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The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that even when using trusted legal tools, courts may run into challenging problems. Governments reacted to an unprecedented (at least in the context of post-WW2 era of fundamental rights) global crisis by adopting measures that drastically limited fundamental rights in order to protect the lives and health of many. Courts, of course, were entrusted with protecting fundamental rights against governmental overreach. The question was, how strict should the courts be when reviewing governmental acts. On the one hand, they could have relied on substantive proportionality assessment. This option, however was virtually ignored and most courts have opted for a deferential approach. This article analyzes both of these approaches, their strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately it argues that a third option - semiprocedural review - is the best way out of this judicial conundrum. Relying on comparative as well as theoretical arguments, it argues that semiprocedural review is the best way to deal with challenging empirical question - even under conditions of epistemological uncertainty.

The use of video surveillance as a control mechanism for noncompliance by workers has been the subject of a very notable regulatory and jurisprudential evolution. From this evolution, it can be observed how the duty to inform the worker has progressively depreciated, reaching its peak with the latest constitutional jurisprudence. With its interpretation of current regulations, the Constitutional Court has virtually made it voluntary for employers to inform, or not, in a minimally precise and explicit manner, the workers about the existence and purposes of video surveillance within the company. Meanwhile, employers are allowed to continue benefiting from the results of this video surveillance activity to monitor work activities, despite not having sufficiently fulfilled their obligations to inform the workers. Whether this is compatible with the essential content of the workers¿ right to data protection (Article 18.4 CE) is, at the very least, debatable. The purpose of this work is to analyze the problems posed by the current interpretation of the Constitutional Court and how it has given a content to the provisions of the Spanish Organic Law on Data Protection and Digital Rights (LOPDGDD) that does not seem to correspond to what the latter intended to regulate, with consequent harm to the effectiveness of a fundamental right such as the right to data protection in the workplace.

Fundamental rights to positive state action are costly. An allocation in favor of one individual rightsholder always results in lower allocations in favor of others. The dominant approach in fundamental rights doctrine assumes these conflicts can be resolved judicially by balancing competing rights and other public needs. In practice, carrying out an in-depth balancing in resource allocation cases proves challenging but constitutional courts developed different strategies and concepts to deal with costly rights. The European Court of Human Rights applies a “wide” margin of appreciation and requires that positive state obligations do “not impose an impossible or disproportionate burden on the authorities.” Following the German Federal Constitutional Court, several constitutional courts have applied a concept known as the “proviso of the possible.” The proviso of the possible constrains positive rights and results in a wide margin of discretion granted to political authorities. This article attempts to investigate the specific meaning of the “proviso of the possible” in the context of European fundamental rights law by comparing it against alternative doctrinal concepts. The investigation aims to identify common legal principles and methods to deal with fundamental rights conflicts over scarce public resources.

Copyright of Selcuk Law Review / Selçuk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi is the property of Selcuk Law Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Pandectele Române is the property of Wolters Kluwer Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that even when using trusted legal tools, courts may run into challenging problems. Governments reacted to an unprecedented (at least in the context of post-WW2 era of fundamental rights) global crisis by adopting measures that drastically limited fundamental rights in order to protect the lives and health of many. Courts, of course, were entrusted with protecting fundamental rights against governmental overreach. The question was, how strict should the courts be when reviewing governmental acts. On the one hand, they could have relied on substantive proportionality assessment. This option, however was virtually ignored and most courts have opted for a deferential approach. This article analyzes both of these approaches, their strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately it argues that a third option - semiprocedural review - is the best way out of this judicial conundrum. Relying on comparative as well as theoretical arguments, it argues that semiprocedural review is the best way to deal with challenging empirical question - even under conditions of epistemological uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we focus on the scholarly and policy debate on autonomous weapon systems (AWS) and particularly on the objections to the use of these weapons which rest on jus ad bellum principles of proportionality and last resort. Both objections rest on the idea that AWS may increase the incidence of war by reducing the costs for going to war (proportionality) or by providing a propagandistic value (last resort). We argue that whilst these objections offer pressing concerns in their own right, they suffer from important limitations: they overlook the difficulties of calculating ad bellum proportionality; confuse the concept of proportionality of effects with the precision of weapon systems; disregard the ever-changing nature of war and of its ethical implications; mistake the moral obligation imposed by the principle of last resort with the impact that AWS may have on political decision to resort to war. Our analysis does not entail that AWS are acceptable or justifiable, but it shows that ad bellum principles are not the best set of ethical principles for tackling the ethical problems raised by AWS; and that developing adequate understanding of the transformations that the use of AWS poses to the nature of war itself is a necessary, preliminary requirement to any ethical analysis of the use of these weapons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Basic equality" is the thesis that all (or nearly all) human beings are equal in moral status. Widespread interpersonal differences among humans make the task of justifying basic equality notoriously difficult. One strategy for circumventing this difficulty is to identify some morally significant binary ("all-or-nothing") property that all humans have. This strategy seems promising: if the basis of equality is binary, then those who have it have it equally. However, skeptics have argued against this strategy on the grounds that a proper defense of basic equality requires that we identify a morally significant property that can vary among humans but does not in fact vary. This paper examines various ways in which this skeptical argument can be motivated and concludes that they all fail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Romanian Review of Private Law / Revista Română de Drept Privat is the property of Universul Juridic Publishing House and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The independence of the judiciary represents a principle with constitutional value, which has experienced several developments and accumulations in recent years. An important but unexplored perspective is the extent of control and censorship of the constitutional court over legislative options in the issue of judicial independence. The limits of appreciations allow the legislator to vary the regulation in relation to the constitutional standard, but the dosage of the regulations must be checked in relation to the principle of proportionality with the observed interference. Thus, the limits of appreciations of the legislator must remain under constitutional control, in the national landscape these concepts oscillate between intensity and lightness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyberspaces can be significantly influenced by simple tools and tactics, and offer cost-effective solutions for states to achieve their objectives. However, it can also be used for conducting cyberwarfare, and its effects remain in gray areas. The spectrum of cyberwarfare activities ranges from minor web disruptions to crippling attacks on critical national infrastructures. Nevertheless, cyberattacks present a unique challenge in applying well-established humanitarian legal principles, particularly regarding the distinction between civilian and military targets. This is because of the interconnectedness and shared infrastructure of cyberspace between civilian and military entities, which blurs the lines between combatants and civilian populations. This article seeks to shift the general perception of the problems associated with this manner of conducting hostilities by building on the learning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Furthermore, the authors examine the cyber activities that occurred during the conflict and the legal and ethical challenges that arise from classifying these activities and applying international law. They try to distinguish cyber activities as an act of force or armed attack, with a focus on determining the criteria that played a role in this classification, in light of Articles 2 (4) and 51 of the UN Charter. With reference to the United Nations (UN) Charter and the principles of self-defence, the concept of attack is scrutinised. Furthermore, the article addresses the principles of distinction and proportionality in relation to qualified cyber activities as an armed attack in the same conflict, emphasising the importance of the principle of proportionality in assessing cyber warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Court of Justice's case law, stretching back fifty years, provides that sporting practices which fall within the scope of EU law may be applied on the condition that it is shown they are necessary to achieve legitimate objectives and that they comply with the demands of the test of proportionality. This admirable model of 'conditional autonomy' is in danger. On 21 December 2023, the Court changed its approach. It restricted the scope for arguments specific to sport to be advanced in defence of practices reviewed against the demands of EU competition law. The risk is that an interpretation of EU law 'from a competition standpoint' – as the Court put it on 21 December - in pending cases concerning the transfer system, the regulation of agents and club (re)location will prevent sport's (claimed) special features even being assessed as part of the legal analysis. This paper urges the Court not to wreck its excellent track record in the development of EU sports law. It should treat most choices about governance in sport as restrictions of competition by effect, not object. The intent is not to immunise them from review but rather to ensure that review stretches beyond Article 101(3) TFEU and is fully sensitive to the economic and sporting context in which governing bodies operate as regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Neue Kriminalpolitik is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Técnica Tributaria is the property of Asociacion Espanola de Asesores Fiscales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Strategic Universe Journal / Univers Strategic is the property of Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University, Institute for Security Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The use of autonomous weapons systems (‘aws’) is the source of extensive discussions within the international legal community and beyond. After years of discussing definitions, the discourse is slowly moving on to discuss aws in light of existing law of armed conflict (‘loac’) rules. This article aims to support these discussions by providing a military legal perspective. aws offers great potential benefits to both soldiers and civilians, and control mechanisms already in place for military operations may be employed to define when and how aws can lawfully be used. aws can reduce the exposure of soldiers to dull, dirty and dangerous environments and the risk of incidental civilian harm. To exploit these potentials and ensure legality, regulators need to understand how military forces employ and control the use of force to support their operations, and military planners and decision-makers need to understand the limits of and possibilities within loac. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The principle of proportionality demands that a war (or action in war) achieve more goods than bads. In the philosophical literature there has been a wealth of work examining precisely which goods and bads may count toward this evaluation. However, in all of these discussions there is no mention of one of the most certain bads of war, namely the psychological harm(s) likely to be suffered by the combatants who ultimately must fight and kill for the purposes of winning in conflict. This paper argues that harms to one's own soldiers must be included in proportionality judgments, and goes on to argue that one of the most significant harms one's soldiers face are the psychological stresses and traumas associated with combat. The arguments draw on a growing wealth of psychological literature exploring the connections between combatancy and psychological trauma, and highlight, in particular, the uniquely negative impact which killing has on a combatant's mental well-being. The paper concludes that these factors place an almost certain and rather weighty negative weight in any proportionality calculations concerning wars with ground combatants who must fight "up close and personal", and that for more remote warfighters, there is also evidence to show that they may suffer deep psychological harm as a result of their combat roles as well. The argument, however, does not attempt to demonstrate that these factors render war impermissible. Rather, it merely shows that these harms, or bads, which can be quite significant, must be factored into our considerations of proportionality. The arguments themselves are rather uncontroversial, but they bring to light an element in the moral calculus which is sadly overlooked in most discussions of the ethics of war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the change in the electoral system used in elections to the Chamber of Deputies has attracted the attention of lawyers, political scientists, and sociologists, we still lack a comprehensive comparative analysis of the new system with the original one or other alternatives. The main reason for this is the lack of empirical data. This article overcomes this problem using a simulation of electoral results that correspond to the real Czech election environment. On the basis of this simulated dataset it is possible to generate generalisable conclusions about the proportionality, integration effect, and legitimacy of three electoral formulas: the original D'Hondt divisor, the newly adopted Imperiali quota, and the Hare quota. Our results show that the Hare quota is clearly the best choice. Its advantages in proportionality significantly outweigh its disadvantages in integrative effect. Moreover, this formula sees the least disruption to the logical sequence of results, i.e. where a party with fewer votes gets more seats, a phenomenon that is undesirable and undermines the legitimacy of elections. We are convinced that among the three formulas compared the Hare quota is the one that best fits the constitutional requirements of the electoral system as interpreted by the Constitutional Court, and that - unless the legislature is planning to change other parameters of the electoral system - it is the one that should be implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper problematizes the increasing trend of metadata collection by law enforcement, in light of the 'going dark' debate, which was spurred by the widespread adoption of secure encryption standards. Focusing on Indian privacy law, which remains nascent as of writing, we examine and propose potential constitutional limitations on metadata collection, and provide substantive guidance on their application. These limitations are bifurcated into two stages: first, whether metadata collection infringes upon the right to privacy, and second, whether the infringement is justified. In determining whether the collection of metadata in a specific case infringes privacy, we conceive of a 'contextual approach', challenging the usual ontological subordination of 'metadata' in relation to 'content data'. At the second stage, we centre the standard of proportionality. We offer substantive guidance for Indian courts at each step of the test, including the development of a 'risk profile' of metadata collection practices. Such guidance is crucial, given the technically intricate nature of cases involving metadata processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Fundamental rights to positive state action are costly. An allocation in favor of one individual rightsholder always results in lower allocations in favor of others. The dominant approach in fundamental rights doctrine assumes these conflicts can be resolved judicially by balancing competing rights and other public needs. In practice, carrying out an in-depth balancing in resource allocation cases proves challenging but constitutional courts developed different strategies and concepts to deal with costly rights. The European Court of Human Rights applies a "wide" margin of appreciation and requires that positive state obligations do "not impose an impossible or disproportionate burden on the authorities." Following the German Federal Constitutional Court, several constitutional courts have applied a concept known as the "proviso of the possible." The proviso of the possible constrains positive rights and results in a wide margin of discretion granted to political authorities. This article attempts to investigate the specific meaning of the "proviso of the possible" in the context of European fundamental rights law by comparing it against alternative doctrinal concepts. The investigation aims to identify common legal principles and methods to deal with fundamental rights conflicts over scarce public resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the aim of strengthening the didactic capacity of teachers in the Frenchspeaking Belgium in the teaching of proportionality, we designed a distance training course. The training lasted four weeks and benefited a total of 93 teachers. To evaluate the effectiveness of this training, we administered a pre-test and a post-test, assessing respectively the teachers' self-efficacy, their feeling of confidence in the didactic field and their satisfaction with the training. The results showed a significant improvement in teachers' confidence and self-efficacy. These positive results underline the importance and relevance of offering further online training courses focusing on the teaching of proportionality, with the aim of optimizing teachers' pedagogical skills in this specific mathematical area.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has challenged the ideals of peace that I and many other left-wing critical intellectuals hold dear. By the end of the 18th century, Immanuel Kant argued that the realist law of peoples and the idea of just war should be superseded by the idea of perpetual peace, and, fortunately, the principled opposition to war was institutionalized in the United Nations in the 20th century. However, when the aggressor has already taken possession of huge swathes of territory, calls for peace may be suspected of ideological bias. The right to defend yourself is almost universally recognized, but a military counter-offensive to reconquer lost territory is not merely defense but itself aggression, and thus an act of war. Many of us, however, want to support such efforts in Ukraine, and what is worrying is that this places us on a slippery slope, reopening the possibility of justifying war. As I will argue, this is nevertheless the path we must take, thus accepting the possible justification of war and the possible justification of specific activities and armaments but not others. We should take more seriously the justice of war, with all the specific normative challenges that this implies.

Background The stringency of the measures taken by governments to combat the COVID-19 pandemic varied considerably across countries and time. In the present study, we examined how the proportionality to the epidemiological situation is related to citizens’ behavior, motivation and mental health.Methods Across 421 days between March 2020 and March 2022, 273 722 Belgian participants (M age = 49.47; 63.9% female; 33% single) completed an online questionnaire. Multiple linear mixed regression modeling was used to examine the interaction between the epidemiological situation, as indicated by the actual hospitalization numbers, and the stringency index to predict day-to-day variation in the variables of interest.Results Systematic evidence emerged showing that disproportional situations, as opposed to proportional situations, were associated with a clear pattern of maladaptive outcomes. Specifically, when either strict or lenient measures were disproportional in relation to the epidemiological situation, people reported lower autonomous motivation, more controlled motivation and amotivation, less adherence to sanitary rules, higher perceived risk of infection, lower need satisfaction, and higher anxiety and depressive symptoms. Perceived risk severity especially covaried with the stringency of the measures. At the absolute level, citizens reported the highest need satisfaction and mental health during days with proportional lenient measures.Conclusion Stringent measures are not per se demotivating or compromising of people’s well-being, nor are lenient measures as such motivating or enhancing well-being. Only proportional measures, that is, measures with a level of stringency that is aligned with the actual epidemiological situation, are associated with the greatest motivational, behavioral, and mental health benefits.

The dual use of satellite services raises the question about the legitimacy of the counter actions against their functionality during the armed conflict. This article focused on the examination of the content of the key principles of international humanitarian law, i.e. distinction and proportionality, concerning their application to the space activity. In this context, the criterions of pre and post evaluation of input of space services to the military operation were analysed. The risk of creation of a cloud of space debris because of a breach of humanitarian law was also observed. As a result, the suggestion to develop and ratify Additional Protocol IV that would distinguish what constitutes a civilian object from a military objective and determine the scope and extent of damage proportional to the attack, is argued as a means that able to save outer space resource and space services during the space and cyber wars.

This article analyses the conditions for the application of interim measures in civil proceedings. With regard to the first condition for interim measures, the probable validity of the claim, it seeks answers as to what kind of judicial certainty is required to establish the probable validity of an action. It also analyses the concept of threat to the enforcement of the judgment as the second prerequisite and distinguishes between the concepts of threat to the rights of the applicant and threat to the actual enforcement of the judgment. Finally, the impact of the principle of proportionality in the application of interim measures is assessed and the question of whether proportionality can be considered as a third cumulative condition for the application of interim measures is analyzed, taking into account the good practice of foreign countries and sources of soft law. Both the relevant Lithuanian and foreign legal doctrine and case law are analysed.

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2023 8(2), 853-878 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Dual-track proceedings and the current scope of protection. – II. The need for a clear notion of “idem”. – III. The “sufficiently close connection in substance and time”: ECtHR case-law post A and B v Norway. – IV. The “sufficiently close connection in substance and time”: the unspoken balancing act engaged in by the ECtHR and an alternative criterion to assess whether there was a duplication of proceedings. – V. Lis pendens and ne bis in idem. – VI. Conclusion. | (Abstract) This Article analyses the issue of the compatibility with the ne bis in idem principle of the double-track sanctioning systems present in various European legal orders in the light of the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union. In particular, after a reconstruction of the most significant case-law after the famous ruling A and B v. Norway, three main critical points are brought into focus: the divergences between the national and European case-law on the interpretation of the notion of idem factum, the difficult practical application of the close connection test between proceedings developed by the European Court of Human Rights, which can be seen as the precipitate of an unsatisfactory balancing act of opposing interests, and the possible extension of the ne bis in idem principle also to cases of lis pendens.

The issue of unequal electoral turnout poses serious concerns for both the overall health of democratic politics, and the extent to which certain groups exert an unequal influence on the political process. This article explores the relationship between electoral rules such as: compulsory voting, electoral system proportionality, and voter registration with voter inequality in terms of age, income and education. This is examined using cross-national survey data and cross-level interactions between electoral institutions and socio-demographic variables. The final dataset is based on waves 2–4 of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, and contains information on 133,000 individuals, within 45 countries, between 2001 and 2016. The results indicate that compulsory voting is associated with a significant reduction in turnout inequalities, while the effects of proportionality and voter registration are somewhat more mixed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the world praised Taiwan for its exemplary management of the COVID-19 pandemic, a debate on its compliance with rule of law and human rights was shadowed. This manuscript examines the stringent policy of mandatory quarantine and isolation in Taiwan through the lens of personal liberty and argues that despite its effectiveness for public health, it was disproportionate, arbitrary and likely amounting to the ill-treatment of quarantined persons. Notwithstanding its implications for coronavirus policies elsewhere, the legal ramifications of Taiwan's lesson are also vital for scholarly debate on the limits of the established international human rights framework during the time of the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a theoretical and doctrinal solution to a vexing question in public law: how to determine the justifiability of Charter rights-limiting administrative decisions. The jurisprudence suggests three approaches, or modes of reasoning: minimal impairment analysis, 'interest balancing', and 'values-advancing reasoning'. Like Cerberus, the guard dog of Hades, Canadian public law has become three-headed. While scholars and courts argue about which mode of reasoning is categorically best, the culture of justification compels us to ask instead which provides the most compelling explanation for each rights-limiting decision. Just as cutting off one of Cerberus's heads would diminish his effectiveness as a guard dog, rejecting either of the modes of reasoning would limit decision makers' capacity to explain their decisions and undermine a culture of justification. The article makes a theoretical case for retaining all three modes of reasoning and sets out a doctrinal approach to determining when each is applicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their recent article on teachers' proportional reasoning, Copur-Gencturk et al. (2022) draw attention to a type of strategy that they call "relative", lodged right between additive and multiplicative thinking. This strategy raised interest in our research team, as it aligned well and helped give stronger meaning to some strategies obtained during a series of individual interviews on solving proportionality tasks. Using that "relative proportional reasoning" lens, this article explores several strategies engaged in by two students (11 and 13 years old) and in doing so outlines a number of dimensions about proportional reasoning that these strategies enable to draw out. The detailed consideration of this relative proportional reasoning raises important questions as to its possible role in the difficult transition from additive to multiplicative thinking in proportionality, opening the door to further inquiries on these matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Colombia, there is a constitutional guarantee to carry out dignified death. However, despite having been developed from various resolutions of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection (MinSalud), the practice can be complex due to the intervention of various actors with whom there may even be a conflict of rights. This article raises questions such as: what should be done when a euthanasia procedure is requested and the fundamental rights of the actors involved come into conflict? Are the regulations on the subject clear, complete, precise, and effective? Do the actors involved in these conflicts -- such as health service providers, patients, doctors -- see their rights in conflict in the euthanasia procedure in Colombia? To answer these questions, a study of the concepts of the right to a dignified death, conscientious objection, active and passive euthanasia, assisted suicide, and mercy killing was carried out, as well as the test of reasonableness and the principle of proportionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proportionality—the idea that causes are neither too general nor too specific for their effects—seems to recommend implausibly disjunctive causes (McGrath, 1998; Shapiro & Sober, 2012; Franklin-Hall, 2016). I argue that this problem should be avoided by appeal to the notion of cohesion. I propose an account of cohesion in terms of the similarity structure of property-spaces, argue that it is not objectionably mysterious, and that alternative approaches—based on naturalness, interventionism, and contrastivism—are inadequate without appeal to it. In an appendix, I show how my proposal can be perspicuously formalized by adapting structural equation models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide novel representations of strategy-proof voting rules applicable when voters have uni-dimensional single-peaked preferences. In particular, we introduce a 'grading curve' representation which is particularly useful when introducing variable electorates. Our analysis recovers, links and unifies existing results in the literature, and provides new characterizations when strategy-proofness is combined with other desirable properties such as ordinality, participation, consistency, and proportionality. Finally, the new representations are used to compute the strategy-proof methods that maximize the ex-ante social welfare for the L 2 -norm and a uniform prior. The resulting strategy-proof welfare maximizer is the linear median (or 'uniform median'), that we also characterize as the unique proportional strategy-proof voting rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developments in machine learning prompt questions about algorithmic decision-support systems (DSS) in warfare. This article explores how the use of these technologies impact practices of legal reasoning in military targeting. International Humanitarian Law (IHL) requires assessment of the proportionality of attacks, namely whether the expected incidental harm to civilians and civilian objects is excessive compared to the anticipated military advantage. Situating human agency in this practice of legal reasoning, this article considers whether the interaction between commanders (and the teams that support them) and algorithmic DSS for proportionality assessments alter this practice and displace the exercise of human agency. As DSS that purport to provide recommendations on proportionality generate output in a manner substantively different to proportionality assessments, these systems are not fit for purpose. Moreover, legal reasoning may be shaped by DSS that provide intelligence information due to the limits of reliability, biases and opacity characteristic of machine learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary Spanish criminal law dedicates much of its efforts to establishing the criminalization of certain conducts (and the determination of punishment for them) according to criteria independent of the harmfulness of the punished behaviors. This is evident regarding two areas of criminal law: petty offenses, and expression-related offenses. Its criminalization - despite the warnings of the doctrine - has not been restricted in recent years (quite the opposite). The study of these trends is developed in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the modelling technique of deterministic finite automata (DFA) of the procedure for controlling variables by solvers of different ages and educational backgrounds when solving a proportionality problem in a situation of constant rectilinear motion. The study is framed within the context of research aimed at characterizing cognitive change when solving proportionality tasks posed through interactive software. To demonstrate the potential of the DFA technique, the analysis of 2 cases is documented, regarding the frequency of transition towards different forms of using control variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Română de Drept Maritim is the property of Universul Juridic Publishing House and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Middle East Journal of Legal & Jurisprudence Studies / Mağallaẗ al-Šarq al-Awsaṭ li-l-ʿulūm al-Qānūniyyaẗ wa-al-Fiqhiyyaẗ is the property of Manar Elsharq for Studies & Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)