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Human history has been the story of the constant search for energy, e.g. in terms of food conversion to energy. Early on in its origins, humankind has had to satisfy its energy demand through available energy resources. Although the use of non-renewable energy sources has been perpetuated over time, there are currently many strategies implemented by states to develop energy transition for sustainable development. An example of this is the emergence of decentralisation initiatives such as prosumers and energy communities. Within the European Union, the Directives 2018/2001 and 2019/944 open a broad regulatory framework for this type of practice. In the face of the challenges imposed by the so-called energy transition towards more environmentally friendly forms of energy (= “green energy”) and climate change, energy democracy plays a key role. These initiatives have currently yielded important results where individuals and communities have become increasingly empowered and have become important actors in energygeneration from renewable energy sources. The general objective of this research is to substantiate the need for decentralized energy generation transitions. The main results of the research are the assessment of the legal framework for initiatives in decentralized energy generation in the European Union and the identification of good practices in the European context.

The recent failure of Silicon Valley Bank, one of the largest banks in the world's technology capital, has sent shockwaves throughout the financial sector. It is essential to have a solid understanding of the various causes that led to the bank's failure. The current study sheds light on the subject by analyzing the data and looking at the relevant information. The present study investigates the particular roles that a variety of contributing elements played in the failure of the bank by using the evidence that is already accessible. This evidence includes data that has been published and reports that have been written on the topic. The bank's demise can be ascribed to a combination of management errors, regulatory oversight failings, and government involvement, according to the findings of an in-depth investigation of the causes that contributed to the bank's downfall. The research emphasizes the significance of effective risk management and diversity in investing strategies while simultaneously sounding a warning about the possible dangers of loosening up on regulatory requirements. In conclusion, the research highlights the significant part that effective management plays in the banking industry and issues a call for banks and policymakers to successfully traverse an uncertain and challenging landscape in order to mold the future of the financial system. The study provides implications for both practitioners and academics.

Nowadays, energy consumer protection must be a top priority in an energy crisis context. The State must fight energy vulnerability and energy poverty through all means. In this scenario, Law has crucial relevance to providing legal guarantees for energy access. In the Cuban legal order, energy consumer protection has new challenges and demands new perspectives. This article entitled: ‘Energy consumer in the Cuban legal system: Towards a comprehensive protection’ has, as a general objective, to determine the need of creating a comprehensive protection system that provides legal security to the energy consumer in the Cuban legal system. This article initially addresses the main general aspects of energy consumer legal protection, first referring to its historical evolution and conceptualization. It also explains the need for each State to provide a comprehensive protection system for its energy consumers, taking as reference good practices in the existing ones. Next, regulation of energy consumers is determinedin the Cuban Energy Law and Policy Framework, evidencing the existence of legislative gaps to provide effective protection.

News about personal data breaches or data abusive practices, such as Cambridge Analytica, has questioned the trustworthiness of certain actors in the control of personal data. Innovations in the field of personal information management systems to address this issue have regained traction in recent years, also coinciding with the emergence of new decentralized technologies. However, only with ethically and legally responsible developments will the mistakes of the past be avoided. This contribution explores how current data management schemes are insufficient to adequately safeguard data subjects, and in particular, it focuses on making these data flows transparent to provide an adequate level of accountability. To showcase this, and with the goal of enhancing transparency to foster trust, this paper investigates solutions for standardizing machine-readable policies to express personal data processing activities and their application to decentralized personal data stores as an example of ethical, legal, and technical responsible innovation in this field.

The purpose of the current study was to conduct an initial international exploration into mental health in community corrections. The qualitative analysis revealed seven themes that highlighted many barriers and identified necessary building blocks for success for justice-involved individuals as they reintegrate into the community and on their path to desistance. These include meaningful collaboration, rapport, trust, and an emphasis on housing and employment. Much depends on meeting the client where they are, as people go through the stages of adaptation at different times and speeds. Ultimately, despite different practices, participants agreed on the value of person-centered, community-integrated approaches.

Due to a combination of rapid disease progression and the lack of curative treatment options, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the deadliest cancers worldwide. Infiltrated, monocyte-derived, tumor-associated macrophages are known to play a role in HCC pathogenesis, but the involvement of Kupffer cells (KCs) remains elusive. Here, we used the Clec4F-diphteria toxin receptor transgenic mouse model to specifically investigate the effect of KC depletion on HCC initiation, progression and neoplastic growth following liver resection. For this purpose, several HCC mouse models with varying underlying etiologies were used and partial hepatectomy was performed. Our results show that in HCC, developed on a fibrotic or non-alcoholic steatohepatitis background, depletion of embryonic KCs at the onset of HCC induction and the subsequent replacement by monocyte-derived KCs does not affect the tumor burden, tumor microenvironment or the phenotype of isolated KCs at end-stage disease. In non-chronic liver disease-associated diethylnitrosamine-induced HCC, ablation of Clec4F+ KCs did not alter tumor progression or neoplastic growth following liver resection. Our results show that temporal ablation of resident KCs does not impact HCC pathogenesis, neither in the induction phase nor in advanced disease, and indicate that bone marrow-derived KCs are able to swiftly repopulate the available KC niche and adopt their phenotype.

How to protect people from algorithmic harms? A promising solution, although in its infancy, is algorithmic impact assessment (AIA). AIAs are iterative processes used to investigate the possible short and long terms societal impacts of AI systems before their use, but with ongoing monitoring and periodic revisiting even after their implementation. When conducted in a participatory and transparent fashion, they could create bridges across the legal, social and computer science domains, promoting the accountability of the entity performing them as well as public scrutiny. They could enable to re-attach the societal and regulatory context to the mathematical definition of fairness, thus expanding the formalistic approach thereto. Whilst the regulatory framework in the European Union currently lacks the obligation to perform such AIA, some other provisions are expected to play a role in AI development, leading the way towards more widespread adoption of AIA. These include the Data Protection ImpactAssessment (DPIA) under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the risk assessment process under the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Conformity Assessment (CA) foreseen under the AI Regulation proposal. In this paper, after briefly introducing the plurality of definitions of fairness in the legal, social and computer science domains, and explaining to which extent the current and upcoming legal framework mandates the adoption of fairness metrics, we will illustrate how AIA could create bridges between all these disciplines, allowing us to build fairer AI solutions.We will then recognise the role of DPIA, DSA risk assessment and CA by discussing the contributions they can offer towards AIA but also identify the aspects lacking therein. We will then identify how these assessment provisions could aid the overall technical discussion of introducing and assessing fairness in AI-based models and processes.

The endeavor to find appropriate data governance frameworks capable of reconciling conflicting interests in data has dramatically gained importance across disciplines and has been discussed among legal scholars, computer scientists as well as policy-makers alike. The predominant part of the current discussion is centered around the challenging task of creating a data governance framework where data is ‘as open as possible and as closed as necessary’. In this article, we elaborate on modern approaches to data governance and their limitations. It analyses how propositions evolved from property rights in data towards the creation of data access and data sharing obligations and how the corresponding debates reflect the difficulty of developing approaches that reconcile seemingly opposite objectives – such as giving individuals and businesses more control over ‘their’ data while at the same time ensuring its availability to different stakeholders. Furthermore, we propose a wider acknowledgement of data collaboratives powered by decentralised learning techniques as a possible remedy to the shortcomings of current data governance schemes. Hence, we propose a mild formalization of the set of existing technological solutions that could inform existing approaches to data governance issues. Our proposition is based on an abstractive notion of collaborative computation as well as on several principles that are essential for our definition of data collaboratives. By adopting an interdisciplinary perspective on data governance, this article highlights how innovative technological solutions can enhance control over data while at the same time ensuring its availability to other stakeholders and thereby contributing to the achievement of the policy goals of the European Strategy for Data.

Migrants fearing harm in their own country may benefit from the protection of refugee law. This protection, however, is not extended to those considered undeserving of it, for example, because they committed atrocities in the past, and may be removed from those who become a threat to the host State’s national security. In practice, States need to find solutions for such migrants, who are often failed asylum-seekers or criminal refugees who lost their protection status. In this regard, Australia is infamous for its extensive use of immigration detention, which is frequently applied to such migrants. The country’s practices have stirred much academic debate and gave rise to a multitude of legal cases and legislation changes. This contribution provides a human rights assessment of Australia’s practices towards failed asylum-seekers and criminal refugees, showing that when faced with such migrants, States may adopt measures that violate their international human rights obligations, such as returning them to harm or placing them in indefinite detention. As States are increasingly adopting similar practices, especially regarding the use of immigration detention, this analysis of the Australian context can inform the assessment of these practices anywhere they may be applied.

About 700 European children are stranded with their mothers in the detention camps in northeast Syria. They are children of European departees who travelled to the Levant after 2012 to join one of the fighting forces against the Syrian regime. Most European countries refuse to repatriate these children because of their parents, who are considered terrorists. This paper investigates the status of these children through the analysis of the political and media-debates and ongoing collaborative ethnographic research in Belgium. We argue that these children reside in a condition of virtual innocence, which is characterized by a continuous interrogation of their social, political, and ontological status as well as their right to life. This condition of virtual innocence also sheds a different light on the state of exception: rather than being expressed through a permanent ban, it becomes manifested through an undecided and pending inclusion into the bios.

An intelligent conversational agent for the legal domain is an AI-powered system that can communicate with users in natural language and provide legal advice or assistance. In this paper, we present CREA2, an agent designed to process legal concepts and be able to guide users on legal matters. The conversational agent can help users navigate legal procedures, understand legal jargon, and provide recommendations for legal action. The agent can also give suggestions helpful in drafting legal documents, such as contracts, leases, and notices. Additionally, conversational agents can help reduce the workload of legal professionals by handling routine legal tasks. CREA2, in particular, will guide the user in resolving disputes between people residing within the European Union, proposing solutions in controversies between two or more people who are contending over assets in a divorce, an inheritance, or the division of a company. The conversational agent can later be accessed through various channels, including messaging platforms, websites, and mobile applications. This paper presents a retrieval system that evaluates the similarity between a user’s query and a given question. The system uses natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to interpret user input and associate responses by addressing the problem as a semantic search similar question retrieval. Although a common approach to question and answer (Q&A) retrieval is to create labelled Q&A pairs for training, we exploit an unsupervised information retrieval system in order to evaluate the similarity degree between a given query and a set of questions contained in the knowledge base. We used the recently proposed SBERT model for the evaluation of relevance. In the paper, we illustrate the effective design principles, the implemented details and the results of the conversational system and describe the experimental campaign carried out on it.

Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is an idiopathic chronic immune-mediated cholestatic liver disease characterized by fibro-inflammatory bile duct strictures, progressive hepatobiliary fibrosis, and gut-liver axis disruption. The pathophysiology of PSC remains insufficiently characterized, which hampers the development of effective therapies. Hepatic macrophages (MFs) such as Kupffer cells (KCs) are implicated in PSC pathogenesis, but their exact role is unclear. Using the latest markers to discriminate resident KCs (ResKCs) from their monocyte-derived counterparts (MoKCs), and two models of intrahepatic and extrahepatic cholestasis, respectively, this study showed that CLEC4F+TIM4+ ResKCs were depleted after chronic cholestatic liver injury. The infiltrating CLEC4F+TIM4- MoKCs were already enriched during the acute phase of PSC. Transcriptional profiling of hepatic MF subsets during early cholestatic injury indicated that ResKCs were indeed activated and that MoKCs expressed higher levels of pro-inflammatory and proliferative markers compared with those of ResKCs. As indicated in experiments with Clec4fDTR transgenic mice, conditional depletion of KCs, before and during early cholestasis induction, had no effect on the composition of the hepatic myeloid cell pool following injury progression and did not affect disease outcomes. Taken together, these results provide new insights into the heterogeneity of the MF pool during experimental PSC and evidence that depletion of resident and activated KCs during sclerosing cholangitis does not affect disease outcome in mice.

Precision and effectiveness of Artificial Intelligence (AI) models are highly dependent on the availability of genuine, relevant, and representative training data. AI systems tested and validated on poor-quality datasets can produce inaccurate, erroneous, skewed, or harmful outcomes (actions, behaviors, or decisions), with far-reaching effects on individuals' rights and freedoms. Appropriate data governance for AI development poses manifold regulatory challenges, especially regarding personal data protection. An area of concern is compliance with rules for lawful collection and processing of personal data, which implies, inter alia, that using databases for AI design and development should be based on a clear and precise legal ground: the prior consent of the data subject or another specific valid legal basis. Faced with this challenge, the European Union's personal data protection legal framework does not provide a preferred, one-size-fits-all answer, and the best option will depend on the circumstances of each case. Although there is no hierarchy among the different legal bases for data processing, in doubtful cases, consent is generally understood by data controllers as a preferred or default choice for lawful data processing. Notwithstanding this perception, obtaining data subjects' consent is not without drawbacks for AI developers or AI-data controllers, as they must meet (and demonstrate) various requirements for the validity of consent. As a result, data subjects' consent could not be a suitable and realistic option to serve AI development purposes. In view of this, it is necessary to explore the possibility of basing this type of personal data processing on lawful grounds other than the data subject's consent, specifically, the legitimate interest of the data controller or third parties. Given its features, legitimate interests could help to meet the challenge of quality, quantity, and relevance of data curation for AI training. The aim of this article is to provide an initial conceptual approach to support the debate about data governance for AI development in the European Union (EU), as well as in non-EU jurisdictions with European-like data protection laws. Based on the rules set by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), this paper starts by referring to the relevance of adequate data curation and processing for designing trustworthy AI systems, followed by a legal analysis and conceptualization of some difficulties data controllers face for lawful processing of personal data. After reflecting on the legal standards for obtaining data subject's valid consent, the paper argues that legitimate interests (if certain criteria are met) may better match the purpose of building AI training datasets.

On 8 March 2022, the European Commission presented a proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on combating violence against women and domestic violence. Inter alia, the proposal includes minimum rules on the definition of certain forms of violence against women and domestic violence, including rape. Building on a historical overview of what counts as rape and on the legal context in which the European Commission has tabled the proposal, this article will critically discuss whether the European Union (hereinafter: the EU) has the competence to harmonise the crime of rape pursuant to Article 83 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and what the desirable content of EU legislation in this field should be. For this purpose, the article will use long-lasting, feminist scholarship as an analytical tool to address the transformations that these feminist discourses have traditionally brought into rape law, stressing the legal gaps that still need to be filled, and suggesting a possible new synergy between EU criminal law and feminist scholarship and activism.

Background: Antitumor activity of ipilimumab or BRAF +/- MEK inhibitors (BRAFi +/- MEKi) following pembrolizumab administration in melanoma is poorly characterized. Patients and methods: In the phase III KEYNOTE-006 study, patients with unresectable stage III/IV melanoma received pembrolizumab (10 mg/kg) once every 2 or 3 weeks (Q3W) or ipilimumab (3 mg/kg) Q3W. The current post hoc analysis evaluates outcomes with ipilimumab or BRAFi +/- MEKi as first subsequent systemic therapy after pembrolizumab administration and includes patients who completed or discontinued pembrolizumab after one or more dose. Pembrolizumab arms were pooled. Results: At data cut-off (4 December 2017), median follow-up was 46.9 months. Of 555 pembrolizumab-treated patients, first subsequent therapy was ipilimumab for 103 (18.6%) and BRAFi +/- MEKi for 59 (10.6%) [33 received BRAFi thorn MEKi, 26 BRAFi alone; 37 (62.7%) were BRAFi +/- MEKi naive]. In the subsequent ipilimumab group, ORR with previous pembrolizumab was 17.5% [1 complete response (CR); 17 partial response (PR)]; 79.6% had discontinued pembrolizumab due to progressive disease (PD); median overall survival (OS) was 21.5 months. ORR with subsequent ipilimumab was 15.5%; 11/16 responses (8 CRs; 3 PRs) were ongoing. ORR with subsequent ipilimumab was 9.7% for patients with PD as best response to pembrolizumab. Median OS from ipilimumab initiation was 9.8 months. In the subsequent BRAFi +/- MEKi group, ORR with previous pembrolizumab was 13.5% (8 PR); 76.3% had discontinued pembrolizumab due to PD; median OS was 17.9 months. ORR with subsequent BRAFi +/- MEKi was 30.5%, 7/18 responses (4 CR, 3 PR) were ongoing. Median OS from BRAFi +/- MEKi initiation was 12.9 months. ORR for BRAFi +/- MEKi-naive patients who received subsequent BRAFi +/- MEKi was 43.2%; 6/16 were ongoing (3 CR, 3 PR). Conclusions: Ipilimumab and BRAFi +/- MEKi have antitumor activity as first subsequent therapy after pembrolizumab in patients with advanced melanoma.

Late-medieval Flanders was a patchwork of jurisdictions. Especially in terms of maritime plunder, different prosecutors and different courts could claim competency. However, where these plunderers appeared or where the plundered claimed their damages mattered significantly. This article investigates how these landlocked courts tried to claim competency over the events happening at sea. What were the consequences of the litigation strategies relating to maritime plunder, and how did plunderers and the plundered deal with these? Especially in medieval Bruges, there was a pragmatic approach towards favouring some of the important merchant communities while using princely institutions to chastise other (deemed harmful) plunderers.

The energy transition is a current priority and recurring issue on the global agenda. Latin American governments show a high level of interest and commitment to develop public policies to address energy transition. Cuba, a Caribbean country, is equally hard hit by the fuel and energy crisis. Cuba's reality becomes much more complex when it must face the US economic and financial blockade and a direct climate change impact. Cuba is developing an energy policy aimed at transition to other generation sources such as biomass, hydro, wind and solar. For the country, energy development is highly related to food production, which guarantees the population's right to food and food sovereignty. In order to find some interconnections between energy transition and food sovereignty, it is necessary to apply a Human Rights-based Approach to development through PANTHER principles. This research deals with some reflections on energy transition in Latin America, Cuban energy transition from a political, legal and practical level and a better understanding of energy transition in Cuban food production. The main results are based on demonstrating some key points to develop a coherent energy transition process in Cuba, generally and particularly in the food industry to achieve food sovereignty.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE. This paper will critically appraise the Regulation 953/2021 (DCCR) and its digital COVID-19 certificates (DCC) in the light of EU law’s strict requirements for scientificity and objectivity, aiming to provide a normative framework and recommendations on drafting evidence-based policies for the current and future pandemic(s). METHODS. To answer the following question: “What role has scientific evidence played in the DCCR, and in the light of EU law requirements, was the inclusion of scientific evidence effective considering the policy objectives?”, the author will analyse how relevant provisions of the DCCR interact with scientific evidence. Building on the relevant EU case-law on evidentiary requirements, and on the work of sociological jurisprudence, law turning outwards and studies of evidence-based policy, a normative framework will serve to analyse the effectiveness of the DCCR approach. PRELIMINARY FINDINGS. Like other EU pandemic laws, DCCR is vague about the inclusion procedures and the quality of science required to adopt additional restrictions. Nor is it clear what kind of scientific expertise should feed into the system – natural sciences, social sciences, public health ethics etc. The references to consultations and adapting the information on the pass to reflect the relevant scientific evidence are scant, and omicron has rendered several underlying assumptions about immunity and transmission outdated. Finally, while the DCCR was drafted to ensure a safe reopening, its implementation by member states has instead led to more social contacts and more infections. CONCLUSIONS. Further research on this topic will lead to reorientation of the evidence-based standards in EU law during pandemics and periods of scientific uncertainty, as well as the eventual consequences of the both member state and EU action, such as nullification suits. This is likely to be difficult due to DCCR’s claim to be a technical regulation, focusing on interoperability rather than substance.

From the beginning, energy has been the driving force of mankind. Without it, the evolution of mankind would have been impossible. Despite the need for access to energy to achieve higher levels of development, in many contexts around the world, situations of energy vulnerability and energy poverty exist. In many international legal instruments, the recognition of the right to energy as a human right has been strengthened. In several national frameworks, there are many trends in the protection of this fundamental right, while in others the right to energy is a forgotten issue. Given the level of development achieved by humankind, it is becoming increasingly necessary to grant greater legal protection to this right, especially with its recognition as a constitutional right. The Constitution as a fundamental norm provides the framework for the development of complementary norms that guarantee effective protection of the right to energy. The object of study of this research is Latin America and the Caribbean legal frameworks. Cuba, as part of the region, does not expressly recognise the right to energy in the Constitution of 2019. This research aims to systematise the good practices associated with the recognition of the right to energy as a constitutional right in Latin America and the Caribbean for its future recognition in Cuba. To accomplish this objective, the following research methods will be used: historical-legal, exegetical-analytical, and legal comparison. As a result, this research presents a systematisation of good practices associated with the recognition of the right to energy as a constitutional right in Latin America.

Terms and conditions, legal notices, banners and disclaimers are not new for websites, applications and products. However, with the ambitious legislative plan in the European Union to introduce accessibility features to several websites, applications, services and products, it becomes imperative to also consider the accessibility of the information included in such statements. In my paper, I specifically investigate data protection notices as opposed to accessibility statements and aim to answer whether the concept of accessibility can help us redefine the principle of transparency in EU data protection law. I conclude that accessibility can benefit the principle of transparency, by contextualizing it. However, at the same time it introduces a number of new challenges.

Based on gender-centric issues, this paper identifies ‘the other’ as women either as colonial subjects or as Muslim women in the modern world. In this definition of ‘the other’, I contend that ‘the other’, aren’t and weren’t voiceless and the inability to acknowledge these voices is because of the existing version of what is an ‘acceptable voice’. This definition of an ‘acceptable voice’ is supported through the colonial quest supported by imperial feminism and knowledge production. Hence, to acknowledge the voices of ‘the other’, the meaning of ‘acceptable voice’ needs to be decolonized.

EU digital covid certificates (DCCs) scheme, instituted in the summer of 2021 under the Regulation 2021/953 (DCCR) to facilitate reopening European borders, assumes that certificate holders pose less of a risk to public health and their freedom of movement should not be restricted. As the DCCR made sweeping assumption about the underlying mechanisms of immunity, transmission and risk, and access, questions about discrimination were raised. My doctoral project seeks to answer the following research question: In what manner should EU law consider scientific findings in its evaluation of legal questions such as discrimination, and how do scientific findings justify differential treatment?

“An Unbreakable Bond”is inspired by, on one hand, the notion of uberveillanceand, on the otherhand, by more recent developments in worker surveillance on the basis of microchip technologies. Uberveillanceis a term conceived by M.G. Michael in 2006 and refers to ubiquitous or pervasive electronic surveillance that may not be always on but that is always with you (Michael and Michael 2007). It is a form of bodily, invasive surveillance made possible by embedded devices that indiscriminately quantify and measure the self. Uberveillancethrough microchip technology has previously been explored in the context of healthcare, crime prevention, and worker monitoring (Michael and Michael 2014). In particular, the promise of the convenience and accessibility of microchip implants in the employee–employer relationship has prompted scholarly attention into its legal, ethical,and commercial implications (Ajunwa, Crawford, and Schultz2017; Rodriguez 2019; Weinberg et al. 2015). Taking these developments into account, “An Unbreakable Bond”makes a creative contribution to the potential, wider societal implications of uberveillancethrough microchip implants by taking them beyond previously explored contexts and placing them within a parent–child relationship. In doing so, it prompts a reflection upon the ways in which technology can mediate the closest relationships within our lives, for better or for worse. Through Alice, we are also confronted with the potential impacts that microchip implants can have not only on her relationship with her mother but also especially on her own emotional development. Through the mother’s perspective, the story explores the instances that might lead to the adoption of such a tool, such asanxiety over parenting abilities and trends or familial circumstances and economics. In bringing both perspectives together, “An Unbreakable Bond”ultimately aims to contribute to a wider conversation on the types of societies we’d like to create and the role of surveillance (or uberveillance) within those structures.

Smart devices have become ubiquitous in everyday life, and it is commonplace that migrants are among the users of connected tools. With the realization that migrants rely on connectivity for multiple purposes, including to access information and services, many initiatives started working on developing ICT tools to assist migrants to integrate into their new society. Technological tools, however, come with inherent risks, many of which are linked to the processing of personal data of their users. This is especially true for migrants, who are often vulnerable due to their migration status, which is not always secure in the host country. To mitigate these risks, we argue that an expanded data protection impact assessment, analyzing not only the impacts related to data protection, but also to the specific situation of migrants, should be conducted at the outset of any technology development project to influence the development of safe and reliable ICT tools for this target population. A practical example of the application of such an assessment is provided, based on the authors’ experience as legal advisors in the REBUILD project, which is one of the current initiatives in the EU aiming to develop ICT tools for migrant integration.

Given the implementation of the digitalization project of tax justice (Prodigit), the article proposes what should be included in the system concerning case law databases. It then analyzes what the contribution of AI can be concerning single procedural aspects, both in general and in tax litigation, finally tracing, by the same method, the prospects of the predictive function.

Why is it hard for online users to trust service providers when it comes to their personal data? While users might give away their data when using their services, this does not mean that they necessarily trust these companies. Building trust in online services is particularly relevant as digital economy policy strategies, such as the EU Data Strategy, deposit a considerable amount of faith in the benefits of a data-driven society. To achieve this goal, transparency should be considered a necessary feature, on which trust can be built. According to scholarly literature, the more information provided to data subjects, the less power asymmetry, caused by a lack of knowledge, between them and data controllers will exist. In this respect, transparency around data processing has been, and still is, conveyed through privacy notices. But these are far from being used as helpful tools to navigate complex data-intensive environments. Technical developments, such as Solid personal datastores, provide a fertile ground for the negotiation of privacy terms between the involved parties. But to do so, it is necessary to have clear and transparent processing conditions. However, while certain specifications have been developed to accommodate for the representation of privacy terms, there is still a lack of developed solutions to address this problem. With this in mind, we propose the usage of the Privacy Paradigm ODRL Profile (PPOP), which extends ODRL and DPV to specify data processing requirements for personal datastores envisaged as key core elements of the data economy. To demonstrate the usage of PPOP, a set of policy examples will be provided, as well as a prototype implementation ofa generator of machine and human-readable PPOP policies.

In March 2022, the European Commission proposed a new landmark Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence which includes measures on the non-consensual distribution of intimate and manipulated images. We refer to this form of violence against women as ‘image-based sexual abuse’, a term that encompasses all forms of the non-consensual creating, taking or sharing of intimate images or videos, including threats to share such material and altered material. In this article, we provide a new analysis of current Member State laws covering all forms of image-based sexual abuse, as well as the first detailed examination of the Commission’s proposals to tackle this form of violence against women. We suggest that the Commission’s proposal is characterised by both its ambition and limitations. It is ambitious in its attempts to set minimum rules in challenging areas of criminal law and, in doing so, recognises the serious harms of image-based sexual abuse. At the same time, by seeking to expand the reach of EU criminal law, inevitably requiring compromise, the scope of the proposed measures is somewhat limited. Such compromises and limitations risk entrenching hierarchies between different forms of abuse and, ultimately, the proposal fails to provide a comprehensive response reflective of victims’ experiences.

Energy investments, with special emphasis on renewable energies, in Latin America, have been developed through auctions or tenders. These have presented diverse typologies and schemes, but also have many points in common, with the main objective being to obtain power or energy. The countries involved in these practices have developed their legislation, based on existing legislation, from which new regulations have been created specifically to regulate them. In Cuba, there are not enough experiences of energy investments under the auction scheme, nor does it have specific legislation to carry them out, however, it has a novel legal framework as a basis for the creation of a legal norm to regulate this issue. This paper determines that the most feasible typology for Cuba is the closed envelope auction, which should evolve in the future into a hybrid or combinatorial auction. The analysis of the energy auction schemes developed in the countries studied is the basis for the one proposed for the Cuban scenario, and it is necessary to study it from a business approach, with a political vision of state development that integrates all social actors. The Cuban legal framework on energy does not contemplate energy auctions in a specific regulation, and it is advisable to legislate on the matter through a Decree issued by the Council of Ministers; in turn, the Ministry of Energy and Mines can issue lower-level regulatory provisions within the framework of its competence.

Although it has been several years since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) began applying throughout the European Union (EU), many organisations still hesitate to conduct a data protection impact assessment (DPIA). In light of this, Van Bael & Bellis’ data protection team has compiled a list of questions that clients frequently ask, to clarify the concept itself and the benefits which a DPIA can bring to projects involving personal data.

The circular economy has gone mainstream as a goal in the transitions toward a more sustainable society. Often, however, laws that promote a circular economy remain vague or narrowly focused on resource efficiency, obscuring the fact that they have multiple environmental effects and can lead to environmental trade offs. This Article examines how to properly frame circular economy laws for sustainability, focusing on product-service systems generally and the case of car sharing in particular. Its analysis shows that a circular economy is not to be framed as an end, but as a means of striving for environmental sustainability.

The Hippo signaling pathway is widely considered a master regulator of organ growth because of the prominent overgrowth phenotypes caused by experimental manipulation of its activity. Contrary to this model, we show here that removing Hippo transcriptional output did not impair the ability of the mouse liver and Drosophila eyes to grow to their normal size. Moreover, the transcriptional activity of the Hippo pathway effectors Yap/Taz/Yki did not correlate with cell proliferation, and hyperactivation of these effectors induced gene expression programs that did not recapitulate normal development. Concordantly, a functional screen in Drosophila identified several Hippo pathway target genes that were required for ectopic overgrowth but not normal growth. Thus, Hippo signaling does not instruct normal growth, and the Hippo-induced overgrowth phenotypes are caused by the activation of abnormal genetic programs.

The Typology is an online interactive publication, a methodology, and a mode of analysis. Substantively, it contains a curated set of typical legal technologies (applications, scientific papers, and datasets). The COHUBICOL team assessed these based on the claims made by their developers and/or providers, and on the substantiation of those claims, with an eye to the kind of legal impact their deployment might have. Our particular focus is on systems that might alter or impact the concept of legal effect that lies at the heart of law-as-we-know-it.

The field of international environmental criminality presents a very pressing threat on the global level. It, for example, encompasses harm toward wildlife, transboundary pollution and even harm toward indigenous people. Although, these examples represent only a fraction of potential environmental crimes on the international level. Despite its significance, international law still lacks a refined solution to this threat. The terms in question: “ecocide” and “international environmental crimes”, have been given many suggested definitions, but no single definition exists that has been agreed upon by the international community of States. Despite their importance as the central anchor of international environmental criminality, they stand without a clear definition and offer a wide legal grey area. This article will highlight the dilemma that results from the lack of a clear definition of “international environmental crimes” and “ecocide”.

Final report project AFFECT (VUB)

This is the ninth of a series of reports that will be published addressing selected topics in accordance with the European Commission priorities. The aim of this report is to explain what is the metaverse and why it has generated so much debate lately. It also explains the technological drivers that have made it possible and its potential use cases, before providing a vision for a future characterized by open, user-owned, and interoperable virtual worlds, also known as the Open Metaverse.

On 23 February 2022, the European Commission issued a Proposal for The European Parliament and of the Council on harmonized rules on fair access to and use of data, also known as the Data Act. The main objective of the Act is to unlock data’s potential for innovation by providing opportunities for the reuse of data, the regulation will have direct implications for businesses, public sector bodies, cloud, and other data processing service providers, covering private sector data, personal and non-personal data, and co-generated data such as the Internet of Things. It however fails to create rules and principles that boost the sharing of data, introducing only a few mandatory sharing rules for exceptional situations. Furthermore, the proposal has some fundamental gaps that maintain the current obstacles to the sharing of data. The analysis presented in this paper summarizes the Act’s proposal, focusing on its provisions related to business-to-government data sharing, outlining its gaps, and its potential implications for smart cities.

The European Commission (Commission) put forward an ambitious proposal package of new legislation for the digital economy, including the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act, or the Data Governance Act. Despite their different scopes, they all share a recurring topic: the relevance of (personal) data in enabling a data-intensive economic model around data sharing and the role of data subjects in granting permission to do so. As such, the purpose of this article is to explore how the Commission and other EU institutions intended to strengthen consent in these novel data regulations through technological tools but also novel assistance duties, but also the potential shortcoming around this approach.

The average length of a privacy notice has constantly increased in the last few years. If data controllers are putting out there longer and longer privacy notices, should not they also be helping data subjects in making sense of them? With data-intensive activities getting more and more complex, we can only expect this to impact negatively on these documents. At this stage, we can compare them to complex financial documents such as a prospectus of a publicly-traded company or a mortgage application. While GDPR asks for concise and easy-to-read language, it is possible that the complexity of the operations cannot be simplified, which calls for researching alternatives. For this, we can draw inspiration from the financial services industry to address this ever-growing complexity. In this sense, the financial services industry has developed a duty of assistance to help clients in certain scenarios when complex documents, such as prospectus or credit sheets, are involved. Therefore, the purpose of this contribution is to explore how this duty could be grounded in current European data protection regulations, particularly GDPR, and how it should be implemented to ensure that data subjects are assisted in their choices. As part of this discussion, the article shall address the notion of nudging and compare it with the notion of assisting to argue why an assisted consent would still meet the GDPR requirements for valid consent. If such a duty can be grounded under GDPR, it can be addressed one of the most criticized topics in data protection: the notice and consent model. By doing so, the relationship between data subjects and data controllers could change dramatically towards a more engaged interaction between the two to accommodate the more data-intensive activities. In this respect, it is foreseeable a more participatory model for governing personal data.

To recognize an origin-linked production model and the typicity of the products, the European Union (EU) has introduced the Geographical Indication (GI) protection regime. By requiring that relevant production steps must take place in the defined locale, the regime confers exclusive production rights on the local producers. There are two GI categories in the EU. The first is Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), covering products with a qualitative link to both natural and human factors in the designated region. The second is Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), the scope of which overlaps with PDO and covers products that have a qualitative or reputational link with their regional origin. This article examines whether exclusive rights are necessary and appropriate to fulfil their objectives and argues that these rights, when extended to human factors and reputation, cannot always be justified. It is argued that the overlapping scope of the subject matter undermines the ability of these two GI protection categories to provide transparent and trustworthy information for consumers. Finally, this article proposes to redefine the scope of the subject matter and the protection level for PDO and PGI by approaching the product/origin link from a resource utilization, integration and sustainability perspective. *Corresponding author: Jianmei.Gao@vub.be. The research for this article was partially funded by Vrije Universiteit Brussel/China Scholarship Council Joint Scholarship and the National Social Science Fund of China (Grant No. 16 ZDA236).

Several armed conflicts have marked the past two decades in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). As a result, the DRC is facing an unprecedented humanitarian disaster with the death of hundreds of thousands of people, the large-scale displacement of civilians and the rape of thousands of women, girls and men. These armed conflicts have led to the metamorphosis of the concept of ‘crime’ with the emergence of new forms of sexual violence, particularly the widespread sexual violence used by armed groups as a tactic of war. In response to this avalanche of sexual violence, the DRC has taken a series of legislative measures. It began with the ratification of the Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute) on 11 April 2002. This was followed by the promulgation of the Military Judicial Code and the Military Criminal Code on 18 November 2002 (MJC and MCC, respectively) criminalizing, inter alia, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. In 2006, the Congolese legislator criminalized various forms of sexual crimes as defined by international law in the Military Penal Code. On 31 December 2015, the Congolese authorities promulgated Law No. 15/022, amending and supplementing the Military Penal Code, for the implementation of the Rome Statute. Through this Law, the legislator has included in the Congolese Ordinary Criminal Code rape and other sexual assaults constituting war crimes, and in some circumstances, crimes against humanity. In terms of prosecutions, around 40 cases of rape classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity have been tried by Congolese military courts, and a few other cases are being investigated. This article seeks to assess the progress made by the DRC in prosecuting rape as a war crime and the challenges to such prosecutions. La République démocratique du Congo (RDC) a été marquée par plusieurs conflits armés au cours des deux dernières décennies. Il en résulte que ce pays est confronté à une catastrophe humanitaire sans précédent avec la mort de centaines de milliers de personnes, le déplacement à grande échelle de civils et le viol de milliers de femmes, de filles et d'hommes. Ces conflits armés ont entraîné une métamorphose du concept de ‘crime’ avec l'émergence de nouvelles formes de violence sexuelle, notamment la violence sexuelle généralisée utilisée par les groupes armés comme tactique de guerre. En réponse à cette avalanche de violences sexuelles, la RDC a adopté une série de mesures législatives. La première fut la ratification du Statut de la Cour pénale internationale (Statut de Rome) le 11 avril 2002. Cette ratification fut suivie par la promulgation du Code judiciaire militaire et du Code pénal militaire le 18 novembre 2002 (respectivement le CMJ et le CCM) qui criminalisent, entre autres, les crimes de guerre, les crimes contre l'humanité et le génocide. En 2006, le législateur congolais a incriminé dans le Code pénal militaire diverses formes de crimes sexuels tels que définis par le droit international. Le 31 décembre 2015, les autorités congolaises ont promulgué la loi no 15/022, modifiant et complétant le Code pénal militaire, pour la mise en œuvre du Statut de Rome. A travers cette loi, le législateur a inclus dans le Code pénal ordinaire congolais les viols et autres agressions sexuelles constitutifs de crimes de guerre, et dans certaines circonstances, de crimes contre l'humanité. En termes de poursuites, une quarantaine de cas de viols qualifiés de crimes de guerre et de crimes contre l'humanité ont été jugés par les tribunaux militaires congolais, et quelques autres cas sont en cours d'instruction. Cet article vise à évaluer les progrès réalisés par la RDC en matière de poursuites pénales pour viol en tant que crime de guerre et les défis auxquels ces poursuites sont confrontées. Verschillende gewapende conflicten hebben de afgelopen twee decennia hun stempel gedrukt op de Democratische Republiek Congo (DRC). Als gevolg daarvan wordt de DRC geconfronteerd met een ongekende humanitaire ramp die gepaard gaat met de dood van honderdduizenden mensen, de grootschalige ontheemding van burgers en de verkrachting van duizenden vrouwen, meisjes en mannen. Die gewapende conflicten hebben geleid tot een metamorfose van het begrip ‘misdaad’ met de opkomst van nieuwe vormen van seksueel geweld, in het bijzonder het wijdverspreide seksuele geweld dat door gewapende groepen als oorlogstactiek wordt gebruikt. Als reactie op die lawine van seksueel geweld heeft de DRC een reeks wetgevende maatregelen genomen. Het begon met de ratificatie van het Statuut van het Internationaal Strafhof (Statuut van Rome) op 11 april 2002, gevolgd door de afkondiging van het militair gerechtelijk wetboek en het militair strafwetboek op 18 november 2002. Daarin worden onder meer oorlogsmisdaden, misdaden tegen de mensheid en genocide strafbaar gesteld. In 2006 heeft de Congolese wetgever verschillende vormen van seksuele misdrijven, zoals omschreven in het internationaal recht, strafbaar gesteld in het militair strafwetboek. Op 31 december 2015 hebben de Congolese autoriteiten wet nr. 15/022 tot wijziging en aanvulling van het militair strafwetboek uitgevaardigd, met het oog op de uitvoering van het Statuut van Rome. Met die wet heeft de wetgever verkrachting en andere vormen van seksueel geweld die te beschouwen zijn als oorlogsmisdaden, en in sommige omstandigheden misdaden tegen de mensheid, in het gewone Congolese Wetboek van Strafrecht opgenomen. Wat vervolging betreft, zijn ongeveer 40 gevallen van verkrachting die als oorlogsmisdaden en misdaden tegen de mensheid werden aangemerkt, door de Congolese militaire rechtbanken berecht, en enkele andere gevallen worden momenteel onderzocht. Deze studie heeft tot doel na te gaan welke vooruitgang de DRC heeft geboekt bij de vervolging van verkrachting als oorlogsmisdaad en voor welke uitdagingen dergelijke vervolgingen staan. Varios conflictos armados han dejado huella en las dos décadas pasadas en la República Democrática del Congo (RDC). A resultas de ello, la RDC se está enfrentando a un desastre humanitario sin precedentes con la muerte de cientos de miles de personas, desplazamiento de civiles a gran escala y la violación de miles de mujeres, niñas y hombres. Estos conflictos armados han llevado a la metamorfosis del concepto de ‘crimen’ con la aparición de nuevas formas de violencia sexual, en particular el uso generalizado de la violencia sexual por grupos armados como táctica de guerra. En respuesta a esta avalancha de violencia sexual, la RDC ha adoptado una serie de medidas legislativas. Todo comenzó con la ratificación del Estatuto de la Corte Penal Internacional (Estatuto de Roma) el 11 de abril de 2002. A esto siguió la promulgación del Código Judicial Militar y del Código Penal Militar el 18 de noviembre de 2002 (Código Judicial Militar y Código Penal Militar, respectivamente), penalizando, entre otros, los crímenes contra la humanidad y el genocidio. En 2006, el legislador congoleño introdujo en el Código Penal Militar varias modalidades de crimen sexual tal y como se definen en el Derecho Internacional. El 31 de diciembre de 2015, la autoridades congoleñas promulgaron la Ley Núm. 15/022, reformando y complementando el Código Penal Militar, con objeto de implementar el Estatuto de Roma. A través de esta ley, el legislador ha tipificado en el Código Penal Común la violación y otros ataques sexuales que constituyen crímenes de guerra y, en algunas circunstancias, crímenes contra la humanidad. En términos de procedimientos instruidos, cerca de 40 casos de violación tipificada como crímenes de guerra y crímenes contra la humanidad han sido tramitados por los tribunales militares congoleños, y varios casos más continúan siendo objeto de investigación. Este estudio busca valorar el progreso de la RDC en la persecución de la violación como crimen de guerra y los retos a los que se ha tenido que hacer frente en dicha tarea. Gli ultimi due decenni della Repubblica Democratica del Congo (RDC) sono stati segnati da diversi conflitti armati. Di conseguenza, la RDC sta affrontando un disastro umanitario senza precedenti con la morte di centinaia di migliaia di persone, lo sfollamento di civili su larga scala e lo stupro di migliaia di donne, ragazze e uomini. Questi conflitti armati hanno portato alla metamorfosi del concetto di ‘crimine’ con l'emergere di nuove forme di violenza sessuale, in particolare la diffusa violenza sessuale usata dai gruppi armati come tattica di guerra. In risposta a questa valanga di violenza sessuale, la RDC ha adottato una serie di misure legislative. È iniziato tutto con la ratifica dello Statuto della Corte penale internazionale (Statuto di Roma) l'11 aprile 2002. A ciò è seguita la promulgazione del Military Judicial Code and the Military Criminal Code il 18 novembre 2002 (rispet­tivamente Codice giudiziario militare e Codice penale militare), che hanno criminalizzato, tra l'altro, crimini di guerra, crimini contro l'umanità e genocidio. Nel 2006, il legislatore congolese ha definito come crimini varie forme di reati sessuali così come definito dal diritto internazionale nel Codice Penale Militare. Il 31 dicembre 2015 le autorità congolesi hanno promulgato la Legge n. 15/022, che modifica e integra il Codice Penale Militare, per l'attuazione dello Statuto di Roma. Attraverso questa legge, il legislatore ha incluso nel Codice penale Ordinario congolese lo stupro e altre aggressioni sessuali definiti crimini di guerra e, in alcune circostanze, crimini contro l'umanità. In termini di procedimenti penali, circa 40 casi di stupro classificati come crimini di guerra e crimini contro l'umanità sono stati processati dai tribunali militari congolesi e alcuni altri casi sono oggetto di indagine. Questo studio cerca di valutare i progressi compiuti dalla RDC nel perseguire lo stupro come crimine di guerra e l’impegno in tali procedimenti penali. Mehrere bewaffnete Konflikte haben die vergangenen zwei Jahrzehnte in der Demokratischen Republik Kongo (DRK) geprägt. Als Folge dessen steht die DRK vor einer beispiellosen humanitären Katastrophe mit dem Tod von Hunderttausenden von Menschen, der massiven Vertreibung von Zivilisten und der Vergewaltigung von Tausenden von Frauen, Mädchen und Männern. Diese bewaffneten Konflikte haben zu einer Metamorphose des Begriffs ‘Verbrechen’ mit dem Aufkommen neuer Formen sexueller Gewalt geführt, insbesondere der weit verbreiteten sexuellen Gewalt, die von bewaffneten Gruppen als Kriegstaktik eingesetzt wird. Als Reaktion auf diese Lawine sexueller Gewalt hat die DRK eine Reihe von gesetzlichen Maßnahmen ergriffen. Es begann mit der Ratifizierung des Statuts des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs (Römisches Statut) am 11 April 2002. Es folgte die Verkündung des Militärgerichtsgesetzbuchs und des Militärstrafgesetzbuchs am 18. November 2002, die unter anderem Kriegsverbrechen, Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit und Völkermord unter Strafe stellen. Im Jahr 2006 hat der kongolesische Gesetzgeber im Militärstrafgesetzbuch verschiedene Formen von Sexualverbrechen im Sinne des Völkerrechts unter Strafe gestellt. Am 31. Dezember 2015 haben die kongolesischen Behörden das Gesetz Nr. 15/022 zur Änderung und Ergänzung des Militärstrafgesetzbuchs im Hinblick auf die Umsetzung des Römischen Statuts verkündet. Mit diesem Gesetz hat der Gesetzgeber Vergewaltigung und andere sexuelle Übergriffe, die Kriegsverbrechen und unter gewissen Umständen auch Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit darstellen, in das kongolesische ordentliche Strafgesetzbuch aufgenommen. Was die Strafverfolgung anbelangt, so wurden etwa 40 Fälle von Vergewaltigung, die als Kriegsverbrechen und Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit eingestuft werden, von kongolesischen Militär­gerichten abgeurteilt, und einige weitere Fälle werden derzeit untersucht. Diese Studie versucht, die Fortschritte der DRK bei der strafrechtlichen Verfolgung von Vergewaltigung als Kriegsverbrechen und die Herausforderungen für solche Verfolgungen zu bewerten.

Over the past two decades, many studies have provided important information on mediation as a convenient method for resolving disputes in the EU. However, these studies remain descriptive in nature and mainly focused on mediation from the perspective of disputants. The mediation service providers’ viewpoints and practice of Online mediation are understudied in the Union. Hence, this empirical study seeks to explore the application of mediation and Online mediation in civil and commercial disputes from the perspective of service providers in the selected Member States: France, Italy, and Belgium. A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches was used in investigating the effectiveness and challenges of practicing mediation and Online mediation and its future perspective through the lens of service providers The overall structure of this paper takes the form of four sections. The first part as the literature review expands the discussion on the concept definition and the application of mediation and Online mediation. Next, section two provides a brief overview on the implementation of mediation in civil and commercial disputes in the EU, more specifically in France, Italy, and Belgium. Section three describes the empirical research methodology – through the open-ended surveys and the semi-structured expert interviews – and presents the results and data analysis. The final part provides a discussion on the findings of this empirical research. The present study aims to be suitable for policymakers, jurists, researchers, and mediation service providers.

The General Data Protection Regulation in the EU has the potential to empower citizens towards data-based innovation and datafication. Realising this potential in practise is challenging, mainly because not everyone has the capabilities, seemingly expected by the lawmakers, to make use of relevant legal provisions. This empirical study sets out to investigate what can increase capabilities of citizens in datafied societies to understand and exercise their rights to data protection, as means to increase participation in socio-technical systems. We concentrate on vulnerable groups and criticise the GDPR as regarding data literacies as intrinsic life goals instead of instrumental means. We expand vulnerability to capability deprivation, based on a dynamic understanding of layered vulnerabilities. This overcomes solely negative associations of vulnerability and provides a more constructive framing in support of literacies of everyone, including less literate or more vulnerable. Based on this approach, we consider what is lacking to achieve GDPR literacy. We conducted interviews with representatives of civil society organisations supporting different groups in Flanders, Belgium. Based on these insights, we argue that a layered approach to vulnerability leads to a layered approach to capabilities, and to a layered approach of support based on the most appropriate conversion factors for different groups: (a) at the right place and time, (b) broader support structures from authorities, and (c) a focus on clear communication with the reader in mind.

The document positions biometrics within the broad analysis of the GDPR.Research activities may sometimes involve the processing of biometric data, which requires researchers and research institutions acting as data controllers or processors to address data protection requirements. Since biometric data enjoy a special protection regime under the EU regulatory framework, researchers working with biometric data should comply not only with the general data protection requirements and the specific requirements provided in article 89 of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) related to research activities[1], but they should also implement additional safeguards tailored to the specificities of biometric data and/or biometric processing. It is divided in two different chapters. The first (Exposition and Step by Step Guidelines) gives some suggestions on how to comply with data protection regulations, following a step-by-step model. The second (Case study) applies this conceptual framework to a concrete case.