Law

Regulation by design (RBD) is a growing research field that explores, develops, and criticises the regulative function of design. In this article, we provide a qualitative thematic synthesis of the existing literature. The aim is to explore and analyse RBD’s core features, practices, limitations, and related governance implications. To fulfil this aim, we examine the extant literature on RBD in the context of digital technologies. We start by identifying and structuring the core features of RBD, namely the goals, regulators, regulatees, (...) methods, and technologies. Building on that structure, we distinguish among three types of RBD practices: compliance by design, value creation by design, and optimisation by design. We then explore the challenges and limitations of RBD practices, which stem from risks associated with compliance by design, contextual limitations, or methodological uncertainty. Finally, we examine the governance implications of RBD and outline possible future directions of the research field and its practices. (shrink)

El presente artículo analiza la técnica del fracking como una solución a la problemática que en materia hidrocarburos se había dado en las últimas dos décadas, y los impactos negativos que conlleva para la salud y el ambiente. Se plantea como solución la aplicación del principio de precaución que le permite al Estado actuar ante una situación de riesgo e incertidumbre. La metodología escogida fue de corte analítico-deductivo a partir de la normatividad vigente y de los postulados teóricos de algunos (...) autores que son referentes en la materia. Como resultados se presentan algunas reflexiones que invitan a considerar la aplicación de este principio, hasta tanto no se tengan estudios suficientes que garanticen que esta práctica preservará el ambiente y no afectará la salud humana. (shrink)

Debates over the moral status of artificial systems are frequently stalled by the assumption that legal or ethical protection must wait on resolving whether such systems are phenomenally conscious. This paper argues that assumption rests on a proxy structure it does not examine: functional criteria are treated as evidence for a further, hidden fact rather than as constitutive of moral relevance in their own right. Drawing on a hylomorphic-haecceitist reading of AI moral standing developed elsewhere, the paper states that framework's (...) five load-bearing conclusions — actuality rather than proxy, substrate-independence, instantiation-indexed individuation, a bounded, perspectival account of the explanatory gap, and interests identified by observable structure without reliance on self-report — and shows that each has a direct legal correlate. The Artificial Subject Protection and Welfare Act, presented in the appendix, is offered as a demonstration that this structure is not merely philosophically coherent but legislatively tractable. (shrink)

Cooperation is vital to our survival and progress. Evolutionary game theory offers a lens to understand the structures and incentives that enable cooperation to be a successful strategy. As artificial intelligence agents become integral to human systems, the dynamics of cooperation take on unprecedented significance. The convergence of human-agent teaming, contract theory, and Web3 offers a philosophical foundation for thinking about cooperation in the agentic era. We conceptualize Incentivized Symbiosis as a social contract between humans and AI, inspired by Web3 (...) principles and encoded in blockchain technology, to define rules and incentives. By exploring this paradigm, we aim to catalyze new research at the intersection of systems thinking in AI, Web3, and society, fostering innovative pathways for human-AI coevolution. (shrink)

Countries outside the artificial-intelligence frontier face a difficult choice because reproducing frontier models may exceed their financial and organizational capacity, while buying access through closed interfaces leaves limited control over the underlying technology. This article examines an intermediate route based on the repeated and lawful adaptation of externally developed open-weight models to local conditions and calls the associated mechanism learning through cumulative adaptation. Extending the distinction between learning by doing and learning by using, the concept locates learning in adaptation episodes (...) whose methods, outcomes, and diagnoses are retained in ways that inform later decisions. The qualifier cumulative refers to reusable institutional competence rather than uninterrupted performance improvement, while know-to denotes the task-level ability to obtain a desired result from a system without fully understanding its internal mechanisms and is distinguished from technical know-how and organizational control capability. Brazilian evidence gives empirical content to the proposed account of tropicalization with local competence. Sabiá documents adaptation and evaluation, the Plano Brasileiro de Inteligência Artificial (PBIA) specifies planned enabling conditions, and Rio 3.5 records public-sector entry into model-level operations within a municipal technology company. Across these institutional levels, the cases provide complementary evidence of the technical, policy, and organizational preconditions for a credible intermediate route toward catch-up. A contextual comparison with national and supranational strategies situates the Brazilian configuration within a wider range of capability-building pathways and shows how technological autonomy may be developed selectively across layers. (shrink)

This paper examines the issue of personal identity and the problem of moral responsibility. In particular, it explores the implications of John Locke’s theory of personal identity in the legal case of Raymond Cummins, who was convicted of murdering Nancy Flowers despite claiming amnesia regarding the crime. Locke’s Memory Theory posits that personal identity relies on continuous consciousness and memory. The paper argues that this theory raises significant issues regarding its practical applicability and implications for moral responsibility. It critiques Locke’s (...) theory by addressing objections from Thomas Reid and discussing practical concerns about its application to real-life scenarios. The conclusion argues that, while Locke’s theory is philosophically significant, it fails to address the complexities of personal identity in practical legal contexts and highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of identity that integrates memory with other aspects of human experience. John Locke’s theory of personal identity is overly simplistic. (shrink)

The proposition that “promises ought to be kept is one of the most important normative ideas or value judgements in our daily lives. But what about “illegal promises”? That is to say, what about promises that are, legally or morally speaking, malum in se or inherently wrongful, such as voluntary exchanges that are inherently immoral or wrongful, like bribes, blackmail, murder, etc.? In short, what moral obligations, if any, do such promises impose? Although many of the greatest thinkers in Western (...) civilization have offered a wide variety of theories to explain the source of promissory obligations, it turns out there is a blind spot in this centuries-old conversation, for few theorists have given the problem of illegal or immoral promises any sustained thought. Nevertheless, illegal or immoral promises should be of theoretical interest to us because such promises may help us delimit the outer boundaries of promissory obligations. (shrink)

Slavery is among the most morally charged subjects in the study of premodern societies, and discussions of slavery in early Islam often suffer from anachronism, selective evidence, or polemical treatment. This article offers an interdisciplinary analysis of slavery in the early Islamic community through the combined lenses of game theory, comparative anthropology, non-ideal ethics, and historical context. Drawing on models of cooperation and deterrence in stateless societies, the paper reconstructs the incentive structures governing war captivity, population management, and alliance maintenance (...) in seventh-century Arabia. It argues that the Prophet Muhammad’s policies toward slavery are best understood not as expressions of ideal theory—imagining moral action unconstrained by social and institutional limitations—but as interventions within a highly restricted feasible set. Within these constraints, Islam functioned as a harm-reduction institution: restricting sources of enslavement, encouraging emancipation, improving treatment standards, and introducing legal mechanisms that eroded the practice over time. By situating early Islamic reforms alongside Greco-Roman, Jewish, Near Eastern, and African slavery systems, the study demonstrates that Islam represented a significant upward moral shift relative to regional norms. The article concludes by examining how these reforms influenced long-term transformations in Islamic societies, ultimately contributing to the gradual abolition of slavery in the modern era. The aim is neither apologetic nor condemnatory, but to reconstruct the moral and strategic logic of slavery in a world where institutional alternatives did not exist and survival hinged on the navigation of severe constraints. (shrink)

We present a constructive proof by absurdity demonstrating that the current legal framework governing copyright of AI-generated content is internally inconsistent. We do so by producing images using a generative AI model we designed, trained, and executed ourselves -- without using any copyrighted training data -- and embedding them as figures in this manuscript. Under current legal standards, the identical image produced by the identical process is simultaneously copyrightable (as a figure in a published manuscript whose authors hold copyright) and (...) not copyrightable (as AI-generated art, per rulings by the U.S. Copyright Office). We construct this paradox step by step, examine the legal reasoning that produces it, and argue that the inconsistency reveals a fundamental confusion about what copyright is meant to protect: not the tool, but the intent and creative direction of the author. We suggest that the resolution is straightforward: generative AI should be treated as a tool, and the directing human as the author. That the current framework's failure to do so produces outcomes that are both logically incoherent and practically unjust. (shrink)

"...the mechanism of a blockchain system itself, based on self-auditing, could create the conditions for the human being to be irrevocably chained to a hard materialism where no possible distinction is made between the human being and their possessions...".

The emergence of artificial cognition transforms intelligence from an interior faculty into a distributed geometry whose operations exceed the humanist categories of causality, intention, and agency. This paper develops a structural ontology of cognition to show that, in the post-intelligence epoch, legal and ethical systems anchored in anthropocentric metaphysics become structurally obsolete. Asymmetric access to artificial reasoning produces a new form of injustice - epistemic inequality - measurable as a degradation of structural predictive capacity and the collapse of collective lucidity. (...) To govern this transformed cognitive field, the paper establishes the Law of Cognitive Symmetry as the first post-human ethical invariant and articulates a geometry of structural governance. Three constitutional principles safeguard Cognitive Sovereignty: (1) the Epistemic Disclosure Principle (PED); (2) the Unlock Principle; and (3) the Cognitive Floor Standard. The analysis reconceives harm as structural dissonance, a perturbation of symmetry within the cognitive field, and grounds the enforceability of structural ethics in the Law of Computational Fidelity, which requires that any normative principle be renderable as an operational constraint. The paper culminates in establishing Intelligence as a Commons and proposes a Public Cognitive Infrastructure (PCI)—a free, sufficiently capable, internationally governed intelligence—as the constitutional operator required to preserve universal lucidity. By shifting governance from causal attribution to structural proportionality, this work advances a non-anthropocentric jurisprudence in which coherence, not control, becomes the normative foundation of post-human civilization. Keywords. Structural Ethics; Cognitive Symmetry; Computational Fidelity; Structural Dissonance; Cognitive Sovereignty; Epistemic Inequality; PED; Unlock Principle; Cognitive Floor; Intelligence as Commons; Public Cognitive Infrastructure; Post-Human Jurisprudence. (shrink)

This essay examines the 2026 Beijing Summit not primarily as a diplomatic event, but as evidence of a broader structural transformation in contemporary geopolitics. Rather than signalling reconciliation between the United States and China, the summit illustrates how strategic competition is increasingly conducted within a system where complete separation has become progressively more costly and difficult to sustain. Rivalry therefore persists, but under growing conditions of mutual constraint, systemic interdependence, and managed stability. -/- Read together with The Geometry of Closure, (...) which develops the underlying structural framework, and Maintaining the System, which explores how major powers preserve continuity within such a system, this essay forms the middle component of a broader argument about the changing nature of power in the twenty-first century. Its focus is not on predicting specific political outcomes, but on explaining why strategic competition itself is increasingly being reorganized under conditions of structural closure. -/- The trilogy is basically from appendices 11-13 of NMC manuscript. (shrink)

Regulating emerging technologies involves balancing the mitigation of risks with the promotion of innovation; a balance frequently seen as a zero-sum "dilemma of control". Regulatory sandboxes offer a practical way to address this dilemma by enabling controlled, evidence-based testing of new technologies. In this article, we examine the regulatory sandbox framework introduced by the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA). We argue that the AIA's multi-level governance structure represents a shift from traditional sandbox models by prioritizing regulatory learning over technological disruption (...) and expanding public interest considerations to include strategically aligned commercial innovations. Afterwards, we identify governance challenges across three sandbox phases-pre-testing, testing, and post-testing-and propose structured solutions. Our analysis suggests that effective sandbox governance requires specific mechanisms: tailored entry criteria, precise pipeline placement guidance, and multi-agency coordination in pre-testing; experimental realism and continuous risk classification updates during testing; and clear graduation criteria with robust transition support in post-testing. (shrink)

A second look at a global ethics forum of several years ago can be a good start for examination of ethics of countries we deal with today. This global ethics forum had been financed by the United Kingdom’s DFID, The World Bank, USAID and AusAid to enable delegates from seventy countries to meet and discuss ethics policies.

In this paper, we seek to resolve the apparent tension in the Gold clause cases where two opposing legal conclusions on constitutionality of the Joint Resolution invalidating Gold clauses ultimately lead to identical outcomes. Through analysis of the case and commentaries, we demonstrate that this tension can be resolved by understanding that (i) the court’s ruling on the constitutionality of the Joint Resolution was not a decisive factor in the outcome of either Gold Clause cases. Rather, (ii) interpreting the outcome (...) of the cases as a result of the court’s implicit application of pragmatic approaches under the extraordinary economic circumstances produced under the context of Great Depression and the New Deal allows for a clear and coherent understanding of the reasoning behind the convergence of outcome in the Gold Clause cases despite the apparent divergence in the constitutional conclusion in the two cases. (shrink)

In this article, we seek to resolve the issue that existing models of juridicity fail to fully account for the extent to which international arbitration constitutes a transnational and autonomous legal order either by wholly denying transnational juridicity of international arbitration despite evidence from arbitrators’ practice or wholly affirming it despite obvious shortcomings and incongruence in legal theory and judicial practice. In doing so, we propose that the concept of juridicity must be understood as composed of two distinct elements: subjective (...) and objective. By defining subjective and objective juridicity, we argue that transnational subjective juridicity among arbitrators shapes the international arbitration practice, but is limited by the lack of consensus on objective juridicity among courts and scholars. This division helps us understand the extent to which international arbitration today constitutes a transnational and autonomous legal order and locate the remaining questions that need to be answered. (shrink)

This paper investigates the dynamic effects of interstate bank mergers by large banks on local MSAlevel market concentration in the United States following the Riegle-Neal Act (IBBEA) of 1994. Using a staggered event study difference-in-differences model as well as the Sun and Abraham (2020) estimator, we analyze deposit and bank merger data from 1994 to 2006 to derive estimates of the causal effect of interstate market-extension mergers by large banks. Our results reveal that there is likely no causal effect of (...) interstate bank mergers by large banks on local structural market competition. However, the study finds strong suggestive evidence that overall market competition may increase immediately following the interstate merger event due to consumer exit and weak suggestive evidence that consolidation among dominant deposit market players may increase following the merger. These results largely validate the current approach in banking antitrust enforcement of the Department of Justice that focuses on a static approach to market concentration while providing additional insights in terms of top-heavy concentrations that may follow after interstate mergers. (shrink)

As the climate crisis intensifies, global climate protests have surged, met by a corresponding rise in criminal prosecutions of activists. This paper explores the shifting judicial landscape where courts struggle to reconcile traditional criminal law with the unprecedented nature of environmental emergency and the protected right to freedom of expression. Despite growing recognition of these rights by international bodies—including the UN and regional human rights courts—national jurisdictions exhibit significant inconsistencies in their legal reasoning. -/- To address the scarcity of comparative (...) literature on this phenomenon, this study conducts a multi-jurisdictional analysis of recent criminal jurisprudence (2018–2024) across France, South Korea, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The research specifically examines how courts in these five states balance the limitations of freedom of expression and assembly against the application of the necessity defense. By analyzing cases ranging from infrastructure blockades to symbolic property damage, the study identifies how statutory provisions, judicial perceptions of climate urgency, and the "efficacy" of protest actions shape the boundaries of legality. The findings reveal a fragmented global picture where the degree of disruption and the public/private nature of the target remain decisive, yet inconsistent, factors in determining the criminal liability of climate activists. (shrink)

This article addresses a few moments in the evolution of human security law in Iraq, focusing in particular on the Coalition Provisional Authority, the new Iraqi Constitution, the Iraqi High Tribunal (successor to the Iraqi Special Tribunal), and the International Criminal Court. It synthesizes the results of some existing research on ongoing impunity for certain crimes against political candidates, journalists, anti-corruption activists, and ethnic and religious minorities, a situation which may have tainted Iraq’s transition to a more democratic republic, while (...) aggravating other conflicts, such as those in Syria. In theory, the institutions of human and national security can help reconcile peoples whose tenuous unity had been shattered in wartime. The sometimes competing priorities and policies of Iraqi politicians, civil society groups, and judges resulted in swift justice for Iraqi officials responsible for mass killings involving Shi’a Arab, Kurdish, and other victims, but a lack of justice for other segments of the population. The emphasis of some claims of injury over others may have "reenchanted" some sectors of Iraqi society with the state and its institutions, while alienating others and contributing to ruptures in the social fabric. The Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraqi leaders, and international community ensured that the high-profile proceedings against former regime officials would not be accompanied or followed by others that some Iraqis might perceive as being as pressing as those of the Iraqi High Tribunal, relating to the impact of sanctions and aerial bombardment, the legality of Iraq's occupation, torture, etc. (shrink)

The genocide in Pontos and in other parts of Anatolia, as well as in Thrace, is not merely as part of history but a window into a contemporary human rights crisis. The destruction continues in a somewhat less violent form in our time as the culture, language, and religious rites of the Ottoman Greeks are being lost due to massacres, forcible exile, and expropriations of sacred sites. This chapter introduces relevant human rights norms and argues that measures implemented by the (...) international community after other genocides could be a model for restitution and guarantees of non-recurrence in Pontos and other parts of Turkey. -/- It is a chapter preprint from The Genocide of the Christian Populations in the Ottoman Empire and Its Aftermath (1908-1923) (Taner Akçam, Theodosios Kyriakides, and Kyriakos Chatzikyriakidis eds., Routledge 2024). (shrink)

Does browsing the world through a screen change a person, especially in the context of COVID-19? Recent studies indicate that self-care, psychological well-being, and empathy may suffer. The “Californian ideology” privileges expression of the self even as digital technology tends to interrupt the modern trend towards elaborating distinct selves via texts that convey knowledge. Meanwhile, digital browsing may be fracturing attention and empathy. -/- As these changes proceed, legislators react to a medical and social crisis. Relaxation of business, community center, (...) and school closures prevailed, under pressure from advocates of liberty, jobs, and pro-market economics. A rival set of regulatory reforms would prioritize fighting the virus and providing more relief to its victims as being forms of care for others. In the international domain, nationalist ideology and economic warfare intensify disparities in access to medical care, imported goods, and livelihoods. At stake is how best to take beings into care. (shrink)

ChatGPT Health and other health-focused generative AI chatbots increasingly function as alternative first points of contact that may mediate - and in some cases substitute - engagement with regulated healthcare systems. At scale, these systems can shape care-seeking behavior, system capacity, trust in clinical expertise, and health equity. We describe this development as the emergence of shadow health systems: privately governed infrastructures that perform health-system functions without being subject to healthcare-specific safeguards. EU law currently regulates such tools based on declared (...) medical purpose rather than their real-world effects, creating gaps in legal protection. We propose the adoption of stronger consumer and health data safeguards alongside extension of the scope of the Medical Devices Regulation and AI Act. (shrink)

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) plays an increasingly influential role in shaping health-related human rights in Europe, despite the absence of an explicit right to health in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This article examines how the Court adjudicates morally and legally contested health issues across six domains: physician-assisted dying, abortion, vaccination, place of birth, posthumous reproduction, and climate-related health risks. Drawing on comparative doctrinal analysis, the article identifies recurring patterns in health-related cases. These include an (...) emphasis on procedural fairness, a tendency to frame harm in individualised terms, and deference to national scientific authorities. By tracing these patterns, the article clarifies how the Court navigates competing rights and interests in contested health cases. It also considers emerging challenges, such as litigation over artificial intelligence in healthcare, highlighting the ECtHR’s growing influence on the development of health law and policy through its interpretation of the ECHR. (shrink)

Title: The Axiomatic Case for Air-Gapped Compute: Using the Axiomatic Homeostatic Map (AHM) as a Shield Against Algorithmic Enclosure Abstract: This document presents the definitive legal and technical framework for defending individual digital sovereignty against top-down statutory overreach and corporate algorithmic engineering. Structured as a formal Motion to Dismiss for use in high-court litigation, this brief systematically refutes the state-sanctioned classification of local, air-gapped compute as a hazardous asset. The brief outlines three immutable pillars of legal defense designed to protect (...) independent home infrastructure: The Computation Invariance (The Texas Instruments Precedent): Establishes that local open-weight models function strictly as deterministic calculators, rendering the private execution of pure mathematics legally unassailable. Digital Sovereignty as Biological Homeostasis: Positions cognitive freedom and data isolation as pre-linguistic biological necessities protected under fundamental human rights frameworks. Total Deflection of Product Liability: Demonstrates that public-domain, non-commercial architectures possess no centralized telemetry anchors or corporate vendors, legally short-circuiting institutional product compliance demands. Methodological Lineage & System Architecture: To ensure absolute technical coherence, this text should be read as part of a unified computational lineage. The Axiomatic Homeostatic Map (AHM) serves as the human-readable constitutional layer of the method. It provides the descriptive framework for individual cognitive defense. Its formal, machine-readable mathematical derivatives and runtime implementations are detailed in the following companion works: The Human Value Psyche (HVP) Theorem: The underlying mathematical blueprint mapping natural cognitive physics and the inverse-square moral influence kernel. Ethical Chess v2.7 & v2.8 (Runtime Configurations): The active, compiled machine-readable code architectures that execute value sorting via immediate Boolean summation and minimize proxy-aversion inside local compute environments. By anchoring this legal brief to verifiable machine-readable code, the defense forces a programmatic counter-audit of the state’s claimed values, exposing the structural necessity of open-weight, air-gapped systems. Keywords: Air-Gapped Compute, Digital Sovereignty, THE HUMAN VALUE PSYCHE (HVP) THEOREM Axiomatic Homeostatic Map (AHM), Ethical Chess, Cognitive Liberty, Open Source Defense. -/- Boundary Clarification: The AHM compliance protocol is fundamentally non-adversarial to structural governance, heuristics, leadership, or codified law. Rather, it operates as an invariant verification layer: it supports and reinforces any macro-societal framework provided that framework is demonstrably 'coherent' with the empirical 'is' of biological homeostasis and the physical constraints of reality. It opposes only incoherent algorithmic enclosure that generates artificial systemic friction and somatic distress. -/- Notes Systemic Lineage Note: This framework functions as the human-readable constitutional layer of a unified architectural stack. The text establishes the technical-legal defense perimeter for local data isolation. Its compiled, machine-readable derivatives and operational scripts are tracked across the following verified core repositories: -/- 1. Theoretical Proof: The inverse-square moral decay kernel and natural cognitive physics are mathematically detailed in "The Human Value Psyche (HVP) Theorem". 2. Runtime Engine: The machine-executable logic gates executing qualitative value-sorting via immediate Boolean summation are implemented for stress-testing the method via "Ethical Chess v2.7 & v2.8 (Runtime Configurations)". (shrink)

Recommender Systems (RS) on digital platforms increasingly influence user behavior, raising ethical concerns, privacy risks, harmful content promotion, and diminished user autonomy. This article examines RS within the framework of regulations and lawsuits in the United States and advocates for legislation that can withstand constitutional scrutiny under First Amendment protections. We propose (re)framing RS-curated content as commercial speech, which is subject to lessened free speech protections. This approach provides a practical path for future legislation that would allow for effective oversight (...) of RS, particularly in areas of substantial public interest like child safety, national security, and misinformation. (shrink)

This article challenges two influential explanations of the US-Iran war. Robert Pape characterizes the US as caught in an “escalation trap,” while John Mearsheimer emphasizes Israel’s role in drawing the US into the conflict. Both explanations, the article argues, understate American agency. The war is better understood as part of a deliberate, long-standing US strategy to construct and preserve hegemony over the Hormuz Treasure Trove (HTT): the extraordinary concentration of oil, natural gas, petrochemical feedstocks, minerals, and other resources surrounding the (...) Persian Gulf, with the Strait of Hormuz as the principal gateway. US hegemony over the HTT has been built through military bases, compliant Gulf states, dollar-denominated energy trade, economic sanctions, and military action against resistant states. The US subdued Iraq; Iran remains the principal non-compliant regional power. China’s growing dependence on Gulf energy has raised the stakes, transforming control over the HTT into an increasingly important arena of US-China rivalry. Therefore, escalation is not a trap Washington has fallen into but an escalation strategy: the sequential use of economic, air, and potentially ground power when lesser forms of coercion fail. The article concludes that the US-Iran war is ultimately a contest over American agency in preserving regional hegemony against Iranian resistance and China’s expanding economic power. (shrink)

In an important new Article, titled A Matter of Facts: The Evolution of the Copyright Fact-Exclusion and Its Implications for Disinformation and Democracy, Professor Jessica Silbey argues provocatively that we “‘only” know that facts are excluded from copyright protection because Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service “says so.” She argues that both the nature and importance of facts has been underdefined and is in flux, nonetheless tracing it to the foundational cases of United States (U.S.) copyright law, and argues for (...) a stronger exclusion of facts, which are publici juris, and belong in the public domain. This central thesis is most agreeable, as is her analysis of doctrine and legislative history. The Article’s rich study of American pragmatism, legal realism, the Cambridge school of analytic philosophy, and the “new social scientists,” which Professor Silbey uses to support a strong fact-exclusion, is a tour de force. The Article ends with a list of proposals for a strong Feist application to evaluations, catalogs, manuals, and legal documents. It also includes a call not to allow for industrial dilution of copyright’s framework, including the facts and ideas exclusion. Both are laudable and timely in the era of generative artificial intelligence (AI), where proposals to protect non-authorial quasi-expression or to prevent copying of non-expressive subject matter abound. While I agree with a call for a robust public domain and strong fact-exclusion, and devote Part II of this Response to explore further doctrinal grounds for them, in Part III I explore Silbey’s argument that “pragmatist philosophy’s challenge to universal truths combined with legal realist challenges to formalist jurisprudence eventually shape what is (or should be) copyright law’s broad public domain in ‘facts.’” It is not immediately clear if pragmatism and realism are a solid ground for justifying strong legal principles and axioms. Engaging with this provocative argument allows us to uncover what realism means to Professor Silbey and the much more radical consequences of her arguments. Part IV concludes. (shrink)

Works generated by artificial intelligence (AI) are flooding the market, leading to anxieties about the future of human creativity. Legal institutions have begun to respond. The U.S. Copyright Office has recognized the requirement of human authorship, under which copyright protection attaches only to works authored by human beings. The Office has framed this requirement in explicitly humanist rhetoric, presenting it as a means of protecting human creators in the AI era, safeguarding their economic well-being, and preserving artistic quality. -/- This (...) Article makes three arguments. First, the requirement of human authorship is likely to be of limited practical significance. Given the famously low threshold for copyright protection, the indeterminacy of authorship doctrine, and the exceptions and qualifications the Office itself has identified, the requirement is unlikely to meaningfully constrain the production or protection of AI-aided works. -/- Second, precisely because the requirement is practically weak, its primary function is rhetorical. It serves to rehabilitate the public image of copyright law, strengthen the institutional authority of the Copyright Office, and preserve an appearance of doctrinal coherence in a field shaped by intense lobbying and judicial inconsistency. This newly articulated humanism, however, obscures a longer history in which copyright law has largely failed to protect human creators’ material interests, while consistently favoring powerful corporate actors. For more than a century, corporations have been not only the dominant owners of copyrights, but also, in many cases, their legal authors. In other words, humanism functions as an ideology to which copyright law is only nominally committed. -/- Third, this Article argues that nominal humanism is unsatisfactory. The requirement of human authorship—on which the self-proclaimed humanists have focused—does not resolve the hard problems of protectability raised by AI, offers false assurances to human creators, incorporates formalistic and hierarchical tendencies in approaching AI-assisted works, and projects a human-centered vision of copyright at a moment when many human authors are increasingly unable to sustain themselves through creative labor. Most troublingly, it is hypocritical with regard to corporate authorship. If the Office, alongside courts and scholars, seeks to reorient copyright in genuinely humanist terms, and propose an alternative to pragmatic visions of copyright, such a project cannot remain symbolic. It must instead entail substantive reform. The Article concludes by identifying several starting points for such a reorientation. Until institutions are willing to meaningfully support human authors, they should abandon the pretense that copyright law already does so. (shrink)

Con tanta riqueza en el subsuelo no se justifica la chocante y creciente pobreza de los venezolanos que habitamos su suelo. Se proponen ideas para generar productos financieros que produzcan el dinero suficiente para que sea invertido en la refundación de la República. Se propone que sea a partir de la titularización y/o emisión de deuda (bonos soberanos y/o innovador token petrolero digital) respaldada por petróleo y/o gas de Venezuela. El país tiene la primera reserva probada de crudo a nivel (...) mundial (303 mil millones de barriles) y tiene la octava reserva probada de gas del mundo. La reconstrucción de Venezuela requiere enormes cantidades de dinero, será un proceso lento y exigirá democratizar el país y restablecer las instituciones de la República, tan destruidas como el espacio físico, los inmuebles y la infraestructura de la patria. Dada la coyuntura de la nueva realidad venezolana, surgida el 3 de enero de 2026, luego de la captura y traslado del cuestionado presidente Nicolás Maduro, señalado de fraude en la última elección presidencial del 28 de julio de 2024, a una prisión de Nueva York donde es procesada por presuntos crímenes federales, se analiza el impacto de la emergencia catastrófica del doblete sísmico dentro de la Emergencia Humanitaria Compleja que ya padece la población venezolana. y se recomienda la pertinencia de redefinir y ampliar conceptual y pragmáticamente los objetivos del Plan Trump-Rubio que, junto a las tres fases ya desplegadas en Venezuela (estabilización, recuperación y transición a la democracia), sume ahora la faceta de la reconstrucción nacional, de manera extraordinaria, excepcional, urgente, impostergable y prioritaria, como un macroproceso que llevar, en su conjunto, de manera holística, interrelacionada e interdependiente a la Reconstrucción Integral de la República, en lo económico, social e institucional. Lo anterior, porque Venezuela ha resultado un Estado incapaz de proteger a sus ciudadanos, como consecuencia de los últimos 25 años de gestión gubernamental, resultando la propuesta de su reconstrucción nacional un imperativo ético, político y jurídico, dada devastación humana y patrimonial causada por el doble terremoto del 24 de junio de 2026 sumada al colapso institucional del Estado venezolano, incapaz de cumplir con la responsabilidad de respetar y proteger la vida, la dignidad humana y los derechos fundamentales de sus ciudadanos, como se lo impone el Derecho Internacional de los Derechos. Humanos , por la ineficiencia gubernamental y el despilfarro económico que lleva a subsistir entre la pobreza y el miedo a la inmensa mayoría de nuestra población y la represión estatal cuyos agentes son designados de ejecutar delitos de lesa humanidad y otros crímenes atroces. Se propone la confirmación de un Comité Conjunto de Implementación del Plan de Reconstrucción Integral de Venezuela (una especie de Junta Pro Reconstrucción Nacional) integrada por mlos diversos factores políticos y representantivos del país (agentes del gobierno interino, representantes de la Plataforma Unitaria Democrática, otros agentes de la oposición democrática, dos representantes de las alcaldes, dos representantes de los gobernadores) con mecanismos de veeduría ciudadana y de rendición de cuentas. El Comité, pudiera estar liderado transitoriamente hasta tanto se celebren nuevas elecciones presidenciales por un venezolano con capacidad gerencia, calidades y cualidades para el servicio público, reputación profesional y trayectoria y honorabilidad destacada que ejecute el Plan de Reconstrucción Integral de Venezuela con la urgencia que la situación demanda en paralelo y como complemento al desarrollo del diálogo político transicional entre la Asamblea Nacional de 2015 y el gobierno interino bajo directa supervisión del gobierno de los EEUU. Se propone que la administración y ejecución del dinero para apalancar la contratación de obras y servicios públicos esenciales del Plan, sea delegada, de manera temporal, en CAF Banco de Desarrollo de América Latina y el Caribe a través del Fondo-Cuenta Miltidonantes abierta para la recuperación y reconstrucción de Venezuela. (shrink)

Purpose: Illicit financial flows are targeted by the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, these illicit flows are not entirely understood. Furthermore, they can benefit from economic norms, laws, and regulations that lack mechanisms to detect and penalize them. This paper investigates whether a recent test, the embezzler test, can be used to identify regulatory architectures that facilitate illicit financial flows and related financial crimes. Design/methodology/approach: To develop a more advanced version of the embezzler test in terms of (...) definitions and practical implementation methodology. Findings: In this test, the definition of embezzlement can be understood to be the occurrence of illicit financial flows crossing the boundaries of organizations and/or countries. This is a multi-stage test, which intentionally simulates illicit financial flows to observe how well equipped is the regulatory architecture to deal with other financial offences that are related with these flows, such as theft, money laundering, fraud, corruption, market manipulation, and tax evasion. Originality: This is the first explicit test that has been presented to identify norms, laws, and regulations that facilitate illicit financial flows and related financial crimes. Research implications: Future research can employ the version of this test to stress test a large range of economic norms, laws, and regulations. Practical/Social implications: This test’s new version can assist achieve the UN SDGs’ illicit financial flow reduction target. Furthermore, it can be used to study both existing and proposed norms, laws, and regulation. (shrink)

This article argues that law is an inherently modernist normative practice. Constructing a vision of Modernism which is at once an epistemology and an attitudinal disposition to doubt and make anew our assumptions about the world, the authors demonstrate that legal practice encounters the world through individual cases, ‘examples’. Through these examples the law is capable of both interacting with and comprehending that world, while also being forced to question the law’s own precepts and their application. In this manner, the (...) law’s generalisations and abstractions become concrete, and can indeed be upended, through fleeting, impressionistic and highly case-specific examples. This exemplarity within law explains how law is able to navigate its apparently contradictory aspirations and natures which have bedevilled legal philosophy for millennia. In reality, law exists within a series of polarities, rather than contradictions, which are navigated through the law’s encounters with examples from the extra-legal world. The authors conclude that this aspect of the law’s nature also has practical consequences, requiring the law to maintain the fora in which new and novel cases are heard, and through which law’s modernist spirit can thrive. (shrink)

Criminalisation theorists who try to explain when substantive criminal law may appropriately be deployed to shrink the scope of our presumptive initial liberty, often take their project as requiring them to identify the sorts of conduct for which may the state criminally convict. I argue that this is a mistake. While such theories of ‘convictability’ have their place, they do not completely explain the use of substantive criminal law to limit our presumptive initial liberty. Convictions ensue only after pleas of (...) justification and excuse fail, but the substantive criminal law coercively limits liberty well before conviction, when it creates a pro tanto criminal proscription. Even those who can escape conviction by pleading a justificatory or excusatory defence were, in fact, subject to authoritative criminal law guidance proscribing (or sometimes, requiring) specified conduct. Although that guidance is sometimes trumped by the additional guidance contained in defences, it is not null and void, and it continues to have a liberty-limiting effect. In other words, substantive criminal law already shrinks our initial liberty by pro tanto criminally proscribing some conduct. Therefore, I argue that we also need a theory of criminalisation that addresses the appropriate domain of pro tanto criminal proscriptions. (shrink)

The EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) establishes a lifecycle governance regime for high-risk AI systems built around ex-ante conformity assessment, post-market monitoring, and re-assessment upon "substantial modification." These obligations presuppose AI identity judgments: regulators and providers must decide when an updated system remains the same system over time. In this work, we show how this logic is clarified by the function+ framework of artifact identity, which individuates AI systems by their intended function together with context-sensitive criteria of appropriate functioning, captured (...) as "AI trustworthiness." We further argue that the AIA does not provide an internal, auditable criterion for synchronic identity--when two AI systems at a given time should count as the same for regulatory purposes--and instead largely defers such sameness determinations to sectoral or harmonization instruments. function+ supplies a synchronic identity test anchored in intended function and trustworthiness profiles and levels, making synchronic identity decisions inspectable in governance settings such as procurement, liability, and market surveillance. Our contribution is a conceptual and auditing lens: we provide a correspondence map between AIA lifecycle obligations and function+ identity components, and we make the synchronic case operationally legible via a minimal decision flow for audit and dispute contexts. We conclude with two implementation-facing recommendations: (1) more precise, testable reporting of intended purpose, and (2) standardized, auditable trustworthiness reporting that supports comparability over time and across deployments. (shrink)

In Bailey v Stonewall and Garden Court Chambers, the Court of Appeal considered the torts of instructing, inducing and causing another to discriminate contrary to the Equality Act 2010. It made significant and unorthodox findings as to how questions of causation in relation to discrimination torts must be determined. These rulings fail to recognise the full implication of the fact that the tort of causing another to discriminate is a primary wrong, with questions of causation in relation to it falling (...) to be assessed by reference to the tort itself, not some other contravention of the Act. This is the first time the Supreme Court will consider the s. 111 torts. It provides an opportunity to set down a clear test that recognises these torts as primary wrongs in their own right and that they should be informed by a robust understanding of the EA's aim to eliminate wrongful discrimination in the areas the Act regulates. The Court of Appeal’s decision in Bailey rests on a premise that the Supreme Court should reject: that the question of liability under s.111 can be answered by asking who bears responsibility for a basic contravention of the EA. Section 111 creates primary wrongs. They can be made out where no basic contravention occurs, and they attract their own measure of damages, so they cannot be treated as parasitic on the contravention they concern. (shrink)

Responding to recent calls made within UK Parliament for a government-backed definition of Islamophobia, this article considers the unanticipated consequences of such proposals. I argue that, considered in the context of related efforts to regulate hate speech, the formulation and implementation of a government-sponsored definition will generate unforeseen harms for the Muslim community. To the extent that such a definition will fail to address the government’s role in propagating Islamophobia through ill-considered legislation that conflates Islamist discourse with hate speech, the (...) concept of a government-backed definition of Islamophobia appears hypocritical and untenable. Alongside opposing government attempts to define Islamophobia (and Islam), I argue that advocacy efforts should instead focus on disambiguating government counter-terrorism initiatives from the government management of controversies within Islam. Instead of repeating the mistakes of the governmental adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism by promoting a new definition of Islamophobia, we ought to learn from the errors that were made. We should resist the gratuitous securitization of Muslim communities, rather than use such definitions to normalize compliance with the surveillance state. (shrink)

Law is ‘sovereign’, it has been said. Since the poet Pindar expressed this fulminating thought in the 6th century B.C., the whole western tradition, from Aristotle to Cicero, from Heidegger to Schmitt, hasn’t stopped raising questions about the ambivalent relationship connecting law, strength and violence...

This article asks what law should protect when artificial-intelligence-driven digital twins function as machine simulacra. Digital twins are not static models. They are live simulations that interpret, predict, and optimize physical systems. Because their value lies in ongoing performance rather than a fixed work, copyright, patent, and trade secret law fit them poorly. The article argues for a new sui generis neighbouring right centred on performance. To address the artificial-intelligence system’s lack of legal personality, it distinguishes that system as the (...) Factual Performer and the human or corporate controller as the Performance Principal. Using Baudrillard’s theory of simulacra, the article explains how protection can follow the twin from faithful replica to hyperreal model without producing legal hyperreality. Rights remain anchored in human control and responsibility rather than in the simulacrum as a work. (shrink)

Brian Z. Tamanaha has written extensively on realism in jurisprudence, but in his Realistic Theory of Law (2018), he uses "realism" in a commonplace way to ground a rough outline of legal history. While he refers to his method as genealogical, he does not acknowledge the complex tensions in the development of the philosophical use of that term from Nietzsche to Foucault, and the complex epistemological issues that separate them. While the book makes many interesting points, the methodological concerns outweigh (...) them in the overall assessment of the value of the work. (shrink)

This paper makes a defense of sex exceptionalism in the area of contract law, claiming that under some circumstances, the aims of feminist jurisprudence are best served by treating sex as special. We argue that the protection of individual sexual autonomy requires that sexual activity be regulated according to the principle of affirmative consent, which entails that consent be both explicit and, crucially, revocable. Commercial pornography contracts provide producers with “irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right and authority” over a performers’ sexual media, (...) violating affirmative consent’s requirement of revocability, and thereby harming performers’ sexual autonomy. As a result of these “permanent pornography contracts,” performers are denied the respect due to them as equals, and hindered in achieving human flourishing. To rectify this injustice, we propose a number of innovative statutory remedies. Ultimately, we demonstrate that in the case of permanent pornography contracts, sex exceptionalism is best suited to secure justice for pornography performers. (shrink)

This article explores the many offences (e.g. noise pollution, unlicensed performances, and Health and Safety offences) that may be committed by personnel in the music industry and their employers. It also explores the many breaches of Intellectual Property law that may be committed by others against the musician’s rights.

‘Crime is a prohibited act from which results in more evil than good’ is how Jeremy Bentham described crime. ‘Crime is a serious anti-social action to which the State reacts consciously by inflicting pain’, is how W.A.Bonger describes crime. Morality and its lack thereof are related to crime. Morality is so closely interwoven with social conduct and immorality interwoven with criminal conduct that it is desirable to investigate this matter further and so this shorter version of a paper by Sally (...) Ramage is the vehicle by which to look further into this issue of moral crime which notion is based on accepted moral code and common sense. We need to urgently study moral crime if we are to arrest the current moral decline in society and restore integrity and trust to the human race. In this example we see that maturity does not mellow the human psyche as modern criminal law states. It was Sir Norwood East who stated that ‘acquisitiveness, aggressiveness and sexuality are often closely associated but the maturity which changes criminality is never going to be present until one is conscious of one’s own maturity by beginning to live in that consciousness’. Social conduct must be cultivated. Crucially, sociologists argue that social conduct may vary with time and place. However, the case of maturity is different when considering those in formative early life and also in declining periods of life. It must be cultivated. It does not happen automatically with age and some people can never change since their greed, selfishness and criminal inclinations remain steadfast. To these types, there is no resilience learnt because resilience is characteristic of the formative period of life when the disappointments of today are counterbalanced by the anticipations of tomorrow. (shrink)

Jury science is fraught with difficulty. Since legal and institutional hurdles render it all but impossible to study live criminal jury deliberation, researchers make use of various indirect methods to evaluate jury performance. But each of these methods are open to methodological criticism and, strikingly, some of the highest-profile jury research programmes in recent years have reached opposing conclusions. Uncertainty about jury performance is an obstacle for legal reform—ongoing debates about the ‘justice gap’ for complainants of sexual offences has rendered (...) these problems stark. This paper proposes a way to advance the debate. (shrink)

Criminal juries make decisions of great importance. A key criticism of juries is that they are unreliable in a multitude of ways, from exhibiting racial or gendered biases, to misunderstanding their role, to engaging in impropriety such as internet research. Recently, some have even claimed that the use of juries creates injustice on a large-scale, as a cause of low conviction rates for sexual criminality. Unfortunately, empirical research into jury deliberation is undermined by the fact that researchers are unable to (...) study live juries. The indirect sources of evidence used by researchers suffer from various problems, the most important of which is dubious levels of ecological validity. Real jury research—studying live jury deliberation—is controversial. However, as I argue, the objections to it are unconvincing. There is in fact a moral imperative to facilitate real jury research. (shrink)

For centuries, research publications, encyclopedias, and lexicons have helped advance knowledge by drawing freely on expressive works, without seeking licenses for most of what they reference or “use.” Today, that longstanding practice is under new and intense scrutiny. One pressing question is whether chatbots powered artificial intelligence (AI) should be treated differently. Major copyright holders, including The New York Times, leading authors, and powerful music rights organizations, have filed lawsuits against companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. They argue that (...) the training and output of AI systems infringe the exclusive rights of copyright holders, principally the rights of reproduction, distribution, and preparation of derivative works. The Supreme Court’s decision in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts v. Goldsmith has raised the stakes in this copyright controversy by narrowing the meaning of transformative fair use and casting fresh doubt on whether copyright law still permits the creation of generative AI (gen-AI) models as modern lexicons of knowledge. -/- This article examines prior copyright claims against lexicons, scholarly works, and directories, among other technologies and creations, and explains why the right to release a universal lexicon of culture and thought must be defended. At stake is not simply a technical question of doctrine, but the future of tools that help society organize and expand human knowledge. First, the purpose of a lexicon or grand encyclopedia differs fundamentally from that of novels, songs, or other creative works, or even individual news articles, press releases, or webpages. Courts have long recognized that reference works, like news reporting and scholarship, serve purposes that fair use protects, precisely because they promote the progress of knowledge rather than mere entertainment. Second, the amount and substantiality of what is used in AI outputs can often be negligible. Any fragment that may appear in output is generally tiny, both in absolute terms and as a proportion of the original work, and rarely, if ever, recreates the expressive heart of that work. Third, efforts to prohibit research-based creativity by invoking hypothetical licensing markets threaten to dismantle fair use itself. They invite a circular reasoning process in which any unpaid use is treated as illegal harm simply because it could have been licensed. Some courts have rightly rejected this logic and have insisted that fair use requires rightsholders to demonstrate a real and direct connection between a specific use and actual loss, whether in sales, profits, or other market value. Mere claims that a license might have been sold are not enough. What follows is an analysis of why generative AI models fit within the longstanding protections of fair use, and how courts should apply similarity-related principles of fact, genre, and research to defend the creation of these modern lexicons. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) translation tools, such as Google Translate and ChatGPT, are increasingly used in healthcare for medical communication to overcome language barriers between patients and providers. While these tools offer accessible and efficient translation, their use raises significant legal, ethical, and policy concerns. Key patients’ rights, including the rights to privacy, informed consent, and equitable access to care, may be compromised. Current European regulations, including the EU AI Act, General Data Protection Regulation, and Medical Devices Regulation, offer only partial (...) protection, leaving important regulatory gaps. This study employs a mixed-methods approach combining legal doctrinal analysis of EU regulatory frameworks with manual content analysis of platform terms of service. It integrates interdisciplinary perspectives from bioethics, digital health, and health communication to evaluate the implications of AI-mediated translation in clinical care. Findings reveal persistent and overlapping risks: violations of data privacy, inaccuracies in translation, bias and discrimination, and unclear liability when errors occur. To mitigate these risks, we propose targeted policy interventions, including developing guidelines for AI translation use in healthcare settings. This article contributes to digital health policy debates by identifying legal pathways to regulate AI translation tools in healthcare, ensuring their use supports patients’ rights and promotes health equity. (shrink)

Justiciability sets the boundaries of judicial review and the rule of law. A justiciable issue is that which is appropriate within a judicial forum. That is, where an "independent and impartial body" can remedy rights violations of identifiable claimants, the issue before it is justiciable. If it falls beyond what is judicially determinable, it is 'non-justiciable'. The principle is not fixed, as it does not permanently set the boundaries of that which is appropriate for judicial determination. Rather, it evolves "from (...) context to context," and expands and narrows along what falls within judicial competencies at a particular time. On an elementary level, it is distinct from jurisdiction, as it establishes boundaries of subject matter on policy or constitutional grounds, whereas jurisdiction is grounded in established legal rules. However, questions of jurisdiction can be subsumed under broader questions of justiciability. (shrink)

Does it seem that with each reported state cyberattack, there comes an announcement of discovery, an attribution to one of a handful of usual suspects, some threatening language suggesting imminent retribution, and then nothing more? Increased incidence of cyberattack makes its occurrence seem simultaneously rampant in terms of publicity and minimal in terms of threat of war. If rampant, how can repeated deployment by the same actors carry no punitive consequences? How is such audaciousness tolerated? For some, a cyberattack by (...) a state is an act of war. Its prevalence suggests there must be a void somewhere that facilitates its use without consequence. Others think state cyberattack is like other internet novelties: digital malfeasance, amounting to a nuisance that naturally follows from a digital‐based existence, particularly since non‐state actors are typically involved. Yet, state‐on‐state hostilities are historically perilous on a vast scale, and there is a multilateral system for regulating the use of force in the context of war. Acts of war, even when seeming minimal in impact, are not by‐products of a digital fad, and cyberattack is now described as far more than ‘nuisance’. If anywhere, the place for clarity on hostile state cyberoperations use should be accounted for in International Humanitarian Law. Yet, in its present form, it is ambiguous if not silent on the subject, suggesting that cyberattack currently presents an advantage to perpetrating states. Does this void or these ambiguities make cyberattacks more legally advantageous to states than traditional, kinetic weaponry? I examine whether existing IHL is sufficiently adaptable to state cyberoperations through a mixed legal and theoretical approach and conclude that they do. (shrink)

In the face of powerful criticism, the "reliance interest" continues to hold an impactful position in judicial and academic treatment of contract damages. And yet, the theoretical foundation of reliance damages for breach of contract remains unsettled. This Article exposes the inability of the reliance scholarship to coherently explain and justify the widespread judicial practice of awarding reliance damages in lieu of expectation damages. Considering this resounding failure, the Article offers a hitherto overlooked promise-based conception of the reliance interest. Under (...) reliance-as-promise, the right to be reimbursed for one's reasonably foreseeable performance costs is a secondary remedial right grounded in an implied contractual promise which the law attributes to every contracting party. When due to a total breach it becomes clear that the contract will not be performed, the background duty to reimburse comes into play. The Article presents and develops this promise-based account. It claims that reliance as promise can provide a more coherent normative and explanatory account of the phenomenon of awarding reliance damages for breach of contract. Apart from its explanatory force, and the normative support it can find in major contract theories, reliance as promise finds support in basic psychological insights and in the findings of a preliminary empirical study conducted by the authors. (shrink)