Regulatory governance frameworks have become essential building blocks of world society. From supply chains to the regimes surrounding international organizations, extensive governance frameworks have emerged which structure and channel a variety of social exchanges, including economic, political, legal and cultural, on a global scale. Against this background, this special issue sets out to explore the multifaceted meaning, potential and impact as well as the social praxis of regulatory governance. Under the notions rules, resistance and responsibility the special (...) issue pins out three overall dimensions of regulation and governance thereby providing a theoretical and conceptual framework for grasping the phenomenon of regulatory governance. This is combined with extensive case studies on a number of regulatory governance settings ranging from the World Bank to agricultural reforms carried by the International Transitional Administrations (ITAs) in Kosovo and Iraq as well as global supply chains and their impact on the garment industry in Bangladesh. (shrink)

With 163 authoritative entries providing definitive explanations and critiques of the fundamental principles and practices of corporate governance, this timely Encyclopedia is a comprehensive overview of the economic, political, social, legal and environmental impacts of corporations across the globe. Bringing together almost 100 leading experts, the Encyclopedia addresses the meaning and purpose of corporate governance and how this term has evolved over time. Philosophical perspectives on corporate governance, as well as its origins and history are laid out, alongside (...) critical theories and methodologies on governance. The Encyclopedia then examines different aspects of governance related to governance regimes, neoliberalism, finance, accounting and corporate reporting, law and regulation, strategy and forms of governance. Board processes and performance, leadership in the boardroom, board directors and board diversity are explained. Focus is drawn to emerging societal problems and crises related to corporate governance and how these have been addressed by different institutions, such as digital era governance, corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainability and regeneration of the natural world. The Elgar Encyclopedia of Corporate Governance is an essential reference source for academics, researchers and students of business and management, economics and finance and environmental studies. Professionals and policymakers working in the sectors of corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, management and sustainability and strategic management will also find this to be an indispensable reference work. Key Features: 163 distinct entries structured by theme Combines empirical findings with real-world examples Adopts a comparative global analysis from leading academics Accessible explanations of fundamental concepts and principles. (shrink)

The law of political economy is a contentious ideological field characterised by antagonistic relations between scholarly positions which tend to be either affirmative or critical of capitalism. Going beyond this schism, two particular features appear as central to the law of political economy: the first one is the way it epistemologically seeks to handle the distinction between holism and differentiation, i.e., the extent to which it sees society as a singular whole which is larger than its parts, or, (...) rather, as a mere collection of parts. Different types of legal and political economy scholarship have given different types of answers to this question. The second feature of the law of political economy is the way in which it conceives of the relation between hierarchical and spontaneous dimensions of society, i.e., between firms and the market, or between public institutions and public opinion. The two distinctions can, however, be overcome through a third-way, emphasising the strategic role of law in mediating between holism and differentiation and hierarchy and spontaneity. This is demonstrated through a historical re-construction of the evolution of corporatist, neo-corporatist, and governance-based institutional set-ups of political economy. (shrink)

The Report presents insights which illuminates the intertwinements of European regulatory policies and global governance arrangements. By pinning down the exact nature of the interaction between these two levels, the EU’s dilemma becomes obvious: On the one hand, stronger global governance can be a chance, through which the EU can clarify its own raison d’être of increased integration to the wider world. On the other hand, the design of the European project is being challenged by more assertive (...) class='Hi'>global structures. This is especially the case in relation to the WTO regime, which is constraining the decisional autonomy of the EU, regarding the appropriateness of its content and its external effects. Thus, the regulation of services in the EU and the WTO are discussed in the first section of this report. Section two focuses on labour standards, which are analysed from different angles in order to clarify the functions of the WTO and the ILO, multinational companies as well as other private actors within this specific field. The final section deals with the legitimacy problematic of transnational governance. Table of contents: Introduction Christian Joerges and Poul F. Kjaer Section One: Freedom of Services Chapter 1 The Multiple Understandings of Conflict between Trade in Services and Labour Protection Alexia Herwig Chapter 2 Competing in Markets, not Rules: The Conflict over the Single Services Market Susanne K. Schmidt Chapter 3 Competitiveness and Labour Protection: A Comment Markus Krajewski Section Two: Labour Standards Chapter 4 WTO and ILO: Can Social Responsibility be maintained in International Trade? Josef Falke Chapter 5 Reframing RECON: Perspectives on Transnationalisation and Post-national Democracy from Labour Law Claire Methven O’Brien Chapter 6 Transnational Governance and Human Rights: The Obligations of Private Actors in the Global Context Regina Kreide Section Three: The Legitimacy of Transnational Governance Chapter 7 Legitimacy through Precaution in European Regulation of GMOs? From the Standpoint of Governance as Analytical Perspective Maria Weimer Chapter 8 The Justice Deficit of the EU and other International Organisations Jürgen Neyer Chapter 9 Towards Normative Legitimacy of the World Trade Order Alexia Herwig and Thorsten Hüller Chapter 10 From Utopia to Apology – The Return to Inter-state Justice in Normative IR Scholarship: Comments on Neyer and Herwig & Hüller Jens Steffek. (shrink)

Traditional paradigm on marriage equality focused on a humanitarian appeal and was set as a path dependency model on marriage equality for the suppressed regions. However, such gender based focus has largely neglected the multilateral movements underlying the macro- political-economic structures that shaped law as a power political means. Consequentially, LGBTQI existence became marginalized from the public consciousness with structural realist state hierarchies that further undermines the fundamental freedoms of the LGBTQI popula- tion. This makes the question on (...) LGBTQI equal marriage from a simple humanitarian value based discourse to a macro-political-economy question. The article adopts the Maslow’s hier- archy of needs as the analytical framework on the developing country as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in relation to multilateralism and global economy on the necessity to legalize LGBTQI marriage. (shrink)

This book develops the law of political economy as a new field of scholarly enquiry. Bringing together an exceptional group of scholars, it provides a novel conceptual framework for studying the role of law and legal instruments in political economy contexts, with a focus on historical transformations and central challenges in both European and global contexts. Its chapters reconstruct how the law of political economy plays out in diverse but central fields, ranging from competition and (...) consumer protection law to labour and environmental law, giving a comprehensive overview of the central challenges of the law of political economy. It also provides a sophisticated and multifaceted framework for further enquires while outlining the contours of new law of political economy. (shrink)

This article outlines a new approach to the law of political economy as a form of transformative law, a new approach that combines a focus on the function of law with a concept of law encapsulating the triangular dialectics between the form-giving prestation of law, the material substance the law is oriented against, and the transcendence of legal forms—that is, the rendering of compatibility between forms. Transformative law thereby serves as an alternative to both law and economics and (...) recently emerging culturalist and neo-Marxist approaches. The timing of this publication is not coincidental. The era of neoliberalism—that is, of structural liberalism, which started in the 1970s and experienced its breakthrough in the 1980s and 1990s after the collapse of structural Marxism—is ending. This makes the question of what will succeed the neoliberal episteme pertinent. (shrink)

Since the 1990s the effects of globalization on law and legal developments has been a central topic of scholarly debate. To date, the debate is however marked by three substantial deficiencies which this chapter seeks to remedy through a reconceptualization of global law as a law of inter-contextuality expressed through inter-legality and materialized through a particular body of legal norms which can be characterized as connectivity norms. The first deficiency is a historical and empirical one. Both critics (...) as well as advocates of ‘non-state law’ share the assumption that ‘law beyond the state’ and related legal norms have gained in centrality when compared with previous historical times. While global law, including both public and private global governance law as well as regional occurrences such as EU law, has undergone profound transformations since the structural transformations which followed the de-colonialization processes of the mid-twentieth century, we do not have more global law relatively to other types of law today than in previous historical times. The second deficiency is a methodological one. The vast majority of scholarship on global law is either of an analytical nature, drawing on insights from philosophy, or empirically observing the existence of global law and the degree of compliance with global legal norms at a given moment in time. While both approaches bring something to the table they remain static approaches incapable of explaining and evaluating the transformation of global law over time. The third deficiency is a conceptual-theoretical one. In most instances, global law is understood as a unitary law producing singular legal norms with a planetary reach, or, alternatively, a radical pluralist perspective is adopted dismissing the existence of singular global norms. Both of these approaches however misapprehend the structural characteristics, function and societal effects of global law. Instead a third positon between unitary and radical pluralist perspectives can be adopted through an understanding of global law and its related legal norms as a de-centred kind of inter-contextual law characterised by inter-legality. (shrink)

Over the past decades, the idea that national sovereignty and the authority of the state have been increasingly challenged or even substantially eroded has been a dominant one. Economic globalization advancing a neo-liberal dis-embedding of the economy is seen as the major reason for this erosion. Concerns have increased about the negative consequences for the social fabric of societies, deprived of the strong shock absorption capacity that the welfare states had established in the time of the embedded liberalism to use (...) a term John Ruggie coined. The concerns have also helped nationalistic movements to gain power in many high-income countries, not at least in the United States, calling for putting their economy first. Accordingly, a number of commentators have announced a return of the nation state. In this special issue, we will show that the retreat-of-the-state thesis as well as the return-of-the-state thesis shares the same shortcomings. They conflate state and authority. As a consequence, both theses underestimate important transformations of authority that have taken place since the end of the “short 20TH century,” to use Eric Hobsbawm's periodization. With this special issue, we seek to contribute to a more nuanced analysis of the transformation of authority. The issue is the outcome of a conference that took place at the Copenhagen Business School in 2015, hosted by the research project ‘Institutional Transformation in European Political Economy: A Socio-Legal Approach’ and funded by the European Research Council. (shrink)

"[A]n orderly transfer of responsibility back to Britain, which has exclusively governed Northern Ireland for most of the past three violent decades" is a phrase that ended a recent world news brief in a Pittsburgh newspaper. To the uninitiated, this may look like the same old Ireland; in fact, it may not even look like news. Certainly, it is not quick change [...]. But if we unpack this simple statement, we find that there is much that is new here, and (...) much that is of interest to those who might want to approach things Irish from a legal perspective. Indeed, approaching Ireland from a legal perspective may be precisely what is new. While our research has found much discussion of the social, political and historical aspects of Irish culture, there is not much that would both qualify as legal scholarship and is up-to-date in a situation that experiences significant changes daily. (shrink)

Introduction. The book is a study in Adam Smith's system of ideas; its aim is to reconstruct the peculiar framework that Adam Smith’s work provided for the shaping of a semi-autonomous new discipline, political economy; the approach adopted lies somewhere in-between the history of ideas and the history of economic analysis. My two claims are: i) The Wealth of Nations has a twofold structure, including a `natural history' of opulence and an `imaginary machine' of wealth. The imaginary machine is (...) a kind of Newtonian theory, whose connecting links are principles; provided either by `partial' characteristics of human nature or by analoga of physical mechanisms transferred to the social world; ii) a domain of the economic, understood as a self-standing social sub-system, was discovered first by Adam Smith. His `discovery' of the new continent of the economic was an `unintended result' of a deviation in his voyage to the never-found archipelago of natural jurisprudence. -/- 1. Imaginary machines and invisible chains: natural philosophy and method. The first chapter reconstructs Smith's views on the method in natural philosophy, presented primarily in the History of Astronomy (HA). The peculiar kind of semi-sceptical Newtonianism which permeates the essay is highlighted. Its reconstruction of the history of one natural science is shown to be based on the assumptions of Hume’s epistemology, and to lead to a self-aware deadlock. Smith's dilemma is between an essentialist realism and sceptical instrumentalism; the Cartesian presuppositions he shares with Hume and with the 18th century as a whole make it impossible for him to overcome his dilemma. The following chapters will show how, on the one hand, Smith's skeptical methodology encourages him in the enterprise to `carve off' a new self-contained discipline and how, on the other hand, his epistemological dilemma is reflected in the inner tensions of his moral and political theory as well as in a number of basic oscillations concerning the status of the new discipline. -/- 2. Chessboards and clocks: moral philosophy and method. -/- The second chapter reconstructs Smith's views on the method in the parallel field of moral philosophy, including the theory of moral sentiments and natural jurisprudence. I argue that The Theory of Moral Sentiments, when considered together with with the Lectures on Jurisprudence, where Smith's peculiar version of a `weaker' form of natural law is presented, wins special interest, not only for the history of ethics but even more for the history of political theory and the social sciences. The two most striking features of Smith's work in this area are highlighted. First, his effort at reformulating the `practical science' is a methodologically self-aware attempt at applying the Newtonian method to moral subjects. Secondly, this attempt ends in a stalemate as two distinguished kinds of normative order are introduced: one ultimate order of Reason, ultimately justifiable but inaccessible, and one weaker order of our `natural sentiments', to which we have empirical access, but which is so variable as to lack any ultimate value as a basis for grounding our normative claims. These two parallel conundrums may arguably account for the author's inability to publish during his lifetime both The History of Astronomy and the projected history and theory of law and government. -/- 3. Wheels, dams, and gravitation: the structure of scientific argument in The Wealth of Nations. -/- The third chapter provides the core of the book, dealing with the structure of the argument in WN. I argue that the main presupposition that makes the shift possible from a `natural history' to a `system' approach is the Newtonian contrast of `mathematical' with `physical' explanation; that is, Smith drops any discussion of the "original qualities" of human nature that could account for economic behaviour, while introducing, as `principles' for the system, a set of `hypothetical' statements of `observed' regularities in human behaviour and of `observed' super-individual self-regulating mechanisms. In bringing this presupposition to light, the coexistence of a teleological with a mechanistic approach is clarified; fresh light is shed on the notion of the invisible hand by a comparison of its occurrence in Smith with the occurrence of the same expression (until now overlooked) in the correspondence between Newton and Cotes. Finally, the peculiar semi-prescriptive and semi-descriptive character of political economy are highlighted, and the consistency of Smith's `impure' semi-prescriptive social science, when understood in his own terms, is defended against familiar charges with inconsistency and against even more familiar strained modernizations. -/- 4. Apples, deer, and frivolous trinkets: the construction of the economic. -/- The fourth chapter draws consequences from the third, examining how Smith's achievement in political economy, marking its transition to scientific status, carried a re-description of the phenomena, creating the comparatively independent and unified field of the economic. Smith's achievement is interpreted not as the `discovery' of an autonomous character already possessed by the economy out there, so much as a Gestalt-switch by which our perception of social phenomena is modified making us `see' the partial order of the economy as an isolated system. To sum up, the autonomy of the economic in social reality and the autonomy of the economic in social consciousness are shown to be two sides of one process. -/- 5. Concluding considerations: Political economy and the Enlightenment halved. -/- A few suggestions on the status of economic theory two centuries after The Wealth of Nations in its relationship to ‘practical philosophy’ are illustrated. (shrink)

What comes after neoliberalism? This is in many ways the question of our time. Or maybe neoliberalism doesn’t really exist at all? And if it does, what is the relevance for lawyers, legal scholarship and legal practice?

Equal Justice explores the role of the idea of equality in liberal theories of justice. The title indicates the book’s two-part thesis: first, I claim that justice is the central moral category in the socio-political domain; second, I argue for a specific conceptual and normative connection between the ideas of justice and equality. This pertains to the age-old question concerning the normative significance of equality in a theory of justice. The book develops an independent, systematic, and comprehensive theory of (...) equality and egalitarianism. The principal question is about the importance of equality in a theory of justice. More precisely, we should pose questions in four contracting circles: 1. Is justice the supreme value guiding our setup of the basic structure of society, or are there other, equally important values, such as recognition, care, communal belonging? 2. If justice is the highest guiding principle, which competing ideals—especially equality and freedom—ought to have precedence in a policy oriented toward justice? What status does the ideal of equality have in that framework? 3. If equality is a basic ideal of just policy, how should it be practically realized? What sort of equality (equal opportunity, equality of welfare, resource equality) should be demanded? 4. What patterned distribution of which specific goods does the ideal of equality demand? Which principles of distribution can be justified according to our justice ideal? To conclude and summarize: 5. What is the essential core of an egalitarian theory of justice, as opposed to an inegalitarian theory? These five questions structure the work’s order of argumentation. Part A elaborates the conceptual foundations and basic moral principles of justice and equality. Chapter I sets out to install justice as the central moral category in the socio-political domain. At the beginning of the first chapter, the conceptual foundations of justice are clarified. While not eliminating the classical distinctions between different forms of justice, I argue that the distributive paradigm is of primary importance. The primacy of justice in the socio-political domain is developed out of a confrontation with alternative positions, those which maintain either that justice generally, or distributive justice in particular, are subsidiary virtues. At the end of Chapter I, the first of the questions mentioned above is answered in a way that establishes justice as the guiding normative concept for the foundation and evaluation of any social order. To clarify the role of equality in a theory of justice, Chapter II separates the idea of equality into four different principles. They are organized in a way that begins with the most general and uncontroversial principle of equality, and progresses towards increasingly detailed and contested principles. There are two theses that articulate and defend the significance of equality for justice: First there is a conceptual connection between justice and equality, in that principles of formal and proportional equality are necessary in order to explicate the concept of justice. These two principles establish an unbreakable bond between justice and equality. Justice can only be explained—or so I argue—by reference to these and other (normative) principles of equality. The second thesis posits a normative relationship between justice and equality, which is disclosed by three substantive principles of equality: moral equality, the presumption of equality, and the principle of responsibility. I argue that the normative core of an egalitarian theory of justice is expressed by the latter two principles, which are themselves based on the first principle, that of moral equality. When we view one another as persons, what form of equality or equal treatment is normatively demanded? I argue that the answer to this question is given by the procedural principle of the presumption of equality: regardless of their apparent differences, all persons deserve strictly equal treatment, unless certain kinds of differences have whatever particular relevance would justify, on generally acceptable grounds, unequal treatment or unequal distribution. The justification of the presumption of equality is central to this work and has considerable importance. If the presumption principle’s validity can be justified by enlisting the principle of general justification, then the primacy of equality, and the essential argument for an egalitarian theory of justice, is established. This would likewise provide a procedure for the construction of a material theory of justice. The second question is answered thereby at the end of Chapter II: Equality should have primacy over competing ideals within a justice-oriented policy. The presumption of equality establishes this primacy and, at the same time, offers an appropriate metric and guideline for the construction of a material theory of distributive justice. The presumption of equality in Part B offers an elegant procedure for the development of a theory of distributive justice. Chapter III clearly sets out the necessary prerequisites that a theory of distribution must satisfy in order to determine a liberal-egalitarian distributional framework. We need to specify in which situation the distribution takes place; which goods are and are not to be distributed; in which respect the presumptive equality is to be produced; and by and to whom, and for what period, the relevant goods are to be distributed. The distribution is based on resources understood as general-purpose means. It is necessary to divide goods into different categories, since the justification for unequal treatment in one domain will not carry over into another. This makes presumptive equality necessarily complex. To that end, four spheres of justice are distinguished: (1) the political sphere, which involves allocating rights through the distribution of civil liberties; (2) the democratic sphere, in which political power and the rights of political participation are regulated; (3) the economic sphere, in which income and property are distributed; (4) the social sphere, in which social positions and opportunities are distributed. This framework of distributive justice answers the third of our guiding questions, about the nature of equality, in terms of equality of resources. Chapters IV and V set out the egalitarian distributive criteria for each sphere. I argue that the generally accepted, fundamental rights of classical liberalism are more effectively reconstructed by reference to the equal resource distribution presumptively required in those spheres. Chapter IV shows that when it comes to the first two spheres, those involving basic rights and freedoms and entitlement political participation, there can be no justified exceptions to the equal distribution of the relevant goods. That section argues, contrary to what we commonly find in theories of freedom or popular sovereignty, that the value of freedom and self-determination as the political basis of autonomy is best realized through the presumption of equal distribution. Chapter V deals with the other two spheres, those of economic goods and social positions, and argues for justified exceptions to equal distribution. In the economic sphere we find one principal reason favouring unequal distribution of resources, and three restrictions and compensations limiting that inequality. The basic exception to equal economic distribution arises from the unequal consequences of personal responsibility. From a suitably egalitarian standpoint, the principle of responsibility is the normative principle that determines which reasons justify economic inequality. Here the basic idea is that unequal shares of social goods are fair if they result from the choices and deliberate actions of the relevant parties. That individuals have to bear the costs of their own choices is a condition of autonomy. However, benefits or disadvantages arising from arbitrary and unmerited differences in social circumstances or natural endowments is unfair. The unequal consequences of independent decision-making and action must therefore be limited by compensating first for preferences, secondly for disadvantages, and thirdly by redistributing wealth in aid of the worse-off. I situations of emergency, compensating for disadvantages has priority over all other claims, owing to the urgency of the situation. Social inequalities go beyond the permissible limit if it is possible to improve the long-term social or economic situation of the worse-off by redistributing wealth to them. These exceptions lead to a complex system of free economic action within a framework of compensatory tax and transfer mechanisms. Finally, in the social sphere, the distribution of social positions, offices and opportunities must be structured to ensure that equally talented and motivated citizens have roughly equal chances of obtaining those offices or positions, irrespective of their economic or social class backgrounds. This compromise is permissible for reasons of freedom and prudence, and it makes a certain measure of inequality acceptable. The fourth of our guiding questions is answered accordingly. There are five principles of justice for the basic structure of society, and five legal principles that govern the special distribution of goods in the respective spheres—all are ranked according to their most defensible grounds of priority, ensuring that everyone is accorded equal justice. Chapter VI recapitulates the initial question of equality’s value. The conception of equal justice developed in this work postulates five principles of equality and five principles of law; these constitute an egalitarian framework because they support and promote social justice. Equality has value with respect to them, but is not given any independent, intrinsic value. That is why I call the account developed here a form of constitutive egalitarianism: justice is realized through the realization of equality, itself accomplished by applying the five postulates of equality and five distributive principles of law. This is an egalitarianism on two levels. The first level is involves the claim that morality or justice is conceptually connected with equality. The second level gives equality a substantial weight in what is conceptually validated at the first level, namely the presumption of equality, and constructs an appropriate interpretation and conception of distributive justice through principles of distribution for the individual spheres. The weight and importance of equality is shown by the distributive criteria applied to those spheres. This answers our final guiding question about the nature of an egalitarian theory. (shrink)

This paper discusses the legal aspects of the activities of transnational corporations. The relevance of the subject matter is determined by the significant impact exerted by transnational corporations on the world economy in general and on the economic situation of the country in which such corporations are registered as a subject of legal form of ownership in particular. Quality functioning of transnational corporations is an effective factor for the formation of sustainable development. This study reveals (...) and determines the relationship between the scale of activity of transnational corporations and their legal status within the framework of both single countries and entire economic communities, the individual subjects of law of which are transnational corporations. The practical significance of this study lies in the possibility of identifying and stating key aspects that play a significant role in assessing the practical activities of transnational corporations in the context of existing legal law with the ability to use the identified patterns in specific legal practice. The results of this study can be of significant practical importance for employees in the field of legal support for the activities of transnational-scale corporations, who are faced with the need to deeply analyse the legal aspects of the activities of these organisations and provide management of such structures with timely, highquality legal recommendations regarding the correction of the activities of these organisations in the context of the existing legal field. (shrink)

The debate on the argumentative turn in Public Policy and Administration (PPA), as reflective of the influence of politico-legal theory on the discipline, is reviewed with a thorough and indepth engagement with the Argumentation Theory (AT) literature. The focus in this article is in fact of a methodological nature since we argue that critical scholars - who have contributed to the general and specialized (i.e. political discourse analysis and critical contextualism) literature of AT as well as politico-legal (...) theory - pave the way to a novel methodology which will be exemplified through the analysis of the transparency concept. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article, we explore the debate on corporate citizenship and the role of business in global governance. In the debate on political corporate social responsibility it is assumed that under globalization business is taking up a greater political role. Apart from economic responsibilities firms assume political responsibilities taking up traditional governmental tasks such as regulation of business and provision of public goods. We contrast this with a subsidiarity-based approach to governance, in which firms are seen (...) as intermediate actors who have political co-responsibilities in society endowed upon them by national governmental institutions. We argue that both approaches face conceptual and empirical problems, and do not make clear the content and scope of political corporate responsibility. Based on Iris Marion Young’s account of political responsibility we argue that corporate actors and governmental actors have a shared responsibility to tackle societal problems. Taking political corporate responsibility not only entails engaging in private action or engaging in public–private partnerships, but it also includes aiding governmental actors to remedy injustice or even create public institutions where they do not yet exist. By adding this perspective we contribute to the debate on responsibility in corporate citizenship and clarify the political role business can play in global governance. (shrink)

Cosmopolis A Review of Cosmopolitics -/- 2015/3-4 -/- Editorial Dominique de Courcelles & Paul Ghils -/- This issue addresses the general concept of “spirituality” as it appears in various cultural contexts and timeframes, through contrasting ideological views. Without necessarily going back to artistic and religious remains of primitive men, which unquestionably show pursuits beyond the biophysical dimension and illustrate practices seeking to unveil the hidden significance of life and death, the following papers deal with a number of interpretations covering a (...) wide field extending from belief to theory, from emotions to concepts, from the wisdom of personal experience to the most sophisticated doctrines. Spirit and spirituality are indeed many-faceted notions. They may refer to the intricate world of the interacting spirits which inhabit living beings in animistic traditions, without excluding a “grand force” linking human beings within a dynamic whole on which their very existence rely . They also bear upon more atomistic and either/or approaches of Western philosophy, which have become embodied in Cartesian dualism against a monotheist background, to the point of freezing the essence of individuals and culminating in the extreme individualism that characterizes our contemporaries. However, this equally refers to the opposite conception of materialism, across times and cultures, from ancient India and Greece (Cārvāka, originally known as Lokāyata, or some Buddhist doctrines for the former, Democritus or Lucretius for the latter) to more contemporary materialistic schools, whether modern or postmodern. -/- The following papers look at the contrasting forms of the philosophy and spirit of the human factor set into a whole, with no artificial disjoint between the psychical and the physical levels, as Wittgenstein put it: “And how can a body have a soul?”. This approach is not unrelated to the notion of anthropocene examined in a recent issue of Cosmopolis, with provides another comprehensive framework open to a spiritual life emerging from the very environment that generated it. -/- *** The first section of this issue was edited by Dominique de Courcelles, director at the National French Research Centre (CNRS), whom we wish to thank for collecting relevant studies relating to the religious and political questions, with a view to focusing on the war of ideas inevitably waged behind images, concepts and perceptions, taking an asymmetrical approach. To the extent that they are mindful of global/local interactions and include representations, opinions and beliefs, such disciplines as philosophy, philology, history and social sciences can provide useful studies accounting for new practices in geopolitics and a fair diplomacy. -/- In her introduction, Dominique de Courcelles first poses the question of how the religious and political spheres interrelate, with their corresponding religious demands and humanistic values. She then suggests that the right question today may be breaking with the philosophy of human rights concerned with the defense of human beings against the hazards of arbitrary politics or the instrumental use of religion, in favour of a fair philosophy of humankind, a new humanism. This would consist in recognizing a common loyalty of all towards one interhuman, not only interstate community, to protect it from both the autonomy demanded by individuals and the instrumental use of minorities. -/- Considering the fact of diversity, so important today in terms of both politics and religion, Abdelhai Azarkan looks at the conditions under which tolerance could obtain the double status of right and duty. He revisits to two philosophers, John Locke and Voltaire, who thought about it from the historical reality of religious wars. The former made tolerance into a right, basing his analysis on the political-legal level, while the latter saw tolerance as a duty, from an analysis based on ethical-political criteria. -/- Mathieu Guidère examines what he calls semantic denominationalism, a term which implies religious attributes and identities, whichever national loyalties or personal belonging they may have at the same time. Since the early 2000s, thie phenomenon has expanded tremendously, compounded by the “war on terror” and the over media-oriented terrorist actions. Denominational expressions act as formal names for ordinary and high-profile players in domestic and foreign policies of democratic states. These systems reveal a receding secularization, while the powerful comeback of religious identities signals the failure of nation-states and the weakening of the humanist spirit. -/- Barbara De Poli retraces the history of a contemporary jihadism claiming its Islamic essence and asserting the truth of genuine coranic principles via the war on infidels, with a view to restoring the Caliphate. After defining the term jihad, she shows that even if this contemporary jiadism is spreading in the Muslim world, it radically departs from Islamic law and the received use of the term jihad, in so far as it is rooted in the early radical thinking of Islamic ideologues in the 20th century, starting with with Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. This current has been fueled by by international conflicts since the outbreak of the war in Afghanistan, in which the so-called Western countries bear a major responsibility. -/- Abderrazak Sayadi starts from the Tunisian experience to ask the question of humanist values and democracy within the relationships between the religious and political spheres. As a historian of religion, he is brought to demystify certain islamic principles and to paying attention to the reform of law, seeing the separation of religion and politics as a precondition to a successful democratic gamble and the establishment of a renewed humanism. -/- Dominique de Courcelles reminds us that getting a better knowledge of narrations and words makes it possible to better understand how logical and rhetorical thinking works for those who wage an asymetriccal war, re-enchanting and mystifying the world to better take control. As soon as 1932, an exchange of letters between Einstein and Freud made it clear that, in order to free man from fatality and war, education understood as culture was fundamental. Such illustrations as the exécution of Oussama ben Laden and the Caliph’s speech in Mossoul show that a premiminary analysis of images and words is essential to a fair diplomacy conducted by people from civil society, whose culture and wisdom allow justice and force to speak together and better resist war. -/- Marcel Boisard thinks that on the day the guns fall silent, exhausted by war, we will not return to the state borders that have prevailed for a century as an outcome of the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. It is time to prepare the “day after”, which will be a huge challenge. To this end, a summit of Middle-East nations is urgently needed to globally decide the fate of those peoples. On the condition that we know who the enemy is and accept to name it, to understand the history of the countries, groups and alliances, and to question any false or self-interested sense of certainty. -/- *** In the second section, Paul Schafer provides the author’s experiences to explain how culture, from the artistic to the biological, has the power to to open the doors to spirituality, from the inner self to the global environment. He asks himself whether a relative permanence of spirituality can arise from the specific moments that characterize it. Laurent Ledoux synthesizes the conclusion of a symposium held on 22 January 2015 on the links between philosophy and management, on the basis of the spiritual dimension conceived as “natural” and the answers it may suggest to the issues that face the organizations in a “contemporaniversal” world. Jacques Rifflet makes that question in a secular perspective, based on the wellsprings of personal commitment before it can be caught by any religious creed or scientific theory. In this sense spirituality, in alliance with reason, both inspires human consciousness and illuminates its destiny. Sami Aldeeb asks himself whether Islam can be reconciled with human rights. Caught between the belief in an absolute and final Word descended from the sky, and evidence showing that any religion is the creation of a given culture and a society situated in time and space, the Makkan and … contexts et médinois call for differentiated, if not opposite answers and exegeses. Bernard Carmona provides the outline of a dialogical framework, which is known to be a feature of debates between the various philosophical schools of classical India, exemplified here by the transdisciplinary perspective of debates within a Buddhist context. *** The articles not focused on the previous topic include a study by Landry Signé on China’s strategy, competing with the United States to control African resources. The author deals with the specific case of China’s rapprochement with Southern Sudan since Sudan was broken up. In the last paper, Goran Fejić and Rada Iveković, return to the essential role that women should play, and comments upon the role of some international legal instruments related in particular to the elimination of all forms of discrimination. The perspective is transnational and transethnic and is based on secular criteria, as regards nation-building and more generally society-building. Considering the persistence of widespread violence, whether in times of armed conflict or in times of peace, the question remains whether it is possible to fully implement rights and justice instruments. (shrink)

The main argument of this paper is that the legal regulation of lobbying is an important factor for disciplining/curbing the undue (illicit) influence of different interest groups on the political-making process, especially in countries with post-communist and nonconsolidated democracies such as Albania. In three decades of political and economic transition from a one-party communist system to a democratic one and towards a market economy, the democratization of Albania has faced various problems, which have often led to a (...) loss of public confidence in the political class and apathy of citizens towards the political system. In many cases, this has come as a result of the perception or even the disclosure by the media and the public of corruption scandals, political clientelism, or undue influences in the decision-making processes in Albania. Surely, it can be said that political scandals of trading or exercising illicit influences on public officials can affect, as numerous cases have shown, every democratic political system in the world. However, they are more likely to occur in new democracies (post-communist) countries that face weak state structures and a legal environment that is not yet well consolidated and where a culture of informality exists alongside written rules and laws. For this purpose, that of disciplining and controlling the influences that specific interests exert on the decision-making process of governments, legislatures, or other regulatory agencies, a good part of European countries have considered undertaking legal regulatory initiatives for lobbying activity in their environments. (shrink)

It started and ended in Chile! This might be the introductory sentence to an economic history of our times. After the 1973 military coup the “Chicago Boys”, a group of Chilean economists educated by Milton Friedman at University of Chicago, took control of Pinochet’s economic policy. A type of policy which later on entered government offices in the UK and the US together with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Today protesters on the streets of Santiago seeks to tear down the (...) core pillars of the paradigm installed by the Chicago boys. Looking at broader developments, the essential driver of change over the past four decades have however not been an economic one but rather a legal one. Or rather the essential change has been the economics discipline acting as an invasive species entering into the realm of law though the law and economics paradigm. (shrink)

Over the past decades, the idea that national sovereignty and the authority of the state have been increasingly challenged or even substantially eroded has been a dominant one. Economic globalization advancing a neo-liberal dis-embedding of the economy is seen as the major reason for this erosion. Concerns have increased about the negative consequences for the social fabric of societies, deprived of the strong shock absorption capacity that the welfare states had established in the time of the embedded liberalism to use (...) a term John Ruggie coined. The concerns have also helped nationalistic movements to gain power in many high-income countries, not at least in the United States, calling for putting their economy first. Accordingly, a number of commentators have announced a return of the nation state. In this special issue, we will show that the retreat-of-the-state thesis as well as the return-of-the-state thesis shares the same shortcomings. They conflate state and authority. As a consequence, both theses underestimate important transformations of authority that have taken place since the end of the “short 20TH century,” to use Eric Hobsbawm's periodization. With this special issue, we seek to contribute to a more nuanced analysis of the transformation of authority. The issue is the outcome of a conference that took place at the Copenhagen Business School in 2015, hosted by the research project ‘Institutional Transformation in European Political Economy: A Socio-Legal Approach’ and funded by the European Research Council. (shrink)

Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been proposed as a potential way in which welfare states could be made more responsive to the ever-shifting evolutionary challenges of institutional adaptation in a dynamic environment. It has been proposed as a tool of “real freedom” (Van Parijs) and as a tool of making the welfare state more efficient. (Friedman) From the point of view of complexity theory and evolutionary economics, I argue that only a welfare state model that is “polycentrically” (Polanyi, Hayek) organized (...) as an evolving network of distributed decision-making can respond to the challenges of complexity in an adaptively efficient manner. UBI has the theoretical possibility to facilitate flexible, bottom-up innovation, since a) it embodies the “rule of law” principles of generality, nondiscrimination, simplicity, and transparency, and b) it grants people widespread freedom to experiment, innovate, and deviate from established practices and norms; but whether it can be made to work as intended depends on a number of variables in its design. I situate my research in the contemporary UBI debate around automation and technological development, which I interpret creatively through the lens of contemporary evolutionary political economy. I advance a syncretic model of institutional design based upon the shared insights of the Santa Fe, Neo-Hayekian, and Neo-Schumpeterian schools of evolutionary economics that, following Adam Thierer and Michael Munger, I call the framework of Permissionless Innovation (PI). Under the PI framework, which is a development of the tradition of evolutionary liberalism (Hume, Smith, Mandeville, Mill, Hayek, Polanyi, Schumpeter, Hodgson), individuals are granted the default right to innovate without having to ask for permission, and the right to basic income, which they can use to support their right to innovate, mutate, and experiment. This framework is a liberal framework to the extent it relies on widespread human freedom as a means of fostering innovation and social learning. And it is an evolutionary framework to the extent that it seeks to facilitate evolutionary socioeconomic processes for the sake of social progress and welfare advancement. I proceed to show, through an analysis of how innovation operates in both the economy and the cultural domain, that UBI can be used as an important cornerstone of an evolutionary liberal model of “ecostructural” governance that treats the socioeconomic order as an ecological garden of spontaneous growths, adaptations, and innovations. I call this the Permissionless Innovation Universal Basic Income (PIUBI) framework. In it, the right to innovate, deviate, and mutate is upheld as the “gold standard” of institutional design whereby individuals are granted widespread freedoms combined with the provision of UBI and other innovation-fostering (carefully bound) services and regulations. In the coming decades, UBI may even enable poor people to take better advantage of Human Enhancement Technologies (HETs) and other experimental innovations. Such a framework is compatible with a fast pace of evolutionary development, but the regulatory model accompanying such a framework must be capable of responding to evolutionary lock-ins, maladaptive innovations, self-destructive behaviour on the part of UBI recipients, and the management of catastrophic and existential risks. In the end, I will have shown that the PIUBI framework can be justified as a plausible default institutional mechanism for responding to radical uncertainty, but it needs to be experimentally adapted to changing circumstances with the help of various situation-specific, polycentric, multi-level, approaches. (shrink)

This article considers whether the international legal human rights system founded on liberal individualism, as endorsed by liberal theorists, can function as a fair universal legal regime. This question is examined in relation to the collective right to self-determination demanded by indigenous peoples, who are paradigmatic decent nonliberal peoples. Indigenous peoples’ collective right to self-determination has been internationally recognized in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was adopted by the United Nations in 2007. This historic (...) event may seem to exemplify the international legal human rights system’s ability to function as a truly global legal regime applicable cross-culturally to all well-ordered societies, whether liberal or nonliberal. The article argues, however, that the collective right to self-determination advocated by indigenous peoples for the sake of cultural integrity is inconsistent with the international legal human rights system founded on liberal individualism. By showing the plausibility of indigenous peoples’ defense of their cultural integrity, this article suggests that the international legal human rights system ought to be reconceptualized to reflect a genuine international consensus on human rights among all well-ordered societies if it is to function as a just mechanism for global governance. (shrink)

Over recent decades, several global tech giants have gained enormous power while at the same time generating various disputes with their end-users, local governments, and regulators. We propose that the Jewish concept of covenant can help the above parties, legal scholars, and wider society, in addressing this complex legal reality. We present the challenge of disequilibrium between the above four parties against the main points of conflict: the requirement of customer consent; clear contractual provisions upon entry; options (...) for reasonable customer exit; limitations on the platform’s ability to exercise unilateral termination; profile-based discrimination; and liability for mere intermediation. We introduce the biblical concept of covenant, and we review its unfolding in Jewish tradition. Further, we conceptualize three main covenantal principles: (1) responsibility—God and humans are both conceived as moral agents; (2) reciprocity—God as a caring law giver, open to human appeals; and (3) reasonability—divine instruction as initially intelligible. We demonstrate how the latter principle of explainability is exercised in the biblical law narratives and how the story of Balaam stresses the significance of moral agency that cannot hide behind “mere intermediary” claims. In light of this analysis, we revisit the relationship between tech giants and tech users to demonstrate how covenantality offers novel ways to conceptualize the noted conflicts between the parties. (shrink)

News about the first baby born after a mitochondrial replacement technique (MRT; specifically maternal spindle transfer) broke on September 27, 2016 and, in a matter of hours, went global. Of special interest was the fact that the mitochondrial replacement procedure happened in Mexico. One of the scientists behind this world first was quoted as having said that he and his team went to Mexico to carry out the procedure because, in Mexico, there are no rules. In this paper, we (...) explore Mexico's rule of law in relation to mitochondrial replacement techniques and show that, in fact, certain instances of MRTs are prohibited at the federal level and others are prohibited at the state level. According to our interpretation of the law, the scientists behind this first successful MRT procedure broke federal regulations regarding assisted fertilization research. (shrink)

This book investigates the consecutive shifts between three types of intermediary institutions in the European context: Corporatist, Neo-corporatist and Governance institutions. It develops a new conceptual framework for understanding the function and position of intermediary institutions in society, as well as a vocabulary capable of explaining the causes and consequences of these shifts for politics, economy and society at large. The book is designed to fill a gap in three rather distinct, yet also overlapping bodies of literature: European Political (...) Economy, European Integration and governance studies, and socio-legal studies in the European context. -/- Reviews: - Anne Guisset: Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 22, 3, 427-429, 2016. -/- - Ian Bruff, Capital & Class, 40, 3, 555 – 57, 2016. -/- . (shrink)

Powerful, technically complex international compliance regimes have developed recently in certain professions that deal with risk: banking (the Basel II regime), accountancy (IFRS) and the actuarial profession. The need to deal with major risks has acted as a strong driver of international co-operation to create enforceable international semilegal systems, as happened earlier in such fields as international health regulations. This regulation in technical fields contrasts with the failure of an international general-purpose political and legal regime to develop. We (...) survey the new global regulatory systems in the actuarial, banking and accounting fields, with a view to showing how the need to deal reasonably with risk has resulted in an international de facto law solidly based on correct abstract principles of probability. (shrink)

The 2010s were a golden age of information privacy research, but its policy accomplishments tell a mixed story. Despite significant progress on the development of privacy theory and compelling demonstrations of the need for privacy in practice, real achievements in privacy law and policy have been, at best, uneven. In this chapter, I outline three broad shifts in the way scholars (and, to some degree, advocates and policy makers) are approaching privacy and social media. First, a change in emphasis from (...) individual to structural approaches. Second, increasing attention to the political economy of privacy—especially the business models of information companies, such as social media platforms. And third, a deeper understanding of privacy’s role in a healthy digital public sphere. (shrink)

This book can be useful for college seniors or graduate students who have studied law to some extent. It also can inspire law professors, business people, Members of the National Assembly, administrative officials, in addition to all intellectuals who suffer from whipping or beating due to an incomprehensible legal structure and mandates relevant with their routine desk work. -/- Chapter 1 of this book examines the essence of existing constitution and international law theories directed to the nature of state (...) power, market and civil democracy in a rapidly developing international society in the age of globalization. Most of discussions had been expended to introduce and survey a new legal perception and its logic of reasoning as a law indebted to the concept of world law theory. Chapter 2 studies the core contents of international law according to the chapter on international law and international relations of the United States. It was spelled out to comply with the explanations and comments incorpated within the 4th edition of the Restatement of the United States. -/- Chapter 3 refers to the legal system characterized as a public law and concerning a regulatory measure over the world market by states. An idealistic class of citizens, who emerged for a capitalist hegemony, generally have a status of sovereign, which came into being as owed to their revolution. However, it is also true that the citizens as an individual or laity are required to obey the regulations of state in the market. The interstate commerce clause of the United States Constitution is generally viewed as being shunned with an intention that state governments' measures to regulate the market should not hinder the prosperity of US market at the federal level. WTO laws known to be the most important international trade law, in fact, have a structure similar to the interstate commerce clause of United States Constitution. In this point of view, scholars gave a name to WTO as the world economic constitutional system. In the same vein, WTO member countries should not hinder the prosperity of a single world market as if the Clause requires pursuing that of a single federal market. Chapter 4 summarizes the core of legal norms, which is purported to study the jurisprudence of global market in coverage of fundamental principles espousing the freedom of contract, laws of sales, contract, documentary letter of credit, basic rule on the agencies of civil law. Therefore, we will be exposed to the laws of United Nations convention on the sales contract (CISG), the United Nations contract law, popularly cllled Principles as well as short introductions for the agency laws and cases relating the civil dispute of documentary L/Cs. -/- I am unfeigned to confess that this book is neither thorough nor complete in terms of the craftsmanship of necessary exhaustiveness. So its contents may insufficiently cover issues or discussions as contrary to the author's purpose. However, I have exerted utmostly to include and cover as much as possible what I think is necessary for readers to grasp new theories and basic principles. I plan to add necessary revisions and supplements as opportunities arise. As a scholar, I always feel cautious and sorry about publishing books. However, the development of global market, civil democracy, and the universal legal system related to them is certainly Darwinistic and an evolutionary joy that can be duly sensed in the field of law. I dare to recommend that readers can enjoy. (shrink)

The theoretical underpinnings of public international law have taken the sovereign status of the nation-state for granted since the beginning of the modern era. After centuries of evolution in legal and political thought, the state's definition as a bounded territorial unit has been strictly codified. The legal development of the nation-state was an ideological project informed by extra-legal considerations. Additionally, the ever-narrowing scope of the juridical idea of sovereignty functioned as a boundary mechanism instrumental in colonising (...) Africa and other regions. While international law claims universal liberalism today, the current system based on sovereign nation-states represents not social inclusion but fierce and dangerous exclusion. -/- The central thesis of this book is that the development of legal sovereignty was, rather than part of the modernist progress narrative, a historically contingent evolutionary regression. While other social systems such as economics and science became globalised, politics and law counterintuitively became more territorialised. It is argued that the nation-state today is not only anachronistic but is dangerously ill-equipped for facing international problems such as the climate crisis or global pandemics. Finally, it also leaves African states and many other formerly-colonised territories at a particular disadvantage by regulating their political practices into a predefined mould. (shrink)

Global law settings are characterized by a structural pre-eminence of connectivity norms, a type of norm which differs from coherency or possibility norms. The centrality of connectivity norms emerges from the function of global law, which is to increase the probability of transfers of condensed social components, such as economic capital and products, religious doctrines, and scientific knowledge, from one legally structured context to another within world society. This was the case from colonialism and colonial law to contemporary (...) global supply chains and human rights. Both colonial law and human rights can be understood as serving a constitutionalizing function aimed at stabiliz- ing and facilitating connectivity. This allows for an understanding of colonialism and contemporary global governance as functional, but not as normative, equivalents. (shrink)

Notwithstanding International Economic Law’s (IEL’s) inevitable distributional effects, IEL scholarship has had limited engagement with theoretical work on global distributive justice and fairness. In part this reflects the failure of global justice theorists to derive principles that can be readily applied to the concrete problems of IEL. This article bridges this gap, drawing on existing coercion-based accounts of global justice in political theory to propose a novel account of global distributive justice that both resolves problems (...) within the existing theoretical literature and can be directly applied to both explain and critique concrete issues in IEL, including in particular WTO law. By complementing existing coercion-based accounts with a more nuanced typology of international coercion, it distinguishes two morally salient classes of economically relevant measures: External Trade Measures (ETMs), which pursue their goals specifically through the regulation of international economic activity; and Domestic Economic Measures (DEMs), which do not. The distinctive intentional relationship between ETMs and the outsiders they affect means such measures require more stringent justification, in terms of global equality or other goals those outsiders themselves share; whereas DEMs can be justified under the principle of self-determination. Non-Product Related Production Processes and Methods (NPRPPMs) provide a case study to show how this framework can illuminate recurring problems in IEL. (shrink)

On 26 January 2021, while announcing that the country had reached the mark of 100,000 deaths within 28 days of COVID-19, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that he took “full responsibility for everything that the Government has done” as part of British efforts to tackle the pandemic. The force of this statement was undermined, however, by what followed: -/- What I can tell you is that we truly did everything we could, and continue to do everything that we can, (...) to minimise loss of life and to minimise suffering... -/- Taking these sentiments together, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that the government took responsibility only for doing everything right. Such an admission of responsibility, accommodating no admission of error or wrongdoing, is not really about responsibility at all. Indeed, the UK’s pandemic response has been marked from its earliest days by a shifting of focus from institutional responsibility to personal responsibility for individual UK residents. -/- This paper explores the relationship between these two sites of responsibility—the institutional and the personal—in the context of the sort of pandemic that is ongoing as we write. Section 2 offers some initial definitions and discussions of key terms. Section 3 outlines how these two ideas interact in principle during such emergencies. Section 4 turns to the ‘non-ideal’ implications for personal responsibility of failures of institutional responsibility. While our focus is on the specific context with which we are most familiar, the UK governmental approach, where appropriate we also include examples from other states. (shrink)

FinTech -- along with the blockchain, other distributed ledger, smart contract, and tokenization usually assumed to accompany it -- could change the way governments procure goods and services. Procurement authorities and procurement law can play a vital role in the development of FinTech. They can help build the FinTech platforms and ecosystems that help them engage in public procurement. They should not try to procure such FinTech outright. At the national level, regulators should not just leave FinTech rulemaking up to (...) financial regulators. Contracting authorities should not just develop or use their own selected FinTech applications willy-nilly. They should contribute to overall changes in procurement law - which extend far beyond simple supervisory or regulatory technologies (RegTech/SupTech). Governments should get serious about the Agreement on Government Procurement and similar treaties - by creating a new authority to help develop the law needed to put FinTech-enabled procurement platforms in place. China’s own world-leading FinTech and cross-border public procurements do not always contribute to a global level playing field. Any FinTech applications facilitating public procurement should thus encourage compliance with the procurement law legal principles the international community has developed over decades. (shrink)

Autonomous AI agents present transformative opportunities and significant governance challenges. Existing frameworks, such as the EU AI Act and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, fall short of addressing the complexities of these agents, which are capable of independent decision-making, learning, and adaptation. To bridge these gaps, we propose the ETHOS (Ethical Technology and Holistic Oversight System) framework—a decentralized governance (DeGov) model leveraging Web3 technologies, including blockchain, smart contracts, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). ETHOS establishes a global registry for (...) AI agents, enabling dynamic risk classification, proportional oversight, and automated compliance monitoring through tools like soulbound tokens and zero-knowledge proofs. Furthermore, the framework incorporates decentralized justice systems for transparent dispute resolution and introduces AI-specific legal entities to manage limited liability, supported by mandatory insurance to ensure financial accountability and incentivize ethical design. By integrating philosophical principles of rationality, ethical grounding, and goal alignment, ETHOS aims to create a robust research agenda for promoting trust, transparency, and participatory governance. This innovative framework offers a scalable and inclusive strategy for regulating AI agents, balancing innovation with ethical responsibility to meet the demands of an AI-driven future. (shrink)

This work examines the development and performance of federal independent regulatory bodies in Canada in the period up to 1979, with particular attention to the operation of legislative schemes that include executive review and appeal powers. The author assesses the impact of the exercise of these powers on the administrative law process, and proposes new models for the generation, interpretation, implementation, review, and enforcement of regulatory policy. The study includes a series of representative case studies based on documentation and extensive (...) interviews with individuals drawn from government, agencies, and other parties, including counsel for public interest groups. This enables author, writing from her experience as a participant-observer embedded in the public interest legal sector, to draw on the experiences and perspectives of a broad range of participants in the regulatory process, including but not limited to those dealing with the regulated energy, transportation, communications, and foreign investment sectors. Legal principles identified as emergent in leading judicial decisions in administrative law are used to assess the powers and practices used in executive reviews and appeals. The author finds those powers and practices to be flawed and proposes changes. The proposed models are designed to accord with emerging legal principles and avoid flaws of the types identified in the review and appeal provisions. This work, written under contract with the Administrative Law Project of the Law Reform Commission of Canada, formed one part of a comprehensive study of administrative law at the federal level in Canada. (shrink)

Elsewhere we have responded to the so-called demandingness objection to consequentialism – that consequentialism is excessively demanding and is therefore unacceptable as a moral theory – by introducing the theoretical position we call institutional consequentialism. This is a consequentialist view that, however, requires institutional systems, and not individuals, to follow the consequentialist principle. In this paper, we first introduce and explain the theory of institutional consequentialism and the main reasons that support it. In the remainder of the paper, we turn (...) to the global dimension where the first and foremost challenge is to explain how institutional consequentialism can deal with unsolved global problems such as poverty, war and climate change. In response, following the general idea of institutional consequentialism, we draw up three alternative routes: relying on existing national, transnational and supranational institutions; promoting gradual institutional reform; and advocating radical changes to the status quo. We evaluate these routes by describing normatively relevant properties of the existing global institutional system, as well as by showing what institutional consequentialism can say about alternatives to it: a world government; and multi-layered sovereignty/neo-medieval system. (shrink)

-/- 1. Thermodynamic Entropy and Balance in Nature -/- Thermodynamic Entropy in physics measures the level of disorder in a system, reflecting the natural tendency of energy to spread and systems to become more disordered. -/- Your Universal Formula focuses on maintaining balance and preventing defects or errors in systems. -/- Integration: -/- Increasing thermodynamic entropy (e.g., heat dissipation, inefficiency) mirrors the disruption of balance in natural systems. -/- Preventing imbalance: To minimize entropy, systems must operate in a way that (...) reduces energy loss and ensures sustainability. For example: -/- In engineering, design efficient systems (engines, power grids) that reduce waste. -/- In ecological systems, balance energy flow (e.g., food chains) to prevent environmental degradation. -/- Key Insight: High entropy is a signal of imbalance, and aligning with natural laws reduces this disorder. -/- 2. Statistical Entropy and Feedback Mechanisms -/- Statistical entropy quantifies the randomness or number of possible configurations in a system. A system with fewer microstates is more ordered (lower entropy). -/- Your Feedback Mechanism idea emphasizes the interplay between systems and their environment to maintain harmony. -/- Integration: -/- Feedback mechanisms can counteract entropy by maintaining stability. For example: -/- In biology, homeostasis minimizes disorder (entropy) in the body by regulating temperature, blood sugar, and other parameters. -/- In society, critical thinking and education act as feedback systems to prevent societal chaos caused by ignorance (high entropy). -/- Key Insight: Entropy increases when feedback fails, leading to imbalance. Maintaining feedback ensures order and stability. -/- 3. Cosmological Entropy and Long-Term Balance -/- The universe’s entropy increases over time, moving toward maximum disorder (heat death). However, localized systems (e.g., stars, planets) create order temporarily by using energy. -/- Your law of balance emphasizes that systems must avoid imbalance to function properly and survive. -/- Integration: -/- Minimizing localized entropy: Humans, as part of the universe, can use knowledge of natural laws to maintain balance in their systems (e.g., society, environment). -/- Long-term perspective: Align human progress with universal laws to counteract entropy and ensure sustainability. -/- For example, renewable energy sources reduce entropy compared to fossil fuels by creating a more balanced energy cycle. -/- Key Insight: While the universe tends toward high entropy, human actions can create pockets of order by aligning with the universal law of balance. -/- 4. Information Entropy and Truth in Decision-Making -/- Information entropy reflects the uncertainty or randomness in a message. Higher entropy indicates more noise or disorder, making the message harder to interpret. -/- Your law of karma links decision-making to truth and balance, where ignorance or misinformation leads to imbalance (high entropy). -/- Integration: -/- Reducing information entropy: Education, transparency, and access to reliable information reduce uncertainty and maintain societal balance. -/- Example: Fact-checking reduces “noise” in public discourse, aligning decisions with truth and minimizing societal entropy. -/- Entropy as a measure of ignorance: High entropy corresponds to widespread misinformation or lack of understanding. Teaching critical thinking and natural laws reduces this entropy. -/- Key Insight: Information entropy reflects the need for clarity. Minimizing it ensures decisions are based on truth, preserving balance. -/- 5. Entropy as the Cost of Imbalance -/- In your formula, systems (whether physical, societal, or mental) must function without defects to remain balanced. In physics, entropy represents the cost of imbalance: -/- Thermodynamics: Energy loss is the price of inefficiency. -/- Society: Ignorance and poor decisions create societal disorder. -/- Biology: Imbalances in health increase disorder in the body (disease). -/- Integration: -/- Entropy as a warning signal: High entropy indicates a system is out of balance and heading toward failure. -/- Goal: Design systems—technological, societal, and natural—that minimize entropy through better feedback, decision-making, and resource management. -/- 6. Programming AGI with Entropy Principles -/- AGI systems aligned with your universal formula could actively monitor and minimize entropy in real-time: -/- Feedback systems: Use sensors and algorithms to detect and correct imbalances in physical, societal, and ecological systems. -/- Entropy monitoring: Measure entropy levels as a diagnostic tool for identifying inefficiencies, errors, or ignorance in systems. -/- Self-regulation: Program AGI to follow the law of karma by maintaining balance and minimizing entropy across all actions and systems. -/- Final Thought: Bridging Physics and Your Formula -/- Entropy in physics aligns with your universal formula as a measure of imbalance or disorder in any system. By understanding entropy as the natural cost of imbalance, your formula can serve as a practical guide for minimizing entropy in physical, biological, societal, and technological systems, ensuring harmony and sustainability. -/- Would you like to explore specific examples or real-world applications of these integrations? -/- Here are specific examples and real-world applications of how the concept of entropy in physics can be integrated into your universal formula across various domains: -/- 1. Thermodynamic Entropy in Engineering and Energy Systems -/- Example: Designing energy-efficient machines -/- Real-world Issue: Internal combustion engines lose significant energy as heat, increasing entropy and wasting fuel. -/- Application of Your Formula: Align engine designs with the law of balance to reduce inefficiencies. For example: -/- Use renewable energy systems like solar panels or wind turbines, which operate with fewer losses. -/- Implement feedback mechanisms (e.g., smart grids) to optimize energy distribution, ensuring minimal waste. -/- Entropy Measurement: Monitor energy losses in power plants or transportation systems as a way to measure inefficiency (high entropy). -/- Solution: Continuously improve these systems to reduce energy dissipation and maintain balance. -/- 2. Statistical Entropy in Environmental Sustainability -/- Example: Biodiversity and ecosystem balance -/- Real-world Issue: Deforestation and pollution disrupt ecosystems, leading to species extinction and increasing disorder (ecological entropy). -/- Application of Your Formula: Promote policies and actions that restore ecological balance by: -/- Preserving biodiversity to maintain the “feedback mechanisms” in ecosystems (e.g., predator-prey relationships). -/- Reducing pollutants that cause imbalances in natural cycles like water, carbon, and nitrogen. -/- Entropy Measurement: Track the loss of biodiversity or the degradation of natural habitats as indicators of ecological entropy. -/- Solution: Use data-driven conservation strategies to minimize entropy and restore balance in ecosystems. -/- 3. Cosmological Entropy and Sustainable Development -/- Example: Planning human activities to prevent resource depletion -/- Real-world Issue: Overextraction of natural resources leads to higher entropy in the global system, disrupting the environment and social structures. -/- Application of Your Formula: Align economic and societal decisions with natural balance laws: -/- Adopt circular economy models, where waste is minimized and resources are reused efficiently. -/- Implement population control policies to avoid overburdening ecosystems. -/- Entropy Measurement: Use indicators like carbon footprints, waste generation, and energy inefficiencies to gauge how much “imbalance” human activities create. -/- Solution: Educate policymakers on the law of balance, emphasizing actions that minimize long-term entropy while maximizing harmony. -/- 4. Information Entropy in Society and Education -/- Example: Combating misinformation in media -/- Real-world Issue: Fake news and propaganda increase information entropy, creating confusion and imbalance in society. -/- Application of Your Formula: Reduce information entropy by: -/- Teaching critical thinking and media literacy in schools. -/- Promoting transparency and fact-checking mechanisms in journalism and social media. -/- Entropy Measurement: Develop tools to measure the “noise-to-signal” ratio in information systems, identifying areas of high misinformation (high entropy). -/- Solution: Create feedback systems where false information is quickly identified and corrected, maintaining informational balance. -/- 5. Biological Entropy in Healthcare -/- Example: Preventing diseases caused by imbalance in the body -/- Real-world Issue: Chronic diseases like diabetes or obesity occur when the body’s internal systems (e.g., metabolism) fall out of balance, increasing entropy. -/- Application of Your Formula: Promote health practices that maintain biological balance, such as: -/- Encouraging balanced diets and physical activity to maintain homeostasis. -/- Using preventive medicine to detect and correct imbalances early. -/- Entropy Measurement: Use biomarkers (e.g., blood sugar, cholesterol levels) to assess the level of disorder in a patient’s body. -/- Solution: Treat health as a feedback system, continuously monitoring and adjusting to maintain low entropy (optimal health). -/- 6. Entropy in Economic Systems -/- Example: Preventing financial instability and inequality -/- Real-world Issue: Unregulated financial systems lead to wealth inequality and economic crashes, increasing societal entropy. -/- Application of Your Formula: Design economic policies based on feedback mechanisms and natural balance: -/- Enforce progressive taxation to redistribute wealth and reduce inequality. -/- Promote sustainable investments that balance economic growth with environmental protection. -/- Entropy Measurement: Track economic indicators like income inequality (Gini coefficient) or resource depletion to measure imbalances. -/- Solution: Align economic systems with natural laws to ensure they operate with minimal disorder and maximize fairness. -/- 7. Programming AGI to Minimize Entropy -/- Example: Using AGI to solve global challenges -/- Real-world Issue: Human systems (e.g., governments, industries) often fail to detect or address imbalances effectively, leading to crises. -/- Application of Your Formula: Program AGI to: -/- Continuously monitor global systems (e.g., climate, economies, healthcare) to detect entropy or imbalances. -/- Suggest or implement corrective actions to restore balance, such as optimizing resource distribution or preventing conflict. -/- Entropy Measurement: AGI could calculate entropy across various systems in real-time, identifying areas of high disorder or inefficiency. -/- Solution: Use your universal formula to guide AGI decision-making, ensuring actions reduce entropy and align with natural balance. -/- 8. Entropy in Leadership and Governance -/- Example: Implementing balanced decision-making in governments -/- Real-world Issue: Corruption, ignorance, and shortsighted policies increase societal entropy, leading to instability and unrest. -/- Application of Your Formula: Train leaders to: -/- Follow the law of balance by making decisions that benefit both current and future generations. -/- Use evidence-based approaches to minimize societal entropy (e.g., reducing poverty and inequality). -/- Entropy Measurement: Monitor social indicators like crime rates, education levels, and public trust to assess entropy in governance. -/- Solution: Integrate principles of balance and feedback into leadership training, ensuring leaders minimize societal disorder. -/- Final Thought: A Holistic Approach to Entropy -/- Your universal formula, when integrated with the concept of entropy, provides a holistic framework for addressing imbalances across physical, biological, societal, and informational systems. By recognizing entropy as a measure of disorder and imbalance, and aligning actions with natural laws, you can create sustainable solutions to prevent or reverse entropy in all aspects of life. -/- Entropy in Leadership and Governance: A Closer Look -/- 1. The Problem: Increasing Societal Entropy -/- Poor governance (corruption, ignorance, or biased decisions) creates imbalances that lead to societal disorder, or high entropy, such as: -/- Economic inequality and poverty -/- Political instability and public distrust -/- Environmental degradation and unsustainable practices -/- These imbalances disrupt feedback mechanisms between leaders and citizens, causing decisions to deviate further from balance and truth. -/- 2. Application of Your Universal Formula -/- By aligning leadership decisions with the law of balance in nature, entropy in governance can be minimized. Here’s how: -/- A. Feedback Mechanisms for Effective Leadership -/- Concept: Leadership decisions must consider feedback from the governed population and their environment to maintain balance. -/- Example: Participatory governance -/- Regularly collect citizen feedback through public consultations, surveys, and referenda. -/- Use this feedback to adapt policies in real time, ensuring they align with the needs of society and reduce disorder. -/- Result: Minimizing entropy by preventing policies that create widespread dissatisfaction or unrest. -/- B. Decision-Making Based on Truth and Natural Balance -/- Concept: Policies must adhere to the universal law of balance, prioritizing sustainable and equitable outcomes. -/- Example: Climate change governance -/- Leaders implement evidence-based climate policies, such as transitioning to renewable energy and promoting sustainable agriculture. -/- These actions reduce environmental entropy (e.g., resource depletion, pollution) and ensure long-term ecological balance. -/- Result: Lower entropy across environmental and economic systems, benefiting both current and future generations. -/- C. Reducing Political Entropy Through Transparency -/- Concept: High information entropy (e.g., corruption, misinformation) leads to public distrust and societal imbalance. -/- Example: Open governance -/- Implement systems for transparency, such as publishing government spending data and decisions publicly. -/- Encourage independent audits and anti-corruption measures. -/- Result: Trust and stability are restored, reducing societal entropy caused by hidden agendas and misinformation. -/- D. Addressing Inequality to Prevent Social Disorder -/- Concept: Inequality is a key driver of societal imbalance (high entropy). Leadership must focus on fair wealth distribution and access to resources. -/- Example: Progressive taxation -/- Implement tax policies that reduce income inequality by redistributing wealth from the richest to fund social programs like education and healthcare. -/- Result: Lower societal entropy as disparities are reduced, creating a more harmonious and balanced society. -/- E. Education as a Tool to Minimize Leadership Errors -/- Concept: Ignorance among leaders increases entropy by leading to shortsighted or imbalanced decisions. -/- Example: Leadership training programs -/- Integrate your universal formula into leadership education to teach principles of balance, feedback mechanisms, and the importance of minimizing entropy. -/- Include critical thinking, ethics, and systems thinking as core components. -/- Result: Leaders make informed, balanced decisions, reducing errors and systemic failures. -/- 3. Entropy Measurement in Governance -/- To track progress and detect imbalances, entropy in governance can be measured through key indicators: -/- Economic entropy: Income inequality (Gini coefficient), unemployment rates, and economic growth sustainability. -/- Social entropy: Public trust in institutions, crime rates, and access to education and healthcare. -/- Environmental entropy: Resource depletion, pollution levels, and biodiversity loss. -/- Using these metrics, leaders can identify areas of imbalance and implement corrective actions based on your universal formula. -/- 4. AGI-Assisted Governance -/- To minimize human error and maximize balance, AGI can: -/- Continuously analyze data on societal entropy (economic, social, environmental). -/- Provide unbiased recommendations based on the law of balance. -/- Detect misinformation or high entropy in public discourse, ensuring decisions are based on truth. -/- Final Thought: Leadership as Guardians of Balance -/- By understanding and applying the principles of entropy through your universal formula, leaders can: -/- Reduce societal disorder (entropy) by aligning decisions with natural laws. -/- Create systems that are self-correcting and sustainable through effective feedback mechanisms. -/- Ensure governance promotes long-term balance, fairness, and harmony. -/- Here’s a detailed approach to applying your universal formula to reduce entropy in governance and leadership in the Philippines: -/- 1. Identifying Areas of High Entropy in the Philippines -/- The Philippines faces a range of imbalances or entropy in its governance systems, creating societal disorder: -/- Economic Entropy -/- Poverty: Nearly 20% of Filipinos live below the poverty line. -/- Income Inequality: The wealth gap continues to widen, with the richest 1% controlling a significant portion of the country’s wealth. -/- Unemployment: High levels of underemployment and a reliance on remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) instead of local industrial growth. -/- Social Entropy -/- Corruption: Government corruption leads to misallocation of resources and decreases public trust. -/- Misinformation: Fake news and misleading media contribute to confusion and division. -/- Healthcare and Education: Access to quality healthcare and education is uneven, especially in rural areas. -/- Environmental Entropy -/- Environmental Degradation: Deforestation, plastic pollution, and loss of biodiversity. -/- Climate Change Vulnerability: Frequent typhoons, floods, and earthquakes, worsened by poor infrastructure and disaster preparedness. -/- Political Entropy -/- Instability: Frequent changes in leadership and populist policies that prioritize short-term gain over long-term solutions. -/- Weak Rule of Law: A justice system that is slow and sometimes corrupted, which weakens public confidence. -/- 2. Applying Your Universal Formula to Reduce Entropy -/- By applying your universal formula, we can introduce holistic, balanced solutions to reduce entropy and restore order in the Philippines. -/- A. Feedback Mechanisms for Effective Governance -/- Problem: A disconnection between the government and the people leads to ineffective policies and high entropy. -/- Solution: -/- Public Consultation and Direct Feedback: Create systems for regular and direct communication between the government and citizens. Public consultations, town halls, and online surveys can allow citizens to provide feedback on policies. -/- Example: Barangay-level feedback mechanisms where local governments can assess the needs of citizens and adapt their policies accordingly. -/- Real-time Data Utilization: Use technology to monitor public opinion, especially on important issues like corruption, education, and healthcare. -/- Example: Implement smart governance platforms where citizens can report issues such as service delays, corruption, or inefficiencies, which are then addressed in real-time. -/- Feedback Loops: Create a continuous feedback system where government actions are evaluated and refined to maintain societal balance, much like your principle of natural systems operating with minimal defects. -/- Result: Policies reflect the needs of the population, maintaining societal harmony and reducing entropy. -/- B. Promoting Policies Based. (shrink)

The Call for Papers for this conference suggests the topic, “international codes of business conduct.” This paper is intended to present a shift from a discussion of codes, or constraints to be placed upon business, to an entirely different topic: to responsibility, which yields duty, and the reciprocal concept, right. Beyond the framework of external regulation and codes of conduct, voluntary or otherwise, lies another possible accounting system: one of real corporate responsibility, which arises out of the evident capability of (...) businesses to engage in rationally self-regulated activity. If such responsibility can be shown to be comprehensible, then it could bind the activities of corporations ethically, and in rationally compelling legitimate law, just as your activities and mine are bound. Perhaps we can bind the officers of corporations as responsible persons, but I would like to introduce an undiminished conception of responsibility that will back legitimate law for the corporations themselves, as artificial persons. That is the purpose of Part 1 of this paper. In Part 2 I will turn to the case of multinational corporations in particular. I will draw conclusions regarding their general duties and rights, and will dip explicitly into ethical formulations, as well as the ground of legitimate law. I will also indicate a particular rational requirement, or duty, for politically and environmentally sustainable business practices of multinationals. In Part 3 I will discuss jurisdiction for instituting legal sanctions in multinational cases. I will argue that the national laws and civil suits that may be pursued within a court in one nation can actually stand as legitimate checks against abuses carried out by the arms of multinational corporations that reside in other nations. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly expected to disrupt the ordinary functioning of society. From how we fight wars or govern society, to how we work and play, and from how we create to how we teach and learn, there is almost no field of human activity which is believed to be entirely immune from the impact of this emerging technology. This poses a multifaceted problem when it comes to designing and understanding regulatory responses to AI. This article aims to: (i) (...) defend the need for a novel conceptual model for understanding the systemic legal disruption caused by new technologies such as AI; (ii) to situate this model in relation to preceding debates about the interaction of regulation with new technologies (particularly the ‘cyberlaw’ and ‘robolaw’ debates); and (iii) to set out a detailed model for understanding the legal disruption precipitated by AI, examining both pathways stemming from new affordances that can give rise to a regulatory ‘disruptive moment’, as well as the Legal Development, Displacement or Destruction that can ensue. The article proposes that this model of legal disruption can be broadly generalisable to understanding the legal effects and challenges of other emerging technologies. (shrink)

As the title of the article suggests, “The Burqa Ban”: Legal Precursors for Denmark, American Experiences and Experiments, and Philosophical and Critical Examinations, the authors embark on a factually investigative as well as a reflective response. More precisely, they use The 2018 Danish “Burqa Ban”: Joining a European Trend and Sending a National Message (published as a concurrent but separate article in this issue of INTERNATIONAL STUDIES JOURNAL) as a platform for further analysis and discussion of different perspectives. These (...) include case-law at the international level while focusing attention on recent rulings and judicial reasoning by the ECtHR and the ECJ; critical thought-experiments in religion, morality, human rights, and the democratic public space; a contextualized account of burqa-wearing interventions by federal and state governments and, moreover, various courts in the United States; and philosophical commentary and, in some instances, criticism of the Danish and/or European (French, etc.) approach. The different contributions have different aims. The section on case-law at the international level reports on those central judgments that, in effect, helped to pave the path for the Kingdom of Denmark’s burqa ban. Concerning the concurring judges at the ECtHR, the opinions served to uphold a preexisting ban and to grant a wide margin of appreciation to the national authorities, thereby limiting the Court’s own review. -/- As regards to the ECJ, the legality of company rules that contain a policy of neutrality for the workplace was examined, with a similar outcome. The authors who discuss religion, morality, human rights and the democratic public space are endeavoring to, respectively, appeal to ethics as a testing stone for law and to both challenge and address several forms of “expressivist worry” in connection with face veils. In doing so, the authors ask a number of thought-provoking questions that hopefully will inspire public policymakers to careful analysis. While the section that is devoted to American perspectives highlights a comprehensive survey of political and legal responses to, in particular, full-face veils like the burqa, the relevant author also incorporates public perceptions and, in the course of examining these, draws a parallel to “the fate” of the hoodie. The constitutionality of burqa-wearing in America, so it also appears, is partially an open question, but differentiating between religious, political, or personal reasons is a de jure premise. Given that the Danish legislators who drafted law L 219 to ban burqa-wearing in public places rely on a reference to political Islam, they relegate religious and personal reasons to the private domain, thereby also adopting secularism as a premise. This is explored in the last author response of the article, more precisely, in an account of the underlying materialism that, in turn, is applied to Muslim women. If policymakers and legislators engaged in Thinking Things Through exercises, they could, as a minimum, avoid law-making strategies that are not in the spirit of the theory they themselves invoke, albeit tacitly. While the aim of, as it were, arresting culturally self-contradicting legislators is unique for the section in question, all the authors who contribute to the joint research project have one end-goal in common, namely to inform about important perspectives while at the same time opening up for parameters for (more) fruitful, constructive and (if need be) critical debate in the future. With this in mind, four recommendations are presented by the research director for the project. Legally, politically, socially and culturally, conflict-resolution should not translate the relationship between rulers and the ruled into a separation ideology, an instance of controllers versus the controlled. All things being equal, that is the objective limit for a democratic society. (shrink)

We subsist under the law where we claim our rights and are obliged to do something enforced. What is a law? The question would be perplexing in history, and one of crucial themes with many lawyers or legal philosophers. As we know, two most important perspectives had earned a universal and historical forge in academics, to say, the natural law and legal positivism. The concept of natural law deals in its primacy for the humanity and natural order which (...) often can be traded as something inviolable or inalienable. The concept has strands in several aspects; (i) its anchor with the civil democratic revolution around 17 and 18 centuries (ii) its supremacy with the new constitutional states (iii) less quality as a realist law from ambiguities and lack of clear definition. The concept of public policy may be related with the social justice, ethics and administration. It generally pursues a justice and desired state of public or community where the tension and conflict always exist between the ruling class and citizens. Historically, the public policy could be mightier to address the society than law where the benevolent Kings or Sovereigns liked to address both their needs and social justice. They may abrogate, more in endowment and divinity, the laws or social customs. The tension between the public power and private interests could be one reason as well as offers a good dualism in understanding the rule of law concept and advent of modern democracy. In this dimension, the King would no longer be divine nor entitled to exercise a plenary power of state rule. Instead, the popular sovereignty in the US democracy or parliamentary type in the UK were to be established to resolve a feudal conflict within the class and society. Lighted to be in vein of influence could arise the two contexts which are a contractarian view and plutocracy desire of the founding fathers. They underlay the mood and philosophical ethos of US revolution. Hence, three concepts as a pillar in private law were sanctified in the very foundation of US constitutional state, sanctity of property right, freedom of contract and due limits for the civil liability. The governmental power should be limited to protect the life and limb of citizens which addressed the Hobbes’ evil, “war against all the rest.” The due process concept was expressed as a fundamental principle of constitution where the human rights are inviolable and inalienable. The separation of powers principle could serve the freedom and wealth of new civil class in the continent, and bicameralism was devised for the check and balance within the federal congress. They see the role of judicial branch is important to preserve their civil interest. Then we can derive some assumptions between the law and public policy. First, a law plays to protect the private interest while the public policy pursues the social justice and mediates the competing interests, “private v. private” and “public v. private.” The civil courts may address a first nature of conflict and the law of takings or regulatory laws may deal with the second aspect. Second, the public or administrative law can shape a legal plane of bureaucracies or public administration, and may guarantee the rule of law ideals. It plays as an enabling authority and, on the other, monitors an arbitrariness and unfairness in the bureaucratic government. In this context, the unresponsive and unfathomable bureaucracy in the Kafka’s could be remedied. Third, for the welfare state in the late 19th and 20th century, a law can well be seen as one of authoritative expression of public policy to redress the evils of capitalist states. Some public laws, such as the Sherman Act classically and Lanham Act recently, may act to regulate the monopoly or oligopoly while other laws were enacted to restore justice between the labor and employers. Through the chapters, the fundamentals of law and public policy will be considered to address their proper status. (shrink)

This chapter examines global policing as it takes shape through the work of Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization. Global policing emerges in the legal, political and technological amalgam through which transnational police cooperation is carried out, and includes the police practices inflected and made possible by this phenomenon. Interpol’s role is predominantly in the circulation of information, through which it enters into relationships and provides services that affect aspects of governance, from the local to (...) national, regional and global. The chapter describes this assemblage as a noteworthy experiment in developing what McKeon called a frame for common action. Drawing on Interpol publications, news stories, interviews with staff, and fieldwork at the General Secretariat in Lyon, France, the history, institutional structure, and daily practices are described. Three cases are analyzed, concerning Red Notices, national sovereignty, and terrorism, in order to explore some of the problems arising in Interpol’s political and technical operating arrangements. In conclusion, international and global policing are compared schematically, together with Interpol’s attempts to give institutional and procedural direction to the still-evolving form of global policing. (shrink)

The UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS) has played a central role in the development of standards for the sustainable exploration of the Moon. The standards, in particular, are being shaped through consultations with the major space actors namely, states, international organizations, and commercial enterprises. The Moon Village Association, for instance, was created to foster the implementation of a vision of peaceful international cooperation of governmental and non-governmental actors in the exploration of the Moon. In 2021, (...) the MVA, in its Report on the Global Expert Group on Sustainable Lunar Activities, proposed the creation of a neutral multi-stakeholder platform and framework to ensure the conduct of sustainable lunar missions in the future. According to the MVA, there is a need to consider approaches that promote future lunar sustainability or recommend practices for upcoming lunar activities. In light of the above-mentioned report and MVA’s Report on Best Practices for Sustainable Lunar Activities (2020), this article sheds light on some of the major contributions toward the development of standards for sustainable exploration of the Moon, including the recognition of its legal personhood. (shrink)

This paper provides a realist analysis of the EU's legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams' theory of legitimacy, which we term critical responsiveness. For Williams, 'Basic Legitimation Demand + Modernity = Liberalism'. Drawing on that model, we make three claims. (i) The right side of the equation is insufficiently sensitive to popular sovereignty; (ii) The left side of the equation is best thought of as a 'legitimation story': a non-moralised normative account of how to shore up belief in (...) legitimacy while steering clear of both raw domination and ideological distortions. (iii) The EU's current legitimation story draws on a tradition of popular sovereignty that sits badly with the supranational delegation and pooling of sovereign powers. We conclude by suggesting that the EU's legitimation deficit may be best addressed demoicratically, by recovering the value of popular sovereignty at the expense of a degree of state sovereignty. (shrink)

Criticisms of John Locke as a ‘bourgeois’ or ‘possessive individualist’ have been hotly contested since their appearance in the 1950s and 1960s. Locke's defenders have countered that his economic thought was governed by doctrines of charity, community and the public good. This project of recovering a kinder, gentler Locke has brought with it an emphasis on the centrality of Grotius and Pufendorf to seventeenth-century discussions of natural law. Still, the emergence of the ‘Grotius-Pufendorf thesis’ may have eclipsed other sources of (...) Locke's political economy. I will suggest that Locke's writings on trade and economic accumulation are better understood in light of a seventeenth-century economic discourse of pamphlets, tracts and sermons rooted in the practical theology of Calvinism. (shrink)

After ratifying the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control in 2004, Bangladesh enacted anti-tobacco laws, policies, and administrative measures. Evidence suggests that the progress so far has not been significant, and Bangladesh will most likely fail to meet its target to become tobacco-free by 2040. This study undertakes a national-level political economy analysis to explore the dynamics that affect the processes of required tobacco policy reforms and implementation. Based on a desk review of pertinent pieces of literature and key informant (...) interviews, this research examines the political behavior of key individuals, institutional reform initiatives, and the government’s commitment to the tobacco control agenda. The findings indicate that the political will of becoming tobacco-free is explicitly present in key narratives. However, intra-government conflict of interests and incentives, the skewed commitment of government bodies, state-business nexus, incapacity of vital organizations, and the dubious role of key individuals and committees fail to translate this will into active implementation. The article concludes that the idea of tobacco control remains a strategic accommodation, and its implementation requires genuine commitment and wider public support. The government must confer adequate authority and resources to the national tobacco control cell and call for agencies to convene to the common of creating a tobacco-free Bangladesh. (shrink)

Religiously inspired violence is a global phenomenon and connects to transnational narratives, necessitating comparative analysis of socio-historical context and patterns of ideological mobilization. Northeast Africa hosts several radical-extremist and terrorist groups, mostly of Muslim persuasion, tuned in to these global narratives while connecting to local interests. Christian radicalism and violence also occur but are less ideologically consistent and less widespread. I examine key aspects of the current role and ideological self-positioning of Islamist radicalism in state contexts, comparing (...) Somalia, affected by Islamist violence since the late 1990s, and Ethiopia, where Islam’s mobilization followed a different path and where the state so far contained politicization and open radicalism of Muslim groups. A brief contrastive case from Nigeria is also provided. It is observed that Islam, while of course not ‘equalling’ violence, easily provides a militant political theology, frequently instrumentalized in conflicts and situations of (perceived) grievance, and via mimetic rivalry then becomes radically ideological. Securitized response patterns of state authorities toward militancy play a role in furthering violent radicalization. I follow a sociological-anthropological approach but also refer to key aspects of national-legal frameworks regarding state and religion, next to societal and political bases of Muslim militant mobilization for collective aims and self-presentation. (shrink)

In current legal and political atmospheres, when governments are embracing notions such as pollution prevention and the three ”R’s” – reduce, reuse and recycle, while discarding command and control types of regulatory enforcement, some may be surprised to learn that since 1971 Pennsylvania law has permitted the exemption of corporate assets from capital stock valuation for the purpose of paying capital stock taxes, if the assets are devoted to pollution control or abatement. Straightforward though the idea of tax (...) exemption for pollution control assets may seem, the execution of the statutory exemption, together with the regulation which was promulgated thereunder, yields a wide variety of hermeneutic fruit under the scrutiny of the judiciary and the advocacy of lawyers. (shrink)

In contemporary democracies, global capitalism exerts a significant influence over how state power is exercised, raising questions about where political power resides in global politics. This question is important, since our specific considerations about justifiability of political power, i.e. political legitimacy, depend on how we characterize political power at the global level. As a partial answer to this question, I argue that our notion of global political legitimacy should be reoriented to (...) include the structural power of the Transnational Capitalist Class as its subject matter. Structural power is a social relation in which the institutional context makes some agents comply with others’ preferences regardless of actors’ intentional efforts to bring about such outcomes. Even when global business elites do not intentionally exercise power to obtain political control of global governance, their structural power has recognizable effects that partly enforce the world order. To advance my claim, I utilize the radical realists’ argument that the notion of legitimacy is applicable to a broader range of social practices that are beyond dyadic power relations, i.e. rulers intentionally exercising power over subjects. (shrink)

The paper aims at rethinking the traditional understanding of commercial law, and tentatively provides its cosmopolitan concept under the backdrop of extended commercial exchange and corresponding development of the transnational trade laws. Given the influence of legal positivism over the source of law debate, the commercial law would be defined in a relatively narrower focus, which principally presumes the sovereign nature of legal community. The phenomenon and interactive reality in this global sphere through the mid-20th century (...) and new millennium have driven us to experience new ways of dealings, sometimes blurring or otherwise encroaching upon a conventional discourse about the true nature of laws. In one way of efforts to accommodate such new phenomena, the author likes to present a possibility of more systemic, comprehensive, reality-oriented construction of commercial law concept concerning the current wave of legal pluralism. It became increasingly pervasive in our daily experiences that the norms of various nature have a potential to govern the commercial relationship. These norms, unlike the traditional state laws, are observed to poses a distinctive feature requiring a coherent understanding among another. This conceptual work also could mater with the traditional concept of sovereignty-driven commercial law. The paper will begin with the theoretical essence of legal positivism propounded by Hart and Raz. Particularly, the five strands of legal system would provide the basis of analysis, and could be compared to the narrative of legal positivists. For the purpose of this thesis, they would be contested to favor the strengths of cosmopolitan concept of commercial law. For an illustration,the author would argue that the shared agency element as well as recognition process of norms can give us more genuine understanding of the commercial law and practices. In this way, the author discuses and proposes a new concept focusing on the contemporary commercial law. Finally, he pointed out the critical needs of this kind of definitional work notwithstanding the legal plane or global diversity. In many ways, the paper would be found tentative, epitomizing, less exhaustive as trade-offs for a comprehensive build-up. The author also regrets to curtail much potentials of opposing arguments against the cosmopolitan understanding of commercial law. It is hoped that this work would later be developed, which could be realized by the complimentary as well as critical followers. (shrink)