Search

Focusing more on governance and democratic potential than financial potential, this paper explores how pluralism of digital money and polycentric governance may provide an opportunity to embed values that might otherwise be overlooked or not valued in market societies. Digital money affords diverse forms of democratic experimentation with institutional and technological designs to effect distributive and political transformations for marginalized communities. Examining two case studies, including digital fiat currency that has the privacy-preserving features of cash and promotes financial inclusion and digital money built by and for stateless populations utilizing blockchain technology, the paper argues that pluralism of digital currencies using public and notfor-profit institutional architectures to serve diverse publics' interests has more democratic potential than forms of digital money driven by profit and extractive motives. To effectuate this democratic potential, however, attention must be paid to the tensions of digital exclusion and governance by experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While in the early days of the internet, there was great enthusiasm about the wealth of new possibilities for science, in recent years, awareness about the darker sides of digital technologies has been rising. It is known today that the leading academic publishers have tapped into the data analytics business. The resulting massive collection of user traces not only threatens privacy rights but also increases concerns about the consolidation of the oligopoly in the global academic publishing industry and large-scale corporate influence on science. This paper explores the consequences of this development for the constitutional protection of science. It argues that while classic accounts of constitutionalism are not entirely blind to constitutional challenges transcending the state-individual relationship, they struggle to capture the subtle yet systemic risks that the science system faces in the digital age. Societal constitutionalism is not only a useful lens to better understand these threats, but also to respond to them, providing valuable lessons for debates about digital constitutionalism and the effective protection of fundamental rights in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the curtailment of constitutional rights arising from the implementation of emergency measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic in China's Hubei Province, which was not at all counterbalanced by introducing new forms of due constitutional protection. Likewise, high expectations cannot be set on pre-existing means of constitutional safeguards since the Chinese government clearly refused to establish new or different safeguarding procedures nor did it deem it necessary to establish ad hoc courts in order to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper is laid out as follows: (1) fundamental rights in a contemporary socialist state: an overview; (2) containment measures against COVID-19 and flexibility of constitutional right;. (3) the centrality of governing bodies and restrictions of constitutional rights; (4) territorial governance and centralization of containment measures against COVID-19; (5) between soft law and totalitarian propaganda; and (6) the ubiquity of the Communist Party of China and the "alignment" of judicial functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for actual and legal regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) and facial recognition. These new technologies represent great opportunities to improve the welfare of societies. However, some of their uses can also enhance discrimination and, eventually, lead to violence. From a comparative approach (examining the European Union and Brazil), we address the current and future aspects of facial regulation, AI, and personal data. This paper shows that regulation is relevant to protect the rule of law, free markets, and individual freedoms. It also examines the looming risks unfolding from the unregulated uses of new technologies. Our concept of "Data Necropolitics" defines a predatory form of digital governance that exploits and discriminates against vulnerable populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term “bourbon” has become increasingly popular in markets all over the globe. The popularity of the bourbon trend has been exploited for both labelling liquors and describing nonalcoholic products. Bourbon has several separate definitions, usually differing on the issue of the geographical scope of the spirit’s production. The bourbon liquor industry has experienced periods of significant downturn followed by periods of explosive revival, motivated mainly by foreign interest, from countries such as Japan, in the product In the 1970s, Japanese interest in whisky and US bourbon facilitated a resurgence of the then-struggling US bourbon industry. In 2018, production of bourbon reached its highest level since 1972. Compared to the exports of 1997, bourbon exports to foreign countries tripled in volume and price in 2018 There are minimal legal protections currently available to America’s bourbon producers to insulate their unique spirit from foreign competition. Despite successful adoption and use of geographical indications (GIs) in many countries, the United States has avoided employing GIs to insulate local products in international markets, with the exception of a few protections for regionally produced wines. GIs have been gaining significance as accessibility to international markets has increased substantially in recent years. In 2015, Japan joined the GI trend, agreeing to recognize GIs with the EU. Products such as Scotch whisky are recognized and protected as GIs in Japan. The previous year, the Japanese company Suntory acquired Jim Beam, a Kentucky-based company comprised of several well-known bourbon labels. The relationship between the US bourbon and Japanese whisky markets has a long history and an arguably longer future ahead. Many of the arguments for the use of GIs have not been updated since countries such as Japan joined the international trend towards GI adoption. Thus, this paper will use the bourbon industry as an example to illustrate and further arguments presented by advocates of GIs. Looking to the successful adoption of GI agreements in Japan, this paper will highlight the benefits of participation in GI recognition and advocate for the US’s entering into GI agreements with Japan and other international bodies generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Has net neutrality been institutionalized as a fundamental right in the digital constitution? Empirical evidence shows that statutory embedding of net neutrality has recently been taking shape in certain jurisdictions. The unfolding of constitutional structures and processes--the next step to be expected according to the theory of societal constitutionalism--is still pending. What would the scope of protection of net neutrality be if institutionalized as a fundamental right? To answer this normative question, two theoretically challenging issues must be addressed as a preliminary: First, what should be the adequate conceptualization of the relationship between the social and the technological? The perspective adopted by this paper is a combination between science and technology studies scholarship and legal sociology literature. Second, as net neutrality involves relationships between private parties, the question is how fundamental rights should be conceived beyond state-centrism. Methodologically, the sociological reflection of fundamental rights as institutions of society will serve as a benchmark for evaluating future developments of constitutional legal doctrine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the symposium issue of the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies dedicated to "Digital Constitution: On the Transformative Potential of Societal Constitutionalism," where a group of scholars, using societal constitutionalism as a background theory, presents concrete proposals for a digital constitutional law. The symposium issue seeks to answer three interrelated questions. What is the message of societal constitutionalism for the emerging digital constitution? How can fundamental principles of nation-state constitutions be generalized and re-specified for global digitality with a transformative outlook? What would new institutional arrangements and interpretive practices look like? In this introduction, we aim to overcome three reductive tendencies stemming from traditional constitutionalism's legacy. We argue that digital constitutionalism needs to look beyond (1) the still dominant state-centricity of constitutional principles, (2) their exclusive focus on political power, and (3) their narrowly individualist interpretation of constitutional rights. This deconstruction opens the view to the main constitutional threats posed by digitalization--in particular, what we call the double colonization of the digital space--and to possible counterstrategies inspired by societal constitutionalism. Subsequently, we outline the content of the contributions to this symposium, grouped into four areas: (1) reformulation of constitution- and law-making; (2) digital economy; (3) institutions of constitutionalism; and (4) digital justice. Finally, we point to future developments as well as to links to other strands of literature that focus on the relationship between digital technologies and (constitutional) law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have advocated the need for a "digital constitution," including the idea of drafting an "internet bill of rights." Numerous civil society groups have crafted decalogues of digital rights, giving rise to a movement advocating a form of digital constitutionalism. This paper investigates the added value of these texts is in the constitutional ecosystem. These declarations highlight the transformative potential of societal constitutionalism well. By adopting the language of constitutions, they seek to be part of the current conversation on how to translate the core values of contemporary constitutionalism in the context of the digital society through a process of generalisation and respecification of principles. Internet bills of rights are not legally binding sources, yet represent a ductile instrument whereby their promoters are free to experiment with new legal solutions in a gradual way and in a more democratic manner. This includes actors beyond the worlds of politics and business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to inform readers of the prevalence of and increasing demand for human trafficking, both domestically and globally, and to propose necessary next steps governments must take in order to end the demand for such human exploitation. This paper will closely analyze the issue of trafficking humans for sex and labor within the Western Hemisphere and throughout Asia by using the United States and China as primary case studies. These case studies analyze the specific actions or inactions taken by the United States and Chinese governments to combat modern day slavery, as well as the current criminal sentencing guidelines these countries employ. Further, this paper will examine the theories of criminal punishment, taking a specific interest in the deterrence theory of tort law as a method that can be used to deter offenders and possible future offenders from engaging in such heinous crimes against society. By focusing on the economic principles that fuel human trafficking, such as low-risk, high-reward; systemic inequalities; and supply and demand, this paper stresses the importance that legislatures, government officials, and country leaders across the globe take an assertive approach in not only enacting legislation that enhances criminal punishments for those who engage in the trafficking of persons, but also enforcing the provisions that are established within the legislation to reduce the overall demand for human exploitation. Lastly, this paper emphasizes the need to reduce at-risk victims’ level of vulnerability of exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the divergence between the objectives of the state in ensuring citizens’ right to health and the profit-maximization objective of pharmaceutical corporations in relation to, access to, and supply of medicine. This divergence is pertinent given both the rising cost of medicines and unmet needs, particularly in developing countries. This paper analyses the correlation between pharmaceutical corporations’ profit drive and the state’s welfare obligation. There is a need to bridge the gap between business and human rights, which can be achieved by combining the concepts of “business ethical responsibility” and corporations’ contributions to “common good” with the jurisprudence on the right to health. This is imperative in view of the impact of the business of pharmaceutical corporations on vulnerable populations, particularly in, but not limited to, developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine possibilities and challenges in using digital tools to obtain tax simplification and to improve tax assessment, collection, and transparency. Hence, the main objectives of the article are, from a legal perspective, to shed additional light on the relations between tax administrations and taxpayers in an increasingly digitalized world and to discuss how this development may influence taxpayers' rights and the overall efficiency of tax systems. In doing so, practical experiences—incurred in Denmark during its journey from a paper-based and manual tax administration process toward a more digitalized one—are analyzed. Against this background, it is concluded that many states around the world, including Denmark, have come a long way in making tax processes smoother and more efficient through the use of digital tools for the benefit of both taxpayers and tax administrations. However, at the same time, global as well as Danish experiences clearly show that states, in their pursuit to digitalize tax administrations further, need to take appropriate measures into consideration in order to ensure the legality and transparency of the digital tax administration processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the threats posed by digitalization, particularly with regard to the public sector. It starts by describing digital risks as true global risks and argues that their scope and severity have not been recognized until now. The most well-known challenges come from the transformation of the private sector (economy, society, and individuals) and the emergence of large private powers that dominate the digital environment (digital feudal lord). However, there are even greater challenges coming from the digitization of government, creating almighty public bodies detached from laws that kept them locked until now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the fields of conflict resolution, political science, and history, I am researching the effectiveness of mediating an end to current and future ethnic, territorial conflicts through international law—specifically an international arbitration process. I am using the Brcko Arbitration, completed as part of the Dayton Peace Accords, as a case study of the effectiveness of international arbitration in peace building. After three years of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992–1995, Brcko was a multiethnic and multireligious city and was a cultural dividing line between the two ethnically autonomous regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its options were to join either the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had a primarily Bosnian-Muslim and Croatian-Catholic population, or the Republika Srpska, the Christian Orthodox Serbian area of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This paper will analyze the international arbitral process at Brcko and evaluate the three main factors that make this arbitration worthy of continued use in ongoing and future ethnic, territorial conflicts globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Space law," much like outer space itself, still remains largely unnavigated in some aspects. "Space law" is a term loosely used to dictate the body of law that refers to the international rules and regulations surrounding exploration and behavior while in outer space; while it quite uniformly covers questions of general damage control, international relations, and resource exploration, some areas of this body of law remain ambiguous and only partially implemented across the globe. One of these broad areas is the role of tort law in outer space--liability stemming from spacecraft collision and the resulting damage that occurs between the countries. This paper argues that since space law shares many similarities with maritime law, the law of the seas, certain maritime law regulations should be adopted. Maritime law has traditionally implemented the practice of limitation on liability since the passage of the Limitation of Liability Act, 46 U.S.C. §§ 181-196--a set of statutes that limits the liability of a defendant in a tort claim when damage has occurred to a ship, cargo vessel, or other related craft while at sea. Despite best efforts and careful planning, expensive accidents can still occur on land, while at sea, and now, with more frequent travel to outer space, the skies and beyond. To continue to encourage space exploration and research, nations should follow the longstanding example set out by maritime law in following limitations on liability. Extending a codified limitation on liability to space law will help pave the way for increased space exploration in the years to come. This measure will limit liability and thus the total amount of money a defendant might owe at the outcome of a collision settlement. This defendant will be in a better financial position to increase safety measures for continued exploration. Moreover, the window would be widened for other potential spacefarers who might have been wary at any associated costs with space travel and who would no longer need to worry about full liability were something to go wrong. The Limitation of Liability Act should be incorporated into space law to increase the presence of those already utilizing channels of space for both commercial and research purposes and to encourage new voyagers to the land beyond without quite the same hefty price tag attached. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act is legislation that simultaneously brings into being very particular notions of the American 'national' and, as its counterpart, a post-9/11 "global." Through a study of the Patriot Act, my paper unpacks the co-constitutions of national/global and a related series of binaries: domestic/foreign; patriot/terrorist; us/them; and innocence/evil. By exploring the structuring logics and language of these binaries in the Act, my paper scrutinizes the global role of U.S. legislative text in our world: a world in which "a global society has come into being but possesses as yet, no institutions proper to its name."1 In the context of our global perpetual war, I challenge our understandings of the categories structuring the Patriot Act to point to the specific ways in which law and war are co-constituted in our present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As international trade receives the brunt of local discontent with globalization trends and recent changes by the Trump administration have put into question the viability of such trade arrangements moving forward, there has been a clear trend in using international trade fora for managing regulatory barriers on economic development. This paper will discuss this recent trend in international trade toward increased regulatory cooperation through the creation of formalized transnational regulatory bodies, such as the U.S.-EU Regulatory Cooperation Body that was being discussed in the TTIP negotiations and comparable ones in the Canadian-EU Trade Agreement as well as U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada Regulatory Councils. In examining the informal transnational regulatory networks that have emerged from trade integration, it becomes clear that fragmentation has created non-centralized avenues for dialogue among various stakeholders to influence domestic regulation, especially in areas of environmental regulation, energy, and sustainable development. The paper argues that this trend has led toward the institutionalization of regulatory cooperation through preferential trade agreements, rather than multilaterally. Transnational regulatory networks and more formalized means of regulatory cooperation have influenced the executive branch, traditionally charged with negotiating trade agreements, from lead negotiator to a "regulatory partner" working not only for reducing barriers to trade, but also more specifically for the streamlining of regulatory standards that impact costs of inputs along the supply chain. Given today's negative climate around globalization and recent U.S. initiatives to diminish the role of agencies all together to implement regulation, this trend could take yet another turn--one that centralizes decisions regarding regulation in the President and his cabinet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the attempts to depict the global rise to dominance of the shareholder-oriented joint stock corporation as largely economically determined and to portray these corporations as fundamentally "private" in nature. By analyzing the economic nature of the joint stock companies (JSCs) that emerged in growing numbers in the nineteenth century, the historical construction of a corporate legal form to accommodate them, and the very different possible futures contained within their rise (one highly "financialized," the other increasingly "socialized"), the paper argues that special interests and power lie behind what is often dressed up as economic efficiency. Against this backdrop, the paper seeks to highlight the sharp contradiction between the continuing private appropriation of corporate surpluses and the increasingly social and transnational character of production and growing volume of public interventions, national and international, needed to protect rentier investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support human judges or potentially replace them raises questions concerning the role of judges in contemporary society, as well as broader questions linked to the ongoing role and nature of the so-called "digital Switzerlands" and their role in justice systems. In addition, tensions between the executive and the judicial branches of government with respect to the development of Judge AI support an exploration of societal constitutional analysis which requires consideration that reaches beyond mere institutional analysis. The varying and developing relationships between judges, courts, and emergent technologies challenge conventional theoretical approaches to governance and also require a greater focus on social interaction to explore how adaptation in an era of judicial responsiveness might support the development of ethical approaches that respond to vulnerable populations and social needs. Using an approach based on societal constitutionalism enables the development of a contemporary approach to justice that has been extended with AI initiatives. This involves setting limits to resist authoritarianism by framing the definition of "justice" so that it includes an overarching focus on promoting human wellbeing which in turn promotes restraint and thoughtful approaches toward the use of more disruptive technologies in the justice sector. The challenges presented by this approach in a global context are readily apparent in the context of differing justice conceptions and a focus on "fast," "low cost" justice delivery, perhaps in the absence of justice itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that our increasingly polarized politics has led to political stalemate and policy gridlock in Congress which, in turn, have contributed to a change in the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of government; specifically, executive power has increased at the expense of a diminished legislature. The paper will trace the extent to which Congress has become increasingly polarized and how this increased polarization has reduced Congress's capability and productivity while simultaneously increasing policy gridlock resulting in the expansion of executive power (and judicial authority) relative to legislative authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While some academics argue that enforcing voluntary corporate codes of conduct with private law backed sanctions can improve the working conditions of marginalized workers in the global supply chain, there are various risks associated with this "legalization" process. Relying on evidence from the fields of sociology, psychology, and evolutionary anthropology, this contribution will discuss how external incentives like threats of legal sanctions can actually be detrimental to the intrinsic motivations of companies that want to be socially responsible. This paper will also analyze how the crowding out effect and the spillover effect that come with legalizing otherwise voluntary norms could lead to a series of unintended and harmful consequences. In light of these realizations, this paper will caution against taking codes of conduct "too seriously" and propose that rather than focusing on legal sanctions to threaten companies into compliance, a more facilitative approach based on collaboration, mutual respect, and social norms could better serve to improve the working conditions of laborers in the bottom echelons of our supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical data in Colombia demonstrates that pro bono work by lawyers is both urgently needed by scarce-resourced communities and limitedly offered by the legal community. The restrictions of the legal market, especially with regards to its offer of legal services for the underprivileged, has direct consequences in the levels of poverty and inequality in Colombia. Thus, this paper hopes to contribute an answer the question: how can pro bono work help broaden, equalize, and ensure access to justice in Colombia? Part I includes an explanation of the statistics obtained from the survey of PBF law firm pro bono coordinators and interns and relevant data from the National Survey of Unmet Legal Needs. Part II comprises a discussion of the four main challenges identified through the empirical analysis. First, triage obstacles arise when assigning a case to one of the available legal aid outlets, and pro bono plays into these dynamics. Second, there is a significant gap between the first-order legal needs of the low-income population, and the type and amount of services offered through pro bono arrangements with law firms. Third, as a legal transplant, pro bono work faces infrastructure challenges. Finally, the fourth challenge stems from how improper practices can arise structurally around the figure of the pro bono intern in law firms. Part III explores the possibilities presented by pro bono programs in light of the current challenges assessed in the previous sections. It identifies actors in the legal community who could contribute to positive change, as well as recommendations for new legislation, changes to law school curricula, institutional improvements, and prevention of the misuse of certain pro bono mechanisms. Part IV presents the conclusions drawn from the specific findings of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the authors discuss various articles published within the issue on topics like access to justice in Latin America, Europe and North America, distributive justice, and the social obligations of lawyers.

The article analyzes trust in artificial intelligence (AI) in the European Commission proposal for a regulation of AI. Topics discussed are importance of trust for society, difference between trust and cooperation and importance of commitment in trust, moral component of trust, interpersonal trust and institutional trust in government, parliament and courts, and human mistrust in AI systems and machine learning.

The problem of representation has become a central element for the development of human rights norms, not just within international organizations, but within states as well. The problem has been made acute by two significant changes in the organization of power that became visible after the 1950s. On one hand, the idea of the individual became more abstract. Mass democracy became symptomatic of a general trend toward the dissolution of the individual within a mass population, which was incarnated as the aggregation of its group characteristics, its statistics, and data. On the other hand, states were becoming less solid; the constitution of states, and of state power, formerly quite distinct in their forms and secure within their territories, gave way to a polycentric order in which national territory no longer defined and contained a compulsory and singular legal order sitting atop a hierarchy of governance. These two trends have had a noticeable impact, not just on law and governance generally, but more importantly, on the way that representation is understood and practiced. Today, the representation of individuals has become more problematic at the national level as it gives way to other bases of sovereign power derived from international norms. At the international level the individual loses representative capacity. The will of the consensus of states has supplanted that of the citizens of the state in ways that may undermine the legitimacy of governance systems. This paper considers the problem of representation within these intertwined phenomena. To that end, the paper considers the manifestation of these two macrotrends in the context of the governance of global business and human rights regulatory regimes. In the context of the first trend, the problem of who legitimately represents is considered within international organizations producing norms for transposition to the domestic legal orders of states. The specific context will be the public forums of the U.N. Working Group on Business and Human Rights. In the context of the second, the problem of what is the object of representation is considered at the national level, now the site of transposition of international norms. The specific context is the rise of multiple legal regimes each with a fidelity to a distinct representational community. The boundaries of statehood have been redefined and with them the nature and object of representation. Where states once existed, territories serve as 'bowls' in which several national legal orders may operate through individuals and entities. Where international organizations once served the community of states, they now serve as vessels that contain mass interests re-incarnated as representative organizations that produce or negotiate formal law and societal norms for self-application. Within this context, simpleminded projects, and in particular the move toward a single comprehensive public law treaty on business and human rights, becomes an anachronistic exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changing boundaries of statehood resulting from transformations in the nature and operation of public and private authority over local and global politico-legal orders. Transformations in the political purposes of states are being driven by powerful elites who advance a new form of constitutional governance. New constitutionalism, as evidenced by the investor-state regime, subordinates the interests, purposes, and rights of national citizens to those of foreign, transnational politico-legal, and economic elites. This regime is a highly privatized order that is expanding in influence, both in terms of the commercial activities under its remit, and in terms of its procedural operation and its normative influence. The specific focus of this paper is on the investor-state regime, which is contributing to the expansion of private power and authority in the settlement of investment disputes. This regime is effecting two transformations in the scope and nature of statehood. One transformation involves the imposition of severe limits upon the legislative and policy autonomy of national governments that are being developed and enforced by private commercial actors without public accountability. In agreeing to protect the private property rights of foreign investors against legislation or public policy that might impair foreign investment, states are also limited in their abilities to ensure the protection of the social, economic, or human rights of their peoples. However, this expansion of private power and authority is generating a countermovement in the form of resistance to the regime. This resistance is giving rise to a conflicting transformation in statehood as national governments seek to regain their policy and legislative autonomy. In some cases, the impetus comes from local sources, while in others it emanates from global and international human rights fora. This paper begins with an overview of the operational nature of the investor-state regime and new constitutionalism, revealing how the procedural and substantive provisions of the regime reach deep inside states to set clear limits on their legislative and policy autonomy. It then examines a selection of cases before investor-state tribunals that reveal contestation and resistance to the regime through the reassertion by state governments of their sovereignty and through the influence of international human rights. It concludes with an exploration of the potential for this regime to advance human rights protections and suggests a few changes that might enhance the regime's democratic legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The claim that businesses have a social license to operate acquires concrete form in the second pillar of the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) in the fundamental distinction between 'compliance with all applicable laws' and 'respect for human rights.' The aim of this paper is to critically examine the presuppositions that undergird this distinction and to explain how and why moving beyond state-centered thinking about law, in response to violations of human rights by globally operating businesses, requires acknowledging that there is one pillar that embraces states and businesses: the legal obligation to comply with international human rights law. Arguing that legal order can best be conceptualized as authoritative collective action, the paper develops the one-pillar thesis along two fronts. The first argues that there can be no credible social license to operate in a global context absent authorities that uphold and regulate joint action as regards what is to count as a global collective's bounded common good and as its bounded common place. Yet, it is this authoritative dimension of a social license to operate that the UNGPs preclude by proclaiming that the corporate responsibility to respect human rights does not itself create a legal obligation. The second argues that both states and globally operating businesses are legal orders in their own right. From the firstperson plural perspective of authoritatively mediated collective action, nothing justifies separating a state's obligation to uphold human rights, as per the first pillar of the UNGPs, from a business's responsibility to respect human rights, as per the second pillar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aftermath of World War I, the 'war to end all wars,' left the world with as many new problems as it did resolutions. State powers tested and expanded the boundaries and interpretations of international law; in the end, there were the triumphant Allied Powers, the heavily wounded Central Powers, and millions of displaced individuals left adrift in the wake. Never before had the international community attempted to address the issue of refugees, and the product of the postwar efforts did not provide a complete solution. This paper will analyze the international community's (1) response to the massive refugee crisis and ultimately demonstrate that the Nansen passport system alone was insufficient to fully address the problem. Part I will explore the development of the Nansen passport system. Beginning with a brief overview of the existence--or lack--of a formally regulated migratory process prior to the war, the paper will discuss the development of the Nansen passport system in the muddled mess of the postwar period. This will be followed by a description of the strengths and weaknesses of the Nansen passport system. Part II will address a spectrum of factors that states considered when applying the passport system in response to the international refugee crisis. On one end of the spectrum exists the quantitative measures of simple numbers and hard politics. At the other end lies more qualitative factors like ethno-religious identity, whose defining feature is the lack of political definition. Because nothing is as simple as black and white, each extreme will be followed by an illustration of the murky middle--where qualitative factors interact with the quantitative. To illustrate this spectrum, the analysis will cover Russian political dissidents, the Christian Armenian population, and the Eastern European Jews. Part III offers a brief glimpse beyond the spectrum of factors discussed above and instead looks to the response of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). By doing so, the case examples will illustrate the limitations of the Nansen passport system's design. Part IV concludes, finding that the Nansen passport system was more prominently used as a tool for self-interested political maneuverings rather than humanitarian concern. Despite this characterization, the passport system was able to highlight the relevance of nonstate actors such as NGOs., DEVELOPING THE NANSEN PASSPORT SYSTEM To better understand the role the Nansen passport system played in the postwar era, the state of international law pertaining to migration before the war [...]

In 2017, the prevailing political party in Poland, Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość), proposed a series of radical legislative changes designed to strip the Polish judiciary of its independence. Though the European Union (EU) has extensively investigated this egregious attack on the rule of law, no concrete steps have been taken to impose sanctions on, or otherwise discipline, the Polish government for defying EU ideals. Despite the fundamental importance of judicial independence in maintaining the rule of law, there are presently no widely adopted international standards of judicial independence. Therefore, no guidelines are promulgated for governments to follow, and no well-executed path of action exits to shepherd wayward countries back into compliance. Something must be done. This paper seeks to explore the history behind the current judicial crisis in Poland, the possibility of implementing concrete international standards of judicial independence, and the feasibility of enforcement mechanisms driven by private actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populism is telling voters what they want to hear, knowing that it is neither true, nor feasible. Lately, trade and economic integration has seen the spread of untrue and unfeasible tenets, which have proved to be highly popular and have received a warm welcome. Fueled by imperial fantasies and nostalgia for the long-gone era of protectionism, the tectonic movements of world trade have generated a good deal of populist resistance based on the self-delusion that the Gordian knot of world trade needs not to be disentangled but can be simply cut. Unfortunately, however popular and appealing these allegations are, they are not true. Reverting to protectionism simply does not pay out and faces two major, arguably unsurmountable, hurdles: the economic realities, which show that protectionism comes at a very high price even to those it strives to protect, and the disciplines of the WTO, which very much limit unilateral measures inspired by purely protectionist desires. This paper demonstrates three points. First, the modus operandi of international trade makes frontal protectionism self-destructing. Second, the current regime of world trade law developed under the auspices of the WTO significantly limits protectionist policies and leaves no room for a comprehensive protectionist policy. Third, while "taking back control" is an appealing yell, catering to the deepest tribal instincts, in reality, unimpeded sovereignty and unlimited freedom of action are increasingly a wishful thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different kinds of evidence are put forward to make an argument and justify political action by agents situated in diverse social, cultural, and power positions. The Catalan political conflict is a case in point. The central Spanish government's arguments are mostly of a juridical nature and rest on the anti-constitutionality of the Catalan government and other civil society organizations' actions. Instead, most arguments of Catalan supporters of independence are based on historical interpretations of grievances referring to national institutions and identity. Supporters of independence, under the politically inspired actions of major civil society associations, have mobilized hundreds of thousands of Catalans in massive demonstrations and have used media in a very efficient manner. The judicial responses to the secessionist process have used legality (police, prison) to allow repression, while the repeated anti-constitutional actions of the Catalan government have been justified as legitimated by popular support and by a historical accumulation of grievances. At the same time, repeated elections show that Catalan citizens are divided and have very different positions regarding their support for independence. This differentiation can be mapped according to social and economic criteria and almost literally projected in spatial coordinates. This other group of Catalans tried to mobilize to publicly show their disagreement over the secessionist project. Yet their arguments appear as reactive rather than based on any alternative evidence. Hence, they are co-opted by the central Spanish various governments' juridical position, which supports a unified Spanish national identity couched in the Constitution of 1978. This paper argues that an important aspect of the political confrontation is being played as an evidence struggle where the various social actors produce different kinds of evidence to justify their actions in the political arena and mobilize support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the European Union adopted uniform sui generis design rights, an increasingly complex system of cumulative and overlapping intellectual property rights has emerged. While such harmonization offers several benefits, analyzing the interpretation and application of narrow legal requirements within the EU Community Design Rights may indicate whether such benefits will actually be realized. This paper examines Regulation 6/2002's definitions of 'informed user' and 'overall impression' as they apply to registered designs. After summarizing relevant case law and considering underlying policy goals of the EU Community design legislation, this paper explores whether these definitions could be more efficient and intellectually honest if both the universe of invalidating prior art-relevant to a design's eligibility for protection-and the corresponding scope of protection were restricted by industrial sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research and development into drone technology has exploded in the United States in the recent decades. From the operation of killer drones in the military to agricultural survey drones in farms, the proliferation of drone technology is well on its way to radically altering the American future. However, there remains numerous laws, policies, and regulations that place stifling restrictions on drone development and operations in America. Halfway across the world, China has also begun to experience the "drone revolution," but with its relatively laxer laws regarding both commercial and public drone operations and manufacturing, it seems poised to surpass the United States in not only drone R&D, but drone export as well. In recent years, China has expanded to become "a prolific developer and no-questions-asked exporter of UAVs" selling to a plethora of nations ranging from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan and Nigeria.¹ Domestically, China has relied firmly on indigenous production and R&D since the 1980s to expand its UAV technologies, expanding its UAV industry to include a variety of defense firms as well as academic research groups.² However, China's drone program is not without its own issues and setbacks, forcing the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to issue new drone regulations to be implemented on a trial basis. This paper will analyze and compare the two comprehensive UAV regulations--the stricter FAA regulations and the newer UAV regulations promulgated by the CAAC--and explore the differences between the two regulatory policies (both commercial and military), their benefits and drawbacks, and attempt to present solutions as to how the CAAC and the FAA can help build an initial framework for other nations to follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief essay uses global legal studies to reconsider Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s activism after Gayle v. Browder. During this undertheorized portion of King's career, the civil rights leader traveled the world and gained a greater appreciation for comparative legal and political analysis. This essay explores King's first trip abroad and demonstrates how King's close study of Kwame Nkrumah's approaches to law reform helped to lay the foundation for watershed moments in King's own life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global Unmanned Aircraft System, or unmanned aerial systems (UAS) revolution is poised to have an impact across a broad range of industries from agriculture to filmmaking. The United States has taken a difficult and slower path to implementing UAS policy, with Congress essentially mandating the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to take action in 2015. The FAA's 624-page rulebook marks the first attempt of any comprehensive plan to regulate remote-controlled and commercial aircraft activity. Across the globe, Japan, a country with a proven track record in electronics and technology, is outpacing other countries in devising regulations that will increase UAS use to benefit the nation's citizens. This paper argues that Japan's historical experience with unmanned aviation vehicles (UAVS), beginning mainly in the 1980s in the agricultural sector, allowed the Japanese government to coalesce more quickly in revising their civil aviation law than most developed countries. This note examines Japan's influence on UAS policy with the formation of regulations and adoption of new technology. More specifically, it looks at the United States as a case study as evidence of Japan's influence on other developed nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It seems that an ever-shorter temporal rhythm is gaining ground with the end of the "short twentieth century,"1 challenging the modern temporal horizon. The emerging economy relies on a continuous stream of scientific and technical knowledge closely related to information technology and networks. The increasing compression of both time and space has major consequences for the governance of the economy and the setting of authoritative standards in this sphere. This paper explores the consequences for education and training and its governance, where continuing education has become crucial. It studies the setting of authoritative standards in the field of information and communication technology (ICT) training, which has become vital for the knowledge-based economy. I will show how the standardization of these trainings by way of third-party certifiers establishes a mode of private coordination between companies, sectors, and across national borders. A closer examination of competing claims to authority in this field provides interesting insights into the enabling conditions of this mode of coordination and also brings a geopolitical dimension to the fore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are we to understand the proliferating attempts amongst transnational corporations (TNCs) at collectively reducing the risk of corruption in business operations and interactions with state officials around the world? How are these endeavors linked to transformations of public and private authority in the global political economy? Premised on the observation that corruption is globalized and the growing efforts at tackling it equally so, this article draws on the literatures on private authority, governmentality, and criminological studies to explore anticorruption in terms of pre-crime and post-crime policing. The case of the maritime industry is analyzed, including the ways in which corruption is policed post-crime by governments and pre-crime by a collective action initiative, the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN). The paper finally discusses how the incipient collective policing of corruption undertaken by corporations nowadays intersects with changes in the organization of public and private authority. Corporate policing of corruption does not imply a simple shift from public toward private authority, but rather a growing emphasis on pre-crime interventions in a largely disaggregated, polycentric, and liquid global governance set-up, with corporations and their collective action initiatives emphasizing anticipatory logics and attempts at forestalling corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Raising global labor standards has been a goal of labor activists, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and nations for over a century. The International Labor Organization (ILO) was created nearly one hundred years ago for that purpose, but a century later its goal remains largely unfinished. This paper will propose a retooling initiative for the ILO that will give it the enforcement power it needs for real labor standard change and the resources it needs to use that enforcement power to promote work according to established international labor standards. This enforcement power will take place through regional free trade agreements (RFTAs), which have increased greatly in popularity over the past twenty years. The initiative will take a degree of voluntarism on behalf of the trade partner countries and their multinational corporations (MNCs), but it will satisfy goals of all parties involved, including the MNCs that will pay for the enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the Asian Financial Crisis, sovereign debt defaults prompted calls by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a statutory Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM). In promoting the SDRM, IMF leaders argued that countries' sovereign debt problems needed something like U.S. Chapter 11, which is to say that IMF leaders supported the SDRM proposal with reference to legal claims rather than relying on purely economic arguments about the welfare benefits of resolving debt overhang. Framing the debate in this way caught on, but by 2005 the IMF board of directors had rejected the SDRM proposal. The current Global Financial Crisis similarly has resulted in more than several sovereign borrowers' defaults and has, in turn, renewed calls for revision of the process for restructuring sovereign indebtedness. This time, however, the rhetoric has shifted away from legal metaphor. Rather than comparing sovereign borrowers to corporations in financial distress, sovereign debt has been discussed in terms reminiscent of household debt. Countries should, we are told, practice financial austerity. This paper unpacks the differences among indebtedness owed by public and private, corporate and consumer, borrowers, and the distinct implications for restructuring these different sorts of debt. It argues that modern economic literature on sovereign debt has been chasing the wrong metaphor. The puzzle of sovereign debt shifts when sovereign borrowing is viewed through the lens of consumer (not corporate) borrowing. This shift in metaphor promises more than a new rhetoric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses global data localization policies requiring some data to be stored within national borders. Topics discussed include data sovereignty as a global trend, the advantages and criticisms of data localization in relation to several issues including information security, human rights to privacy and national security, and the proposal that an international organization will set universal rules about free data flow restrictions and will monitor countries' data usage.

Child sex trafficking is an international dilemma. While child sex trafficking has been practiced for centuries, international leaders began focusing prominently on the phenomenon in the early 1990s. Political documents preceding this surge in concern include the 1902 International Agreement for the Suppression of White Slave Traffic, which thwarted the facilitation of selling women and girls abroad. Further, in 1910, the Mann Act forbade the transportation of persons, specifically women, for sex work. The United Nations took serious steps in 2000 when it enacted the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, which identified the use of modern-day slavery and discussed the process of internationally eradicating both labor and sex trafficking. Fundamentally, the United Nations focused on the training of immigration and police officials. By the time victims interact with these entities, however, it is often too late for the entities to help them. The United Nations protocol thus uses a criminal justice approach to halting child sex trafficking, but this Note will examine why this approach is not as effective as it could be and why the United States has set the standard for child sex trafficking identification through its public health approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English-architecture company law describes the distinct and diverse group of company or corporate law used in more than sixty jurisdictions worldwide. English-architecture company law provides a robust platform for innovation and development due to its permissive structure, opportunity for choice of law in an entity's internal governance, and scalability permitting variation for small and large entities. It is the dominant form among International Financial Centers (IFCs), many of which have legal systems with a British connection. This body of law responds to competition and maintains dynamism by engaging its practice community through "learning by doing" and "frictioneering." An architectural approach permits a broader review of developments in company law that more closely captures the reality of global law practice. The IFC experience of climbing the value chain from tax arbitrage to provide solutions for entities or structures left out in the corporate law of larger jurisdictions provides a useful global governance model to maintain normative, jurisprudential, and regulatory coherence even as it responds to more specialized and unanticipated needs. This Article explores what makes English-architecture company law so successful and how IFCs use it to compete in the global law market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The time is ripe for the U.N. Special Committee on Decolonization (the Committee of 24) to accept sui generis categories that enable it to achieve its aim of finishing the job of decolonization. This would mean a departure from the Committee of 24's rigid adherence to the three forms of decolonization currently recognized: independence, integration, and free association. This article adopts Gilles Deleuze's critiques of the "dogmatic philosophy of recognition" and how they can be overcome through his articulation of "the Encounter" to analyse the philosophical basis of the Committee of 24's inability to recognize sui generis forms of decolonization. Unyielding adherence to the categories is challenged through the Encounter because sui generis categories are created in furtherance of the committee's stated aim. In applying this theoretical analysis, the article uses Gibraltar as a promising example of what a sui generis category of decolonization could resemble. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses articles within the issue on topics including digital transformation of government amid the globalization, innovations within and across academic disciplines, and impact of digital technologies on people.

This essay advances three theses on the current crisis of international liberalism. First, it is a composite one, comprising interrelated crises of domestic political representation and of global governance affecting the international and supranational arrangements that were constructed in the post-war period. Second, the crisis is a specific development of neoliberal governance, which requires distinguishing international liberalism's two historical variants: "embedded liberalism" and "neoliberalism." The turn from the post-war regime of "embedded liberalism" to the "neoliberalism" of recent decades has had the effect of undoing the domestic social contracts that underlay post-war political stability even while failing to secure peace and prosperity internationally. Third, neoliberal governance operates through a distinct form of legality from the embedded liberalism of the post-war period. The turn to neoliberalism involves a shift from the inter-state orientation that characterized the first decades of international liberalism to a "dialectic of globalization," in which newly empowered transnational activity across states generates pressure for supranational governance above them. This dialectic has the effect of undermining the international legal order on which liberalism has depended historically, which suggests that the present crisis is at root the product of an internal transformation rather than the result of competition with external enemies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the possible societal effects of the alleged genocide denial and the rule of law in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. Also cited are how Bosnian-Serbs including President Milorad Dodik of the Republika Srpska promoted genocide denial and triumphalism, the enactment of a law declaring public denial of genocide and crimes against humanity as unlawful, and how it could affect free speech.

The article discusses the effects of exhaustion of the rights doctrine on parallel imports and international trade. Other topics include how brand owners use intellectual property (IP) rights like patents, trademarks, and copyrights to protect their brand, the approaches to exhaustion of rights like regional exhaustion, international exhaustion, and national exhaustion, and how the growth of electronic commerce (e-commerce) help the rise of the gray market.

Meta's Oversight Board (OB) is at the center of divisive debates. Some commentators look at this experiment as the "Supreme Court" of a global order that is going through a process of constitutionalization. Others express concern about the OB, seen as a way to avoid public accountability and, more generally, as the legitimization of global private censorship. Either way, the debates normally focus on the important but still relatively narrow issue of content moderation and freedom of expression. In contrast, it is the manipulation of individuals and the related social effects deriving so-called informational capitalism--among them, the mental health distress of young people--that needs to be counteracted. Against this background, this article, resorting to societal constitutionalism as an analytical framework, aims to contribute to the debates on digital constitutionalism. It has two goals. First, to use the instruments available within Meta's normative system to thematize the broader, systemic effects of social media and digitality in constitutional terms. Second, to question informational capitalism "from within," using the right to the mental health of children as a case study. In this sense, it is an exercise of (strategic) legal imagination that focuses on the internal side of an involved actor. After the introduction, section II analyzes the features of Meta's normative system, distinguishing between juridification (II.A) and constitutionalization (II.B). Against this background, section III outlines a litigation strategy aimed at bringing such issues before the OB. It separately examines the strategies preceding the proceeding (III.A), the authority and scope of OB's jurisdiction (III.B), the relevant standards of review (III.C), and the potential content of the decision and the policy advisory statements (III.D). Section IV concludes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how fashion trends and trend-based consumerism in the apparel industry are affecting the economy, law, and the environment. Also cited are the value of the industry worldwide, how the fast fashion segment promotes overconsumption that could negatively affect the overall economy, and how social media influences the fashion industry.

Digital constitutionalism, to date, has been proceduralist; it has assumed that transparency and due process can temper power and attain justice for people vis-à-vis the automated state and powerful tech companies. So far, digital constitutionalism has also been very soft and blind to its own coloniality: Instead of deploying hard law, we are still looking for ways to pressure digital behemoths to self-regulate. We downplay US dominance, colonial exploitation, and environmental degradation caused by digital imperialism. Meanwhile, the power of tech companies has escalated. They now influence many aspects of our public and private lives, from elections to our own personalities and emotions, to environmental degradation. To be successful, the project of digital constitutionalism must resist a corporate agenda of procedural fetishism, a strategy to redirect the public from more substantive and fundamental questions about the concentration and limits of power to procedural microissues. Such diversion merely reinforces the status quo. To rectify the imbalance of power between people and tech companies, a new digital constitution must therefore try something different. It must shift its focus from soft law initiatives to tangible legal obligations by the tech companies. We must redistribute wealth and power not only by breaking and taxing tech companies, fortifying regulatory enforcement, increasing public scrutiny, and adopting prohibitive laws but also by democratizing big tech by making them public utilities and giving people a say how these companies should be governed. Crucially, we must also decolonize digital constitutionalism through recognition of colonial practices of extraction and exploitation and paying attention to the voices of Indigenous peoples and communities of the so-called Global South. With all these mutually reinforcing efforts, a new digital constitution will debunk the corporate and state agenda of procedural fetishism and will establish the new social contract for the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]