a single volume. The book offers readers panoramic, functional and in-depth insights into the EU legal framework and related European case law, and highlights the main issues and gaps identified by the authors in legal practice. In addition, it provides recommendations, guidelines and effective solutions applicable to criminal proceedings.

This book focuses on emerging issues related to internal displacement in Africa. The six principal issues discussed are climate change, technology, xenophobia, harmful practices, generalized violence and development projects. 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. Therefore, this monograph examines emerging issues for which there is very little in the internal displacement discussion, with the aim of providing knowledge within African regional contexts to advance law and policy formation. The novelty of this book lies in the fact that it moves beyond the conventional discussion on internal displacement into grey areas on the subject in Africa, leveraging the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons (the Kampala Convention). This book will be a significant reference point for researchers, professors, practitioners, judges, policy makers, international organizations, regional bodies, lawyers and scholars in the fields of migration, forced migration, and regional institutions.

This book examines the controversial and repercussive contention that an objective of the law should be to promote personal morality - to make people ethically better. 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? (b) If so, what is the account of morality promoted, and what is the substantive content? (c) Does it work? and (d) Is this a legitimate objective?

The aim of this short text is simply to introduce a reader to this topic. It is intended for a global audience and rather than being restricted to potential energy law students of a particular country. It is also written for students of other disciplines such as geographers, social scientists and engineers. It should also be engaging to those in a variety of professional practices who want an accessible background to and overview of the subject.The first edition of Energy Law: An Introduction was a great success and this extended second edition is expected to be just as successful. It is used widely as a core text in energy law courses across the world and this second issue adds further discussion on important topics such as energy law principles and drivers. 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 textaims to outline the principles and central logic behind energy law. Therefore, readers from across the world should be able to use it as a guide to thinking about energy law in their own countries. A variety of examples from many different countries are included in the text and while examples and comparisons are mainly from the EU and US, they represent good examples of more advanced and innovative energy law.For those readers who seek further or more in-depth knowledge, this text will only serve as an introduction. However, a key focus of the book is to direct the reader where they to look for further information and within the book there are suggested extra readings, the key recommended journals to read and other sources of information based on institutions who publish further material in this area.  Overall this second edition of Energy Law: An Introduction aims to inspire students and others to contribute to try and improve energy law across the world and enable us all to contribute in our own small way to delivering a just and sustainable energy world for future generations.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis and explanation of the legal regime with regard to deep sea mining. The wide array of activities which we refer to as deep sea mining are not governed by one universal framework. On the contrary, numerous legal instruments play a role, and it is important to maintain a clear overview. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) sets out the overarching regime, but important distinctions must be made. For example, deep sea mining in the Area is subject to international regulations adopted by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), while similar activities on the continental shelf fall under national jurisdiction and are governed by domestic legislation of the coastal state. This dichotomy must be nuanced, however, taking into account that non-state actors conducting deep sea mining operations in the Area must also adhere to national laws of the sponsoring state, while mineral exploration and exploitation on the continental shelf are likewise subject to a number of international rules and principles. Moreover, separate exploration regulations were adopted by the ISA for distinct categories of mineral resources, and national legislation on deep sea mining is quite diverse. This book clearly identifies all relevant legal instruments, assesses their role, explains their interactions, and engages with some of the topical issues that surround them.

This book offers a critical and insightful study of various doctoral programs in law, focusing on the English-speaking world. That the structures of doctoral degree programs in law differ between the United States and much of the Commonwealth are an issue that requires no debate. What is missing in the discourse, however, is a narrative on how these programs are structured and how they compare. This book attempts to fill that gap. A key objective of the study is to provide an international and comparative analysis of the efficacy of the American- and British-styled models of law doctorates. In so doing, it provides a conceptual and theoretical framework for the development of effective doctoral programs in law, contending that the defining characteristic of a doctorate is that it recognizes an independent contribution to the subject rather than the completion of taught coursework, however, advanced. 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. It was adopted by the UNESCO General Conference in Paris on November 25, 2019, making it the first United Nations treaty on higher education with a global scope. The target audience of the book includes scholars in higher education; scholars in legal education; law school deans and administrators; law professors and students; Ministries of Higher Education in countries around the globe; accrediting agencies for doctoral studies; bar admission and legal education societies; and UNESCO and other international organizations.

This book offers a comparative review of the ultra vires doctrine in corporate law. Divided into three main sections, it first provides a brief overview of the historical background and the scope of the ultra vires doctrine. It then analyses the essential features of the doctrine in the common law and civil law traditions across the Western world. Lastly, the book examines the objects clause, procedural aspects, and the mechanism of ratification of such ultra vires acts. The book's comparative approach and global contextualization of the subject matter will be of interest to readers from around the globe, familiarizing them with legal provisions, case law, and recent literature. Although it is primarily intended for scholars in the area of corporate law, it is also a valuable resource for professionals in the field of commercial law who deal with issues related to the capacity of firms and the powers of their directors.

This book offers an innovative approach to the recovery of areas degraded by international seabed mining, one that considers the feasibility of a standard that would allow mining in these areas in apparent antinomy with their other potential present and future uses.The book begins by identifying and explaining the legal norms that allow mining in these areas and the rights and obligations in mining exploitation concomitant to other uses of them, based on an analysis of mining operations’ duty of Recovery of Degraded Areas. It reveals an antinomy in international law, namely the compatibility of degraded areas and their various present and future uses with the mining of the international seabed.The freedom to mine these areas could destroy the least impacted biome on the planet and undermine the international law system represented by the Cultural Heritage of Mankind and the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS III”). Recovery of Degraded Areas is an obligation in mining and, as such, requires structural changes in the reading of UNCLOS III; recognizing international roles other than those related to sovereignty; projecting the law into the future; and rereading it in light of international environmental law and its instruments.

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 “Legal Technology”, categorises Legal Technology services (“application-oriented categorisation”), analyses the relevant European legal framework and highlights the connections to the upcoming European Artificial Intelligence Act.

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 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.. 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.. 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 bereinvigorated 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.. 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.. 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.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.

This open access book explains how leading business organizations attempt to achieve the responsible and ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced information technologies. These technologies can produce tremendous insights and benefits. But they can also invade privacy, perpetuate bias, and otherwise injure people and society. To use these technologies successfully, organizations need to implement them responsibly and ethically.  The question is: how to do this? Data ethics management, and this book, provide some answers. The authors interviewed and surveyed data ethics managers at leading companies. They asked why these experts see data ethics as important and how they seek to achieve it. This book conveys the results of that research on a concise, accessible way.Much of the existing writing on data and AI ethics focuses either on macro-level ethical principles, or on micro-level product design and tooling. The interviews showed that companies need a third component: data ethics management. This third element consists of the management structures, processes, training and substantive benchmarks that companies use to operationalize their high-level ethical principles and to guide and hold accountable their developers. Data ethics management is the connective tissue makes ethical principles real. It is the focus of this book.This book should be of use to organizations that wish to improve their own data ethics management efforts, legislators and policymakers who hope to build on existing management practices, scholars who study beyond compliance business behavior, and members of the public who want to understand better the threats that AI poses and how to reduce them.

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 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 book offers an in-depth analysis of the WTO security exceptions and relevant rulings by WTO dispute settlement panels. The WTO security exceptions are commonly regarded as the "box of Pandora" of the WTO system, since WTO Member States can invoke them in order to justify trade restrictions violating WTO law which they consider necessary for their essential security interests. The Members of the WTO and the GATT 1947 have hesitated for decades to rely on these security exceptions. In recent years, however, these clauses have been invoked for the first time in high-profile disputes involving Russia and Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as the US, China, the EU and other nations. This has been regarded as the turn of an era in view of the risk that the security exceptions could be instrumentalized to undermine the WTO and the international economic governance system more generally. This study therefore thoroughly analyses the WTO panel reports issued in these landmark cases. It also explains the geopolitical relevance of the increasing invocation of security clauses and argues that the legally and methodologically sound application of the WTO security exceptions, which have often been regarded as “self-judging” provisions, requires a proportionality analysis encompassing tests of the suitability and necessity of the trade measures to be justified under these truly exceptional clauses.

From the perspective of institutionalism and theories of clusters, this book provides a concept of organized crime as an institutional cluster in contrast to the concept of multiple offences, associated with organized criminal groups or/and criminal organizations. The book offers shifts in the methodology of organized crime analysis and extrapolates the tools of cluster modelling – successfully approbated in the social and economic sciences as a method for the organization of spatially localized systems – to the criminological field. Such an approach gives a fresh view of organized crime essence and contributes to the deeper and more sophisticated understanding of organized crime modus operandi, as well as its influence on the social landscape.Organized crime in today’s world is increasingly moving from rigidly structured entities to decentralization with unclear, blurred edges and a hybrid structure, which is dictated by the rationality of adapting to social change, including the emergence of new widespread demands for illegal goods and services, new ways to evade social control, the prevalence of poly-criminal activities, the involvement in general digitalization, and so on. Specifically, the study is focused on the evolution of organized crime models in Ukraine considering the socioeconomic, political, and ideological background. Organized crime in Ukraine has gone through numerous transitions, encompassing professionally or traditionally organized criminal groups (the so-called community of ‘thieves in law’), functional racketeering groups, businessmen who accumulated their initial capital through the shadow economy, bureaucratically constructed groups from former official vertically powerful ruling circles, networks of personal or professional connections of the Soviet special services, oligarchic-clan pyramidal structures and amorphous delocalized cyber entities.This book also gives a broad picture of contemporary criminal clusters in Ukraine and an assessment of a full-scale war’s impact. Russia’s invasion on 24 February 2022 and massive hostilities provoked a turbulent situation for organized crime, resulting in the breaking of former criminal ties and the degradation of certain criminal and corrupt practices. At the same time, the war and the martial law regime created opportunities for organized crime in Ukraine to develop new illegal markets and relocate existing ones.

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.