The last decade or so the concept of female trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation has lent itself to rigorous analysis and exploration. A plethora of domestic and transnational studies and reports have attempted to address the aetiology of human trafficking, as well as its epidemiology, often drawing from sources such as statistics, narratives, documents, and observations. While the great majority of such studies are engaged, if not preoccupied, in ‘unmasking’ the particularities of sex trafficking by taking into account (...) the detection, identification, rehabilitation, and repatriation of trafficked women, the prosecution and adjudication of sex trafficking cases are often left unexamined. With this in mind, this article sets out to explore the various forces that often come into play while sex trafficking cases in Cyprus are being processed by the domestic justice system. To this end, this article considers two dimensions, the trafficked women and the judiciary. (shrink)

This paper presents in outline Luigi Ferrajoli’s axiomatic and general theory of law, as developed in his lifelong work Principia Iuris . The first section focuses on the three main aspects of the theory: the methodological, the theoretical and the pragmatic, which respectively represent the theory’s syntax, semantics and its pragmatics. Ferrajoli identifies three deontic gaps of norms: firstly, the one between their validity and efficacy ; secondly, the one between their justice and validity ; and finally, and most importantly, (...) the one between validity and existence (i.e. normative force). The presence of such gaps is, according to Ferrajoli, the extraordinary innovation that entrenched constitutions have brought into modern legal systems, by establishing norms that are superior to statutes and case law. In this sense, all normative phenomena (except for the constitution itself) can be conceived both as norms and as facts. In the second section the role of juridical science is briefly discussed. (shrink)

Our experience of the present is defined by numbers, graphs and, increasingly, an algorithmically calculated future, based on the mathematical and formal reasoning that began with the rise of modern science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Today, this reasoning is further modified and extended in the form of computer-executed, algorithmic reasoning. Instead of fallible human reasoning, algorithms—based on mining databases for ‘information’—are seen to provide more efficient processes, offering fast solutions. In this paper, then, I will follow Jan Patočka, (...) who suggests that we live in an age of supercivilisation, one in which human reasoning has become self-sufficient, ceasing to depend on the supernatural or cultural traditions that previously guided human lives. My argument is that Patočka’s analysis of supercivilisation can open up a different way to reflect on the ‘spiritual foundation of our times’. As Patočka says, to reflect on our situation does not mean that we can change it, but reflection can give us a new understanding that will open up different ways to think about our human future. (shrink)

Today, data and intervening digital media provide critical lines of communication with our social and business connections. Even those we know personally will typically connect to us via digital means. As a consequence, data and the digital space add a third dimension to the individual: we are now mind, body and digitality. This essay considers how digitality affects outcomes for the individual by exploring the mechanisms of digital influence. By using Peirce’s theory of semiosis to explain the process of digital (...) translation, this essay demonstrates how digitality influences the development of the individual, undermines personal autonomy and changes the nature of legal personhood thereby providing points for future legal intervention. (shrink)

This article focusses on the social and legal implications that blockchain technology brings about, not only due to its ideological framework, but also, and especially, due to the concept of law it inaugurates. Thus, this article claims, that, by interlocking technological and legal structures, blockchain technology initiates a profound displacement of legal symbolics and imaginaries. It shows how blockchain law, by emancipating itself from three essential dimensions of law—language, territory, and the body—implies a profound disruption of how we perceive law (...) and its legitimacy. Starting with an overview of the technological details of blockchain, the paper then addresses its ideological context and traces the underlying ideas, values and functions and their relation with—and impact on—the general perception of law and legal issues. By critically assessing the claim that blockchain will liberate the subject from any heteronymic constraints, this paper analyses to what extent this technology has social and legal implications that reach far beyond its virtual, purely blockchain-related scope of applications—and why this technology should matter to us all. (shrink)