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This article seeks to conduct a critical analysis of the place the EU currently occupies on the international scene and how it uses its central position to shape international politics in order to promote international peace and security. For this purpose, it will firstly provide the reader with a general overview of the CFSP and how the Lisbon treaty changed the EU’s functioning in this field. Secondly, taking the EU-Russia relations as a starting point, this paper will evaluate the means the EU employs to achieve its CFSP goals. Thirdly, it will seek to predict the possible future of the EU role as a unitary political actor in the global fora.

Technological advancement influences all trias politica branches, including judiciary. Courts are undergoing the digitalization process to become more efficient. When it comes to adjudication matters, there have been plans in several States to incorporate AI-based algorithms replacing human judges. Such initiatives have raised interest among academics regarding their compatibility with the right to a fair trial under Article 6 ECHR. Specifically, the establishment of an AI-based tribunal is controversial when it comes to the criminal justice system as it deals with particularly serious crimes and penalties. Due to the complexity of criminal cases, it is debatable whether their adjudication can be left to automated machines. Accordingly, this article will answer this research question: to what extent does the employment of AI-based robot judges in criminal courts contradict Article 6(1) ECHR. The scope of this work will be limited to the requirements of independence and impartiality of the tribunal. Firstly, this article will discuss how these standards are perceived by the ECtHR in its case law. Secondly, it will address how an AI-based algorithm can replace human judges and benefits it brings to criminal justice system. Thirdly, this article will analyze key drawbacks AI-based criminal tribunals have regarding their independence and impartiality. As this article supports the idea of AI-based criminal judges, it will suggest possible safeguards for their compliance with these standards.

We are living in a 21st century where technology is entering into our life, our home and our daily-routine. Nevertheless, an ordinary citizen usually does not understand how deeply technology is integrated in our modern world. Technology is not only influencing private individuals, it is also coming to the public sector. One of the core examples of such a development is blockchain - a brand-new trust-based system used in both private and public sectors that is seen by them as an alternative to traditional systems of societal relations. Blockchain remains one of the most legally controversial topics of the modern community. Now, there are no official legal means to control the blockchain system, as origin and legal status of it cannot be explained by legal scholars. However, as blockchain is a largely used system, it cannot stay unregulated. This paper will elaborate on what blockchain is as an issue, on what has already been done by states towards its regulation and on benefits it can bring to states and private entities.

Together with technological development of the society, people started more and more exploiting resources of our planet in order to gain as much benefits for themselves as possible. As a result, they created a negative impact on the nature. Therefore, the necessity for laws protecting the environment appeared and political and legal measures were taken by many states worldwide. The European Union (afterwards: the EU) was not an exception as well. Accordingly, it designed a framework of protection of the environment on the territory of its Member States, called Natura 2000. It is a large network of protected areas around the EU, supervised by the European Commission (afterwards: the Commission) together with the authorities of the Member States. Nevertheless, all great initiatives have their drawbacks and issues. Unfortunately, same can be observed about Natura 2000. Currently, there are several problems which are impeding effective and uniform implementation of that program, usually being related to the monetary issues, poor ways of enforcement or lack of information shared with public.This article will seek to give an introduction to the topic of Natura 2000 and how it is working within the EU legal order. Moreover, it will illustrate the key issues which are still surrounding it and provide the reader with possible solutions. Accordingly, this article will firstly explain the theoretical background of Nature 2000 and its legal basis. Secondly, under the example of the Netherlands, it will unpack practical difficulties around Natura 2000 and show how the EU Member States are implementing it. Lastly, this article will try to elaborate on the means of improvement of environmental protection under Natura 2000 initiative in the EU territory.

Public procurement is a highly profitable field for the parties involved, making it vulnerable to a high level of fraudulent activities, particularly corruption. Several initiatives have been adopted on the EU level in order to “treat” corrupted tendering systems by digitalizing the tendering process. For instance, all European states have to adopt an e-procurement system, where all operators involved must submit tenders online, in an attempt to improve the transparency of the procedure by making the listing and bidding publicly available online. However, the transparency measures already in place have been proved to be insufficient to tackle the problem of corruption due to the data quality barriers in the current system. In that respect, one of the main struggles is the effective identification of fraud due to the present data silos regarding the internal procurement procedures. Moreover, the arguably unstructured nature and a significant heterogeneity of the available to the public data makes the barrier even stronger and precludes the citizens from effectively comprehending the decision-making process behind tendering. As a result, it can not only facilitate the prosperity of corruption in the public procurement field, but also distort public trust in the tendering process as a whole.This article argues for the use of blockchain technology in public procurement platforms to reduce corruption in public procurement in the EU by improving transparency and thereby increasing government accountability. The use of blockchain technology in the public procurement platforms can contribute to combat corruption in public procurement for a number of reasons. Blockchain is characterized by being a very transparent, easily auditable, and trustworthy system, which can record and store all the data that were involved in the public procurement process. Blockchain can also ensure equality of all tenders’ participants by ensuring that the same amount of information has been provided to each and every participant. The blockchain technology therefore increases transparency of the procurement process, and hence enables the stakeholders involved, such as tender applicants and citizens, to recognize fraudulent activities within the system, and consequently hold governments accountable.

Technological advancement is undoubtedly shaping current legal system. Artificial Intelligence (hereinafter ‘the AI’) has a considerable effect on both, its public and private actors. The former are seeking to employ newly developed algorithms in order to strengthen effectiveness of existing laws and their subsequent enforcement. The latter are more focused on the profit, hence, for instance, exploring how AI increases production efficiency. This article focuses on the technology called Automated Facial Recognition (hereinafter ‘the AFR’). Being based on AI, it is used by the law enforcement agencies in, for instance, predictions of the extent to which an individual is inclined to commit a specific crime, detecting wanted fugitives and searching for people who were declared to be missing. Accordingly, being integrated in cameras around the city, this technology analyses different features of individual’s face (e.g., eyes, mouth, specific region of the face as a whole, etc.) to achieve specific goals set by law enforcement agents.

The body of European Union competition law occupies a crucial place within the EU legal order. It is responsible for promoting and safeguarding the European internal market and ensures fair competition between corporations. Competition law is gradually developing and adapting to modern specifics and needs of the European market. On the one hand, one can see this process as a smooth evolution of legal theories, rules of conduct for companies and competition authorities. However, it has to be emphasised that changes of EU competition rules require a highly complicated interplay between various stakeholders in this field, such as the European Commission, EU courts and national competition authorities. One of the practices which acquired a vital role in this process is soft law enacted by the Commission. Being previously seen as a non-binding legal instrument, soft law created a great interest among legal scholars regarding the extent of its influence on the EU competition law sector. This paper will conduct a comparative analysis of various EU competition law actors regarding the application of the Commission’s soft law. Notably, it will target approaches used by the Court of Justice of the European Union and Commission, on the one hand, and the national competition authorities and national courts of the Member States, on the other. Accordingly, it will provide the reader with valuable insight into the role of non-binding rules in the harmonisation of EU competition law.