Mémoire et histoire dans l'oeuvre d'Emil Cioran colloque international 20-21 juin 2023, Strasbourg, 2023
« ... une créativité éblouissante ne fait pas partie du destin de la plupart des gens, et elle ne... more « ... une créativité éblouissante ne fait pas partie du destin de la plupart des gens, et elle ne devrait pas non plus le faire : un traumatisme extrême dans les premières années est presque toujours impliqué, et une fragmentation de l'âme, puis un besoin impérieux d'atteindre la plénitude, apparaissent ». George Atwood à propos du génie créatif en Nietzsche's Madness (with commentary), pp32 Cioran ne laisse personne indifférent. Comment dévoiler la personnalité de Cioran au-delà de son charisme paradoxal? Il faut une approche heuristique pour trouver les bonnes questions et ensuite pour parvenir à des réponses correctes ou, au moins, à des pistes vers une solution. On a choisi la voie d'une comparaison avec les psychographies des autres grands, come Nietzsche et Flaubert, pour éclairer la singularité de Cioran, et l'ampreinte de sa biographie sur son paysage interior.
Revista Română de Drept European, Aprilie 2012, 2012
This original Romanian version of the article focuses on comparison as an interpretative method w... more This original Romanian version of the article focuses on comparison as an interpretative method within the European Brussels regime. A historical overview will uncover some pre-European tentative to use comparison to unify law. Then, the analysis will focus on European judges’ comparative practice in the unified maters of the Brussels regime (more specifically, Brussels Convention). In the 70s, the European judge started to use comparison to interpret the obscure terms of the Brussels Convention. Based on some essential cases, we will establish the place of comparison among other methods used by the judge (such as historical and teleological interpretation). We will equally ‘translate’ this use of comparison by European judges as a grammatical method of interpretation. This comparison used by European judges is still an unrivalled practice, far in advance to other tentative from International Private Law to unify the application of uniform rules. Nevertheless, this might be an essential contribution of Europe in a field primarily forgotten by methodological doctrine.
Amandine CAYOL, Hye-Hwal SEONG, Remus TITIRIGA, Pierre CHABAL (eds.)''Eurasian challenges to international economic law after BREXIT and in the context of the COVID-19'', Peter Lang, Cultures juridiques et politiques, Brussels, p 37-48, 2022
The paper analyses developments before May 2021 when presented to a teleconference held in Le Hav... more The paper analyses developments before May 2021 when presented to a teleconference held in Le Havre, France.
It considers that particular rhetoric of change hides a bipartisan continuity in international trade policies of the U.S.toward China and Eurasia. Accordingly, it tried to determine whether the disruptive trade actions of the Trump administration concerning Eurasia and China would be pursued by a Biden administration.
Trump administration followed in a crescendo the antidumping and countervailing duties favoured in the last years by President Obama. The Trump administration also took a bolder stance by using other US legal mechanisms (out of WTO but not forbidden by WTO) to adopt trade sanctions against China and other countries.
However, according to expert commenters, a Hillary Presidency would have also used such legal mechanisms, albeit under different rhetoric. There is also a continuity in the escalation of US actions inside the WTO from Obama to Trump, who finally blocked the Appellate Body dispute settlement.
Given these deep continuities, the author considers that the trade war with tariffs and sanctions on China adopted by the Trump administration will remain in place for the time being under the Biden administration.
The paper explores the first steps made by European Union Commission toward a legal regime of co-... more The paper explores the first steps made by European Union Commission toward a legal regime of co-modal transportation in Europe. The analysis starts by determining the place of EU’s transport policy on the background on the national and international regulations of transports. In a second step the examination focus the Action n°7 of the European Commission, concerning the Multimodal transport of goods – the so called E-Freight Action. The last developments assess the predictable outcome of an E-Freight Project (European e-Freight capabilities for Co-modal transport). One can reasonably expect that, in 2 to 3 years from now, a first proposal from the EU Commission of an European legislation on co-modality transportation.
La doctrine d’intérêts (Interessenjurisprudenz) est une école méthodologique allemande qui s’est ... more La doctrine d’intérêts (Interessenjurisprudenz) est une école méthodologique allemande qui s’est manifestée à partir du début de XX siècle. Il s’agit d’un courant affirmé autour de l’Université de Tübingen et qui a eu comme chef de file Philip von Heck un professeur de droit civil. Au fur et à mesure de son évolution cette doctrine s’est enrichie par les contributions des auteurs comme Roumelin, Ortemann, Mullers-Herzbach, Stoll qui étaient également des spécialistes de droit privé. L’Interessenjurisprudenz s’est étendue ensuite à tous les domaines du droit pour s’imposer à partir des années vingt comme le courant méthodologique dominant en Allemagne. Ses acquis ont été repris et parfois dépassés par les courants qui dominent aujourd’hui encore la méthodologie interprétative allemande. Au-delà d’Allemagne la doctrine d’intérêts s’est imposée comme méthode de choix dans l’arsenal du juge suisse. En dépit de son importance majeure dans l’évolution de la réflexion et de la pratique méthodologique, l’Interessenjurisprudenz est peu connue en dehors de l’Allemagne car elle est très souvent confondue avec l’école du « Libre droit ». C’est la raison pour laquelle nous lui consacrerons ce bref aperçu, essayant d’éclaircir le contexte de son apparition et de ses principaux enseignements.
Our knowledge society is quickly becoming a ‘transparent’ one. This transparency is
acquired, amo... more Our knowledge society is quickly becoming a ‘transparent’ one. This transparency is acquired, among other means, by ’personalization’ or ‘profiling’: ICT tools gathering contextualized information about individuals in men–computers interactions. The paper begins with an overview of these ICT tools (behavioural targeting, recommendation engines, and personalization through social networking). Based on these developments, the analysis focuses on a case study of social networks (Facebook) results and the trade-offs between ‘personalization’ and privacy constraints. A deeper analysis will reveal unexpected challenges and the need to overcome the privacy paradigm. Finally, a draft of possible normative solutions will be depicted, grounded in new forms of individual rights.
The paper examines the relativity of psychological time (inner time or time perception), which re... more The paper examines the relativity of psychological time (inner time or time perception), which refers to the sense of time, which can not be directly perceived but must be reconstructed by the brain. Psychological time is linked to physical time but might disconnect from it in certain situations. This disconnection makes the inner time relative and forms the object of the analysis.
In the first part of the paper, we examine the relativity or dilatation of psychological time, which accompanies crossing particular levels or thresholds in brain activity. Such points are related to age, extreme emotions associated with sudden dangers, inner states (such as dreams), near-death experiences, trance, or mystical states.
In the paper's final part, we try to explain the speed up or 'dilatation' of the psychological time in crossing the mentioned thresholds. Our explanation considers that such 'dilatation' relates to the brain's more and more inner activity, which lets it function at its full (quasi-infinite) 'processing speed'.
This (quasi-infinite) 'processing speed' is a metaphor for the brain's hyper-connected architecture, which allows quasi-infinite parallel mental processes to happen in the same physical time.
This (quasi-infinite) 'processing speed' is a metaphor for the brain's hyper-connected architecture, which allows quasi-infinite parallel mental processes to happen in the same physical time.
For example, we can build a narrative covering each such cognitive process. However, unfolding such infinite narratives entirely (within a mega record) would take a quasi-infinite time in the physical world.
Hence a second (a moment of physical Now) would equal Eternity within the psychological (reconstructed) time.
The Belt-and-Road initiative and the challenge of change in the legal and political systems of Eurasia, Peter Lang, Enjeux Internationaux, Brussels, 2021
The paper analyses developments before June 2019, as an update of a presentation made in April 20... more The paper analyses developments before June 2019, as an update of a presentation made in April 2019 to a conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan. It examines the trade policies of the Trump Administration with Eurasian state or non-state actors.
The introduction assesses the goals and tools of the new US trade policy through President Trump's open declarations.
The first part identifies the strategies/tactics of the trade policy by analyzing actions of the new US administration as, for example, aluminum and steel tariffs or the renegotiations of KORUS or USMCA agreements.
A second part uses this frame to apprehend the US Administration's trade actions concerning actors, such as the EU, Japan, China, or WTO, and determine the possible outcomes with disruptive impact on the globalization process of the last three decades.
Cross-border exchanges: Eurasian perspectives on logistics and diplomacy, Peter Lang, Brussels, 2020
The paper analyses developments before June 2018, date when it was presented to a conference in B... more The paper analyses developments before June 2018, date when it was presented to a conference in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, followed by a recent publication in a collective volume.
It focuses on the trade initiatives of the Trump Administration about China placed in the context of the recent American push for restructuring the global economic order.
The first part takes into account the business background of President Trump, able to explain his economic focus and non-conventional approach to economic policy and policy in general. Allying this with an assessment of the US economic and geopolitical position, one can identify the patterns, directions, strategies, resources, and capabilities in the service of international trade policies.
The second part focuses on the trade actions of the US Administration regarding China. We applied patterns identified in the first part to understand the logic of American trade actions and evaluate their possible outcomes.
We estimate that the new trade policies of the US administration to China will have a more consequential impact on global order than the fall of the Soviet Union in the 90s.
«On some Asian and European origins of Legal and Political systems-some views from Korea, Kazakhstan & France», Peter Lang, Bruxelles, 2018
This conclusion is more than a reiteration of the papers in the volume. Its goal is a synthetic m... more This conclusion is more than a reiteration of the papers in the volume. Its goal is a synthetic meaning of the contributions by relating each other and providing future research ideas. Its primary focus is methodological, and the main instrument is comparison. The conclusion starts with a brief introduction overviewing the contributions seen on themselves and examining their scope and methodology. In the first part, the analysis is pursued by correlating each contribution through a 'horizontal' inquiry based on a post factum comparison. We introduce and apply the post-factum comparison after a brief survey of comparison as a scientific instrument, in general, and legal instrument in special. In the final part, we move a step further and use the comparison as a heuristic instrument to formulate common topics for future research.
Universitas, An International Peer Review Journal, Vol. No 16, 2021,ISSN 2229-5542, 2021
The article examines the comparison used by the European Union judge as a tool of interpretation.... more The article examines the comparison used by the European Union judge as a tool of interpretation.
The first part circumscribes the meaning of comparison as an interpretative tool. Then, a step-by-step approach clarifies the purpose of comparison in general, interpreting comparison in particular, and realizes an overview of comparative interpretative practice by international tribunals and identifies hidden cases when the European judge employed the comparison.
The second part of the paper examines the emergence of comparative interpretation in topic case-laws relating to the European Community of Steel and Carbon (ECSC) Treaty. In the 50s and 60s, there was an unseen dialogue of the doctrine, the Advocates Generals, and the European judge about interpreting the ECSC Treaty's undetermined normative concepts. The outcome of this dialogue was the occurrence of a 'standard' interpretative comparison, as multi-comparison, which was used by the European judge ever since.
The third part of the article places this 'standard' comparison within a methodological perspective. This perspective requires an outline of interpretative methodologies of judges both in national and international law.
This outline offers the ground for 'translating,' methodologically speaking, the 'standard' comparison as a subset of the literal or grammatical interpretation belonging to an objective system of interpretation (embraced by EU Court). Moreover, this 'standard' comparison is strongly linked to multi-juralism (existence of many independent and parallel legal systems of Member States) and loosely coupled to multilingualism (the legal use of multiple languages within the EU), both essential characteristics of the European legal system.
In conclusion, this powerful and misunderstood tool of the judge had an essential role in the historical evolution of the European Union. It may also provide hints and solutions for national or international situations where pluralism at the legal level (multi-juralism) is at stake.
KLRI (Korea Legislation Research Institute) Journal of Law and Legislation, 2020
Protections of the right to privacy concerning publications have a relatively long history in Eur... more Protections of the right to privacy concerning publications have a relatively long history in Europe. The first part of the article explores comparatively and historically, the mechanisms of such protections originated in the 19th century Germany and synthesized brilliantly by Brandeis and Warren in the U.S. This part includes a brief overview of European supranational protection of the right to privacy, as framed in article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights and, more recently, in article 7 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The protections of the right to personal data in digital processing is a more recent occurrence in Europe. Few national constitutions or international instruments recognize such rights, and even fewer jurisdictional remedies are associated with it. There are some significant exceptions, mainly at the supranational level, such as the EU Data Protection Directive (recently replaced by the EU General Data Protection Regulation) and Article 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The second part of the article briefly explores these protections, their inherent logic, and the implementing mechanisms as clearly different from those characterizing the protections of the right to privacy. The third part examines the articulation between the two protection mechanisms, as reflected by the reasoning of the European Union Court of Justice on the famous Gonzales case. The decision implemented a right of de-listing as "right to be forgotten on the Internet" by the search engines. We propose a new reading for the reasoning of the Court, which underlines the essential role of protections of the right to privacy in grounding and circumscribing the data protection mechanisms of the EU Data Protection Directive within the decision. Last but not least, the article asses that the newly adopted EU General Data Protection Regulation will not affect the precedent created by the Gonzales and the adequate remedies it implemented.
International Business Law Journal (Revue de Droit des Affaires Internationales), Nov 1, 2017
In the 1930s, Ernst Rabel formulated a program for comparing trans-national (autonomous) characte... more In the 1930s, Ernst Rabel formulated a program for comparing trans-national (autonomous) characterizations of the conflict of laws. In the following years his ambitious approach had little influence in a world where the practice of national judges was, and still is, characterized by ‘lex fori.’
However, the Convention of Brussels I represents a relatively recent evolution regarding conflicts of jurisdiction in Europe and has reinvigorated Rabel’s program, although within a different, international setting.
The paper first explores the historical significance and articulations of Rabel’s original program. The second part focuses on a comparison used in trans-national/autonomous characterization of Convention of Brussels I by the European Court of Justice. Based on significant decisions within a 40-year period, this analysis uncovers the reasons, features, and limits of such a powerful interpretative instrument.
Eventually, this instrument might be used outside of international settings, for example in interpreting more recent EU Regulations (such as Brussels I, Brussels II, and Brussels III or Rome I, Rome II, and Rome III).
R. Review of European Law, no.3 /2012, pp 167-175 (updated content), May 10, 2012
A great leap in creating a digital library for the internet world is Google’s Books Search initia... more A great leap in creating a digital library for the internet world is Google’s Books Search initiative.
In a pragmatic approach of' ‘do first and then ask' Google started digitizing library collections from around the word.
More recently Google and its partners have settled an agreement that put an end to class actions introduced by copyrights holders. One of the most interesting parts in the settlement relates to orphan books, books whose copyright status is uncertain.
According to the agreement Google would be able, under certain conditions, to digitize and distribute these books electronically. It might have been one of most important breakthroughs in copyright, based on the 'opt out' option for copyright owners. However the agreement was rejected in some important parts (the ‘opt-out’ clause included) by a US Federal judge.
The fact that Google began scanning 'out-of-print' books created an awareness of importance of the issue in Europe. There were no class actions available in European countries on copyright issues. The only remedy might have been a top-down approach based on legislation – as extension of collective licenses used in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway or Iceland.
Most recently the French Senate began to discuss a bill aimed to build a framework for digital utilization with an 'opt-out' mechanism similar to the one envisioned in Google’s agreement.
The initial steps seemed to favor the US. That created in Europe an incentive to establish similar solutions for orphan books through statute law. The recent rejection of Google's agreement and its highly uncertain future might restart, once again, a transatlantic competition.
Chapter 12 of The European Small Claims Procedure and the Philosophy of Small Change, Neuwahl N. and Hammamoun S. (eds.), Thémis, Montreal, Canada, 2014, p 213-230, Oct 1, 2014
The small claims procedure Regulation (EC Regulation No 861/2007 of European Parliament and Counc... more The small claims procedure Regulation (EC Regulation No 861/2007 of European Parliament and Council of 11 July 2007) was adopted to facilitate cross-border litigations in cases involving small debts. This procedure is optional and assures a fast and cost effective way of dealing with such situations. As a European regulation this procedure is directly and immediately applicable in every Member State including Romania.
The Members States incur obligations of information and generally of facilitating the immediate applicability of the Regulation on their territory. Romania has fulfilled its obligations, ’ad minima’.
Some European legal systems (but not Romania) already had fast ‘ad hoc’ procedures for internal small claims in situations other than crossborder litigation. Such national procedures are generally not enforceable in cross-border disputes. This is now altogether different.
The right of access to justice and the right to access to court are guaranteed under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and are part of the general principles of European Union law. Effective access to justice is one of the fundamental conditions for the establishment of the rule of law.
This article examines, in the first part, the application of the Regulation in Romania from this access to justice perspective. We use an exegetic analysis since there is no actual practice yet.
In Romania an important reform of the Code of Civil Procedure has introduced an internal small claim procedure similar to the European one. This special procedure will ensure for purely national litigators the same advantages as those that are recognised by European regulation in cross-border context.
Therefore, the second part and the third part of the article will evaluate, from the same access to justice perspective, the European regulation vis-à-vis the national procedure which applies after 15 February, 2013, the date when the New Code has come into force.
Romanian Review of European Law, no 2, 2012, pp. 91-106, 2012
This French version of an original Romanian paper focuses on comparison as an interpretative meth... more This French version of an original Romanian paper focuses on comparison as an interpretative method within the European Brussels regime.
A historical overview will uncover some pre-European tentative to use comparison to unify law.
Then, the analysis will focus on European judges’ comparative practice in the unified maters of the Brussels regime (more specifically, Brussels Convention). In the 70s, the European judge started to use comparison to interpret the obscure terms of the Brussels Convention.
Based on some essential cases, we will establish the place of comparison among other methods used by the judge (such as historical and teleological interpretation). We will equally ‘translate’ this use of comparison by European judges as a grammatical method of interpretation.
This kind of comparison used by European judges is still an unrivalled practice, far in advance to other tentative from International Private Law to unify the application of uniform rules. Nevertheless, this might be an essential contribution of Europe in a field primarily forgotten by methodological doctrine.
The John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law, Volume 32, issue 2 (2016)
While robots are still absent from our homes, they have started to spread over battlefields. Howe... more While robots are still absent from our homes, they have started to spread over battlefields. However, the military robots of today are mostly remotely controlled platforms, with no real autonomy. This paper will disclose the obstacles in implementing autonomy for such systems, by answering a technical question: “What level of autonomy is needed in military robots and how and when might it be achieved?”, followed by a techno-legal one; “How to implement the rules of humanitarian law within autonomous fighting robots, in order to allow their legal deployment?”
The first chapter scrutinizes the significance of autonomy in robots and the metrics used to quantify it, which were developed by the US Department of Defense.
The second chapter focuses on the autonomy of ‘state-of-the-art’ robots (e.g.; Google’s self-driving car, DARPA’s projects, etc) for navigation, ISR or lethal missions. Based on public information, we will get a hint of the architectures, the functioning, the thresholds and technical limitations of such systems. The bottleneck to a higher autonomy of robots seems to be their poor ‘perceptive intelligence’.
The last chapter looks to the requirements of humanitarian law (rules of ‘jus in bello’/rules of engagement) to the legal deployment of autonomous lethal robots on the battlefields. The legal and moral reasoning of human soldiers, complying with humanitarian law, is a complex cognitive process which must be emulated by autonomous robots that could make lethal decisions. However, autonomous completion of such ‘moral’ tasks by artificial agents is much more challenging than the autonomous implementation of other tasks, such as navigation, ISR or kinetic attacks.
Given the limits of current Artificial Intelligence, it is highly unlikely that robots will acquire such 'moral' capabilities anytime soon. Therefore, for the time being, the autonomous weapon systems might be legally deployed, but only in very particular circumstances, where the requirements of humanitarian law happen to be irrelevant.
«Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology», Vol. 8, No. 3, July 2013, p.179-189
This article highlights legal problems of cyber attacks from a ‘jus ad bellum’ perspective (inter... more This article highlights legal problems of cyber attacks from a ‘jus ad bellum’ perspective (international dispositions regarding the justification for entering a war).
Since no international instrument whatsoever covers the cyber attacks, the analogies with current international solutions are largely employed.
We illustrate also the developments with relevant examples taken from main powers’ doctrine and practice (US, Russia and China).
The starting points are the provisions regarding the use of
(armed)"force" under Article 2(4) and “armed attack” under Article 51 of United Nations Charter. The qualification of a cyber attack as use of “armed force” or “armed attack” is
based on a multi criteria threshold developed by Schmitt.
Other developments focus the capacity of present International law concepts (direct and indirect armed attack,
identification of the aggressor state, pertinence of pre-emptive or interceptive self defense vis-à-vis cyber ‘armed attack’, etc.) to answer cyber warfare’s structures and challenges.
Mémoire et histoire dans l'oeuvre d'Emil Cioran colloque international 20-21 juin 2023, Strasbourg, 2023
« ... une créativité éblouissante ne fait pas partie du destin de la plupart des gens, et elle ne... more « ... une créativité éblouissante ne fait pas partie du destin de la plupart des gens, et elle ne devrait pas non plus le faire : un traumatisme extrême dans les premières années est presque toujours impliqué, et une fragmentation de l'âme, puis un besoin impérieux d'atteindre la plénitude, apparaissent ». George Atwood à propos du génie créatif en Nietzsche's Madness (with commentary), pp32 Cioran ne laisse personne indifférent. Comment dévoiler la personnalité de Cioran au-delà de son charisme paradoxal? Il faut une approche heuristique pour trouver les bonnes questions et ensuite pour parvenir à des réponses correctes ou, au moins, à des pistes vers une solution. On a choisi la voie d'une comparaison avec les psychographies des autres grands, come Nietzsche et Flaubert, pour éclairer la singularité de Cioran, et l'ampreinte de sa biographie sur son paysage interior.
Revista Română de Drept European, Aprilie 2012, 2012
This original Romanian version of the article focuses on comparison as an interpretative method w... more This original Romanian version of the article focuses on comparison as an interpretative method within the European Brussels regime. A historical overview will uncover some pre-European tentative to use comparison to unify law. Then, the analysis will focus on European judges’ comparative practice in the unified maters of the Brussels regime (more specifically, Brussels Convention). In the 70s, the European judge started to use comparison to interpret the obscure terms of the Brussels Convention. Based on some essential cases, we will establish the place of comparison among other methods used by the judge (such as historical and teleological interpretation). We will equally ‘translate’ this use of comparison by European judges as a grammatical method of interpretation. This comparison used by European judges is still an unrivalled practice, far in advance to other tentative from International Private Law to unify the application of uniform rules. Nevertheless, this might be an essential contribution of Europe in a field primarily forgotten by methodological doctrine.
Amandine CAYOL, Hye-Hwal SEONG, Remus TITIRIGA, Pierre CHABAL (eds.)''Eurasian challenges to international economic law after BREXIT and in the context of the COVID-19'', Peter Lang, Cultures juridiques et politiques, Brussels, p 37-48, 2022
The paper analyses developments before May 2021 when presented to a teleconference held in Le Hav... more The paper analyses developments before May 2021 when presented to a teleconference held in Le Havre, France.
It considers that particular rhetoric of change hides a bipartisan continuity in international trade policies of the U.S.toward China and Eurasia. Accordingly, it tried to determine whether the disruptive trade actions of the Trump administration concerning Eurasia and China would be pursued by a Biden administration.
Trump administration followed in a crescendo the antidumping and countervailing duties favoured in the last years by President Obama. The Trump administration also took a bolder stance by using other US legal mechanisms (out of WTO but not forbidden by WTO) to adopt trade sanctions against China and other countries.
However, according to expert commenters, a Hillary Presidency would have also used such legal mechanisms, albeit under different rhetoric. There is also a continuity in the escalation of US actions inside the WTO from Obama to Trump, who finally blocked the Appellate Body dispute settlement.
Given these deep continuities, the author considers that the trade war with tariffs and sanctions on China adopted by the Trump administration will remain in place for the time being under the Biden administration.
The paper explores the first steps made by European Union Commission toward a legal regime of co-... more The paper explores the first steps made by European Union Commission toward a legal regime of co-modal transportation in Europe. The analysis starts by determining the place of EU’s transport policy on the background on the national and international regulations of transports. In a second step the examination focus the Action n°7 of the European Commission, concerning the Multimodal transport of goods – the so called E-Freight Action. The last developments assess the predictable outcome of an E-Freight Project (European e-Freight capabilities for Co-modal transport). One can reasonably expect that, in 2 to 3 years from now, a first proposal from the EU Commission of an European legislation on co-modality transportation.
La doctrine d’intérêts (Interessenjurisprudenz) est une école méthodologique allemande qui s’est ... more La doctrine d’intérêts (Interessenjurisprudenz) est une école méthodologique allemande qui s’est manifestée à partir du début de XX siècle. Il s’agit d’un courant affirmé autour de l’Université de Tübingen et qui a eu comme chef de file Philip von Heck un professeur de droit civil. Au fur et à mesure de son évolution cette doctrine s’est enrichie par les contributions des auteurs comme Roumelin, Ortemann, Mullers-Herzbach, Stoll qui étaient également des spécialistes de droit privé. L’Interessenjurisprudenz s’est étendue ensuite à tous les domaines du droit pour s’imposer à partir des années vingt comme le courant méthodologique dominant en Allemagne. Ses acquis ont été repris et parfois dépassés par les courants qui dominent aujourd’hui encore la méthodologie interprétative allemande. Au-delà d’Allemagne la doctrine d’intérêts s’est imposée comme méthode de choix dans l’arsenal du juge suisse. En dépit de son importance majeure dans l’évolution de la réflexion et de la pratique méthodologique, l’Interessenjurisprudenz est peu connue en dehors de l’Allemagne car elle est très souvent confondue avec l’école du « Libre droit ». C’est la raison pour laquelle nous lui consacrerons ce bref aperçu, essayant d’éclaircir le contexte de son apparition et de ses principaux enseignements.
Our knowledge society is quickly becoming a ‘transparent’ one. This transparency is
acquired, amo... more Our knowledge society is quickly becoming a ‘transparent’ one. This transparency is acquired, among other means, by ’personalization’ or ‘profiling’: ICT tools gathering contextualized information about individuals in men–computers interactions. The paper begins with an overview of these ICT tools (behavioural targeting, recommendation engines, and personalization through social networking). Based on these developments, the analysis focuses on a case study of social networks (Facebook) results and the trade-offs between ‘personalization’ and privacy constraints. A deeper analysis will reveal unexpected challenges and the need to overcome the privacy paradigm. Finally, a draft of possible normative solutions will be depicted, grounded in new forms of individual rights.
The paper examines the relativity of psychological time (inner time or time perception), which re... more The paper examines the relativity of psychological time (inner time or time perception), which refers to the sense of time, which can not be directly perceived but must be reconstructed by the brain. Psychological time is linked to physical time but might disconnect from it in certain situations. This disconnection makes the inner time relative and forms the object of the analysis.
In the first part of the paper, we examine the relativity or dilatation of psychological time, which accompanies crossing particular levels or thresholds in brain activity. Such points are related to age, extreme emotions associated with sudden dangers, inner states (such as dreams), near-death experiences, trance, or mystical states.
In the paper's final part, we try to explain the speed up or 'dilatation' of the psychological time in crossing the mentioned thresholds. Our explanation considers that such 'dilatation' relates to the brain's more and more inner activity, which lets it function at its full (quasi-infinite) 'processing speed'.
This (quasi-infinite) 'processing speed' is a metaphor for the brain's hyper-connected architecture, which allows quasi-infinite parallel mental processes to happen in the same physical time.
This (quasi-infinite) 'processing speed' is a metaphor for the brain's hyper-connected architecture, which allows quasi-infinite parallel mental processes to happen in the same physical time.
For example, we can build a narrative covering each such cognitive process. However, unfolding such infinite narratives entirely (within a mega record) would take a quasi-infinite time in the physical world.
Hence a second (a moment of physical Now) would equal Eternity within the psychological (reconstructed) time.
The Belt-and-Road initiative and the challenge of change in the legal and political systems of Eurasia, Peter Lang, Enjeux Internationaux, Brussels, 2021
The paper analyses developments before June 2019, as an update of a presentation made in April 20... more The paper analyses developments before June 2019, as an update of a presentation made in April 2019 to a conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan. It examines the trade policies of the Trump Administration with Eurasian state or non-state actors.
The introduction assesses the goals and tools of the new US trade policy through President Trump's open declarations.
The first part identifies the strategies/tactics of the trade policy by analyzing actions of the new US administration as, for example, aluminum and steel tariffs or the renegotiations of KORUS or USMCA agreements.
A second part uses this frame to apprehend the US Administration's trade actions concerning actors, such as the EU, Japan, China, or WTO, and determine the possible outcomes with disruptive impact on the globalization process of the last three decades.
Cross-border exchanges: Eurasian perspectives on logistics and diplomacy, Peter Lang, Brussels, 2020
The paper analyses developments before June 2018, date when it was presented to a conference in B... more The paper analyses developments before June 2018, date when it was presented to a conference in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, followed by a recent publication in a collective volume.
It focuses on the trade initiatives of the Trump Administration about China placed in the context of the recent American push for restructuring the global economic order.
The first part takes into account the business background of President Trump, able to explain his economic focus and non-conventional approach to economic policy and policy in general. Allying this with an assessment of the US economic and geopolitical position, one can identify the patterns, directions, strategies, resources, and capabilities in the service of international trade policies.
The second part focuses on the trade actions of the US Administration regarding China. We applied patterns identified in the first part to understand the logic of American trade actions and evaluate their possible outcomes.
We estimate that the new trade policies of the US administration to China will have a more consequential impact on global order than the fall of the Soviet Union in the 90s.
«On some Asian and European origins of Legal and Political systems-some views from Korea, Kazakhstan & France», Peter Lang, Bruxelles, 2018
This conclusion is more than a reiteration of the papers in the volume. Its goal is a synthetic m... more This conclusion is more than a reiteration of the papers in the volume. Its goal is a synthetic meaning of the contributions by relating each other and providing future research ideas. Its primary focus is methodological, and the main instrument is comparison. The conclusion starts with a brief introduction overviewing the contributions seen on themselves and examining their scope and methodology. In the first part, the analysis is pursued by correlating each contribution through a 'horizontal' inquiry based on a post factum comparison. We introduce and apply the post-factum comparison after a brief survey of comparison as a scientific instrument, in general, and legal instrument in special. In the final part, we move a step further and use the comparison as a heuristic instrument to formulate common topics for future research.
Universitas, An International Peer Review Journal, Vol. No 16, 2021,ISSN 2229-5542, 2021
The article examines the comparison used by the European Union judge as a tool of interpretation.... more The article examines the comparison used by the European Union judge as a tool of interpretation.
The first part circumscribes the meaning of comparison as an interpretative tool. Then, a step-by-step approach clarifies the purpose of comparison in general, interpreting comparison in particular, and realizes an overview of comparative interpretative practice by international tribunals and identifies hidden cases when the European judge employed the comparison.
The second part of the paper examines the emergence of comparative interpretation in topic case-laws relating to the European Community of Steel and Carbon (ECSC) Treaty. In the 50s and 60s, there was an unseen dialogue of the doctrine, the Advocates Generals, and the European judge about interpreting the ECSC Treaty's undetermined normative concepts. The outcome of this dialogue was the occurrence of a 'standard' interpretative comparison, as multi-comparison, which was used by the European judge ever since.
The third part of the article places this 'standard' comparison within a methodological perspective. This perspective requires an outline of interpretative methodologies of judges both in national and international law.
This outline offers the ground for 'translating,' methodologically speaking, the 'standard' comparison as a subset of the literal or grammatical interpretation belonging to an objective system of interpretation (embraced by EU Court). Moreover, this 'standard' comparison is strongly linked to multi-juralism (existence of many independent and parallel legal systems of Member States) and loosely coupled to multilingualism (the legal use of multiple languages within the EU), both essential characteristics of the European legal system.
In conclusion, this powerful and misunderstood tool of the judge had an essential role in the historical evolution of the European Union. It may also provide hints and solutions for national or international situations where pluralism at the legal level (multi-juralism) is at stake.
KLRI (Korea Legislation Research Institute) Journal of Law and Legislation, 2020
Protections of the right to privacy concerning publications have a relatively long history in Eur... more Protections of the right to privacy concerning publications have a relatively long history in Europe. The first part of the article explores comparatively and historically, the mechanisms of such protections originated in the 19th century Germany and synthesized brilliantly by Brandeis and Warren in the U.S. This part includes a brief overview of European supranational protection of the right to privacy, as framed in article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights and, more recently, in article 7 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The protections of the right to personal data in digital processing is a more recent occurrence in Europe. Few national constitutions or international instruments recognize such rights, and even fewer jurisdictional remedies are associated with it. There are some significant exceptions, mainly at the supranational level, such as the EU Data Protection Directive (recently replaced by the EU General Data Protection Regulation) and Article 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The second part of the article briefly explores these protections, their inherent logic, and the implementing mechanisms as clearly different from those characterizing the protections of the right to privacy. The third part examines the articulation between the two protection mechanisms, as reflected by the reasoning of the European Union Court of Justice on the famous Gonzales case. The decision implemented a right of de-listing as "right to be forgotten on the Internet" by the search engines. We propose a new reading for the reasoning of the Court, which underlines the essential role of protections of the right to privacy in grounding and circumscribing the data protection mechanisms of the EU Data Protection Directive within the decision. Last but not least, the article asses that the newly adopted EU General Data Protection Regulation will not affect the precedent created by the Gonzales and the adequate remedies it implemented.
International Business Law Journal (Revue de Droit des Affaires Internationales), Nov 1, 2017
In the 1930s, Ernst Rabel formulated a program for comparing trans-national (autonomous) characte... more In the 1930s, Ernst Rabel formulated a program for comparing trans-national (autonomous) characterizations of the conflict of laws. In the following years his ambitious approach had little influence in a world where the practice of national judges was, and still is, characterized by ‘lex fori.’
However, the Convention of Brussels I represents a relatively recent evolution regarding conflicts of jurisdiction in Europe and has reinvigorated Rabel’s program, although within a different, international setting.
The paper first explores the historical significance and articulations of Rabel’s original program. The second part focuses on a comparison used in trans-national/autonomous characterization of Convention of Brussels I by the European Court of Justice. Based on significant decisions within a 40-year period, this analysis uncovers the reasons, features, and limits of such a powerful interpretative instrument.
Eventually, this instrument might be used outside of international settings, for example in interpreting more recent EU Regulations (such as Brussels I, Brussels II, and Brussels III or Rome I, Rome II, and Rome III).
R. Review of European Law, no.3 /2012, pp 167-175 (updated content), May 10, 2012
A great leap in creating a digital library for the internet world is Google’s Books Search initia... more A great leap in creating a digital library for the internet world is Google’s Books Search initiative.
In a pragmatic approach of' ‘do first and then ask' Google started digitizing library collections from around the word.
More recently Google and its partners have settled an agreement that put an end to class actions introduced by copyrights holders. One of the most interesting parts in the settlement relates to orphan books, books whose copyright status is uncertain.
According to the agreement Google would be able, under certain conditions, to digitize and distribute these books electronically. It might have been one of most important breakthroughs in copyright, based on the 'opt out' option for copyright owners. However the agreement was rejected in some important parts (the ‘opt-out’ clause included) by a US Federal judge.
The fact that Google began scanning 'out-of-print' books created an awareness of importance of the issue in Europe. There were no class actions available in European countries on copyright issues. The only remedy might have been a top-down approach based on legislation – as extension of collective licenses used in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway or Iceland.
Most recently the French Senate began to discuss a bill aimed to build a framework for digital utilization with an 'opt-out' mechanism similar to the one envisioned in Google’s agreement.
The initial steps seemed to favor the US. That created in Europe an incentive to establish similar solutions for orphan books through statute law. The recent rejection of Google's agreement and its highly uncertain future might restart, once again, a transatlantic competition.
Chapter 12 of The European Small Claims Procedure and the Philosophy of Small Change, Neuwahl N. and Hammamoun S. (eds.), Thémis, Montreal, Canada, 2014, p 213-230, Oct 1, 2014
The small claims procedure Regulation (EC Regulation No 861/2007 of European Parliament and Counc... more The small claims procedure Regulation (EC Regulation No 861/2007 of European Parliament and Council of 11 July 2007) was adopted to facilitate cross-border litigations in cases involving small debts. This procedure is optional and assures a fast and cost effective way of dealing with such situations. As a European regulation this procedure is directly and immediately applicable in every Member State including Romania.
The Members States incur obligations of information and generally of facilitating the immediate applicability of the Regulation on their territory. Romania has fulfilled its obligations, ’ad minima’.
Some European legal systems (but not Romania) already had fast ‘ad hoc’ procedures for internal small claims in situations other than crossborder litigation. Such national procedures are generally not enforceable in cross-border disputes. This is now altogether different.
The right of access to justice and the right to access to court are guaranteed under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and are part of the general principles of European Union law. Effective access to justice is one of the fundamental conditions for the establishment of the rule of law.
This article examines, in the first part, the application of the Regulation in Romania from this access to justice perspective. We use an exegetic analysis since there is no actual practice yet.
In Romania an important reform of the Code of Civil Procedure has introduced an internal small claim procedure similar to the European one. This special procedure will ensure for purely national litigators the same advantages as those that are recognised by European regulation in cross-border context.
Therefore, the second part and the third part of the article will evaluate, from the same access to justice perspective, the European regulation vis-à-vis the national procedure which applies after 15 February, 2013, the date when the New Code has come into force.
Romanian Review of European Law, no 2, 2012, pp. 91-106, 2012
This French version of an original Romanian paper focuses on comparison as an interpretative meth... more This French version of an original Romanian paper focuses on comparison as an interpretative method within the European Brussels regime.
A historical overview will uncover some pre-European tentative to use comparison to unify law.
Then, the analysis will focus on European judges’ comparative practice in the unified maters of the Brussels regime (more specifically, Brussels Convention). In the 70s, the European judge started to use comparison to interpret the obscure terms of the Brussels Convention.
Based on some essential cases, we will establish the place of comparison among other methods used by the judge (such as historical and teleological interpretation). We will equally ‘translate’ this use of comparison by European judges as a grammatical method of interpretation.
This kind of comparison used by European judges is still an unrivalled practice, far in advance to other tentative from International Private Law to unify the application of uniform rules. Nevertheless, this might be an essential contribution of Europe in a field primarily forgotten by methodological doctrine.
The John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law, Volume 32, issue 2 (2016)
While robots are still absent from our homes, they have started to spread over battlefields. Howe... more While robots are still absent from our homes, they have started to spread over battlefields. However, the military robots of today are mostly remotely controlled platforms, with no real autonomy. This paper will disclose the obstacles in implementing autonomy for such systems, by answering a technical question: “What level of autonomy is needed in military robots and how and when might it be achieved?”, followed by a techno-legal one; “How to implement the rules of humanitarian law within autonomous fighting robots, in order to allow their legal deployment?”
The first chapter scrutinizes the significance of autonomy in robots and the metrics used to quantify it, which were developed by the US Department of Defense.
The second chapter focuses on the autonomy of ‘state-of-the-art’ robots (e.g.; Google’s self-driving car, DARPA’s projects, etc) for navigation, ISR or lethal missions. Based on public information, we will get a hint of the architectures, the functioning, the thresholds and technical limitations of such systems. The bottleneck to a higher autonomy of robots seems to be their poor ‘perceptive intelligence’.
The last chapter looks to the requirements of humanitarian law (rules of ‘jus in bello’/rules of engagement) to the legal deployment of autonomous lethal robots on the battlefields. The legal and moral reasoning of human soldiers, complying with humanitarian law, is a complex cognitive process which must be emulated by autonomous robots that could make lethal decisions. However, autonomous completion of such ‘moral’ tasks by artificial agents is much more challenging than the autonomous implementation of other tasks, such as navigation, ISR or kinetic attacks.
Given the limits of current Artificial Intelligence, it is highly unlikely that robots will acquire such 'moral' capabilities anytime soon. Therefore, for the time being, the autonomous weapon systems might be legally deployed, but only in very particular circumstances, where the requirements of humanitarian law happen to be irrelevant.
«Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology», Vol. 8, No. 3, July 2013, p.179-189
This article highlights legal problems of cyber attacks from a ‘jus ad bellum’ perspective (inter... more This article highlights legal problems of cyber attacks from a ‘jus ad bellum’ perspective (international dispositions regarding the justification for entering a war).
Since no international instrument whatsoever covers the cyber attacks, the analogies with current international solutions are largely employed.
We illustrate also the developments with relevant examples taken from main powers’ doctrine and practice (US, Russia and China).
The starting points are the provisions regarding the use of
(armed)"force" under Article 2(4) and “armed attack” under Article 51 of United Nations Charter. The qualification of a cyber attack as use of “armed force” or “armed attack” is
based on a multi criteria threshold developed by Schmitt.
Other developments focus the capacity of present International law concepts (direct and indirect armed attack,
identification of the aggressor state, pertinence of pre-emptive or interceptive self defense vis-à-vis cyber ‘armed attack’, etc.) to answer cyber warfare’s structures and challenges.
Course objectives The course aims to familiarise students with international business thinking th... more Course objectives The course aims to familiarise students with international business thinking through real-life situations and an analytical frame.
The course will provide an image of regulation and protection of international investment, one of... more The course will provide an image of regulation and protection of international investment, one of today's leading forces behind globalization. Starting from international instruments and national laws, the analysis will further focus on some global Court decisions or arbitration awards. Students will understand the challenges, the debates, and the development of international investment ideas regarding this developing field of transnational law. The course shall be in the interest of students who want to develop a career with a global dimension.
Credit value: 3.0 credits Course objectives The curse's objective is to familiarise students with... more Credit value: 3.0 credits Course objectives The curse's objective is to familiarise students with thinking about the ICT-Cyber Security and its apprehension by law. The course provides an image of security challenges related to new Information Communication Technologies and the Internet (cyberattacks, privacy, data protection, etc.) and their legal answer in a significant context (EU, Council of Europe, US). Starting with national constitutions, statutes, international instruments, the analysis focuses on situations where the law could solve cybersecurity breaches. Students will understand the challenges, debates, and ideas regarding today's cybersecurity laws and regulations. Since we are not native speakers, just a basic level of English will be required. Course description This course explores the legal issues involved in a broad survey of cybersecurity topics. The focus will be on criminal law institutions, regulations, and remedies dealing with cyber security breaches. Last but not least, it will explore the still hypothetical, international public law remedies concerning cyber security breaches ("cyberwar"). Such a broad survey will prepare students to understand and implement legal or policy revision proposals that make sense in the modern cybersecurity context. Class structure Each class will be a mixture of lectures and seminars based on critical issues and discussing the materials (handouts) distributed in advance. The materials classified as compulsory reading (Readings) must be read before each class.
The objective of the curse is to familiarize students with the thinking about the Economy at the ... more The objective of the curse is to familiarize students with the thinking about the Economy at the global level using the instruments of econometric, politics, and the law. The students will acquire a 'reservoir' of solutions useful in their future career and the understanding of the landscape of the Global Economy. The course examines the dynamics of the Global Economy. It uses a historical perspective on economic development throughout the ages. Each class will be a mixture of lectures and seminars based on critical issues and discussing the materials (handouts) distributed in advance.
The course is focusing on the political developments within Europe with special attention on west... more The course is focusing on the political developments within Europe with special attention on western democracies (Germany, France), the European Union, and, incidentally, the USA.
Course objectives
The course will cover mainly the significant decisions and the tactics strategy... more Course objectives The course will cover mainly the significant decisions and the tactics strategy adopted by the U.S. executive branch (i.e., Trump Administration) about international trade. The objective of the curse is to familiarise students with legal thinking of the executives concerning international trade policy. The students will acquire a ‘reservoir’ of solutions very useful in their future career and an understanding of the rapidly changing landscape of global trade. Since we are not native speakers, only a basic level of English will be required. Therefore the evaluation will not assess, in any case, the English language abilities. Course description The course explores the dynamics of the reshaping of international trade by the new U.S. Administration (Trump Administration). Having a business background, U.S. President Trump is bringing a particular economic focus and a non-conventional economic-commercial policy on the international level. We try to identify the patterns, directions, strategies, and impact of this foreign trade policy. After developments concerning general concepts of trade, the course is focusing the global trade actions and the negotiation (or renegotiation) process initiated by the U.S. with South Korea, NAFTA(Canada, Mexico), China, Japan, E.U., etc. We apply patterns identified in the first part of the course to understand the logic and the possible outcome of these trade actions. We estimate that the new trade policies of the U.S. administration will have a more consequential impact on global economic and political developments than the fall of the Soviet Union in the 90s.
The course is focusing on debates and evolution in relation to the establishment of European Unio... more The course is focusing on debates and evolution in relation to the establishment of European Union. Inspired by economical and political achievements of the US, certain European states created European Communities, during the 50s. Facing a number of crises and unprecedented challenges the new entities evolved and become the single successful integrative initiative of today- the European Union. The course focus, from a historical and comparative perspective (Europe vs. US), the political background and the legal solutions that shaped the European Union. Students will acquire a deep understanding of the challenges, the risks and legal instruments in relation to European integration. The subtitle of the course might be “ Comparative federalism in historical perspective; US vs. European Union”, therefore the essential development are comparative and historical. US was the model for European integration at different levels ( institutional, constitutional, legal procedure, Central bank system, agricultural policies).
Privacy, or the 'right to be left alone' (according to a famous US definition), is a recent conqu... more Privacy, or the 'right to be left alone' (according to a famous US definition), is a recent conquest within modern democracies. Recent challenges created by emerging Information technologies imposed another evolution of protecting mechanisms under concepts such as information privacy, data protection, right to be forgotten on the Internet, etc. This course examines "information privacy," an individual's right to control his or her personal information held by others, in relation to IT technologies and the Internet (privacy as a source right, data protection, right to be forgotten on the Internet, etc). Starting from relevant rules from national legal systems or international instruments the analysis will focus fundamental decisions of national or supranational courts.
This syllabus gives an overview of the course which might be called 'Legal reasoning of courts i... more This syllabus gives an overview of the course which might be called 'Legal reasoning of courts in Europe vs. US'. Therefore the course explores, through comparison, the legal thinking of highest judges in Europe and/or US. Some important decisions will illustrate, in a step by step approach, different methods of interpretation used by the highest jurisdictions.
Freedom of speech (or freedom of expression) is the political right to communicate one's opinions... more Freedom of speech (or freedom of expression) is the political right to communicate one's opinions and ideas to everibody willing to receive them. It is one of the most important human rights but also a cornerstone in a modern democracy. The tumultuous history of XXth century explains why Europe developed a multidimensional structure for the protection of human rights (freedom of speech included) : national constitutions, supranational structures around European Council, the integrated system of the European Union. The course examine the protection of the freedom of speech as a right expanding over these 3 dimensions.
This book compares the evolution of the legal systems of Central Asia, Europe, and East Asia, und... more This book compares the evolution of the legal systems of Central Asia, Europe, and East Asia, under the impact of economic factors, both structural and crisis-inspired. The COVID-19, one of the severest challenges faced by humanity, alters the social order and the way people think. Already, changes impact the socio-economic and political-legal spheres. Geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts affect the place of states and regions in the world order. The UK�s withdrawal from the EU, superimposed onto the pandemic, inflicted not only political and socio-economic losses but reputational losses as well. It signaled the limits of regional integration if the world�s most successful economic grouping needed to revise its own development. This book analyses three salient international political/legal problems for states and regions of Eurasia: trade and financial issues, regional and interregional issues, industrial and socioeconomic issues. It also looks at the US trade policy towards Eurasia ...
This book, in French, is a first monograph of its kind, which explores the use by European Union ... more This book, in French, is a first monograph of its kind, which explores the use by European Union (EU) Court of Justice of comparison-legal solutions inspired by national laws - to solve certain points of European Union law.
It examines a powerful but difficult to grasp tool.
The comparison is a powerful instrument, since EU judge use it extensively to solve hard cases.
It is difficult to grasp since comparison is a multidimensional instrument. On one side comparison is a method of interpretation alongside other methods (grammatical, systematical, historical or teleological). On the other side comparison is a formula for determination by EU judge of a source of EU law, ie the common principles of national laws. Therefore comparison is a method of interpretation but also a 'procedure ' for 'construction' (development) of EU law by judge. Hence comparison is a technique of EU judge.
A preliminary chapter underlines certain difficulties of the research. The first one concerns the delimitation of technical use of comparison by judges from comparison used by legal scholars. Another difficulty relates to the hidden use of comparison by the EU Court.
Afterwards the research is developed on three stages: a formal analysis, a functional analysis, and, finally, an analysis of inner justification for comparison.
The formal analysis identifies 4 kinds of comparisons: standard, unifying, normative, diversity.
The functional analysis differentiates 'administrative' functions (the building up of judicial remedies or control mechanisms over European institutions) and 'constitutional' functions (the mimicking of federalism and the build up of a protection for human rights).
The search for inner justification of comparison find it in the special nature of European Union system, which lacks sovereign powers (as ‘competence of competence’) and therefore is essentially different from a classic federation.
Note: The following downloadable excerpt is reproducing a part of preliminary chapter and is written in French.
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Papers by Remus Titiriga
Cioran ne laisse personne indifférent. Comment dévoiler la personnalité de Cioran au-delà de son charisme paradoxal? Il faut une approche heuristique pour trouver les bonnes questions et ensuite pour parvenir à des réponses correctes ou, au moins, à des pistes vers une solution.
On a choisi la voie d'une comparaison avec les psychographies des autres grands, come Nietzsche et Flaubert, pour éclairer la singularité de Cioran, et l'ampreinte de sa biographie sur son paysage interior.
A historical overview will uncover some pre-European tentative to use comparison to unify law.
Then, the analysis will focus on European judges’ comparative practice in the unified maters of the Brussels regime (more specifically, Brussels Convention). In the 70s, the European judge started to use comparison to interpret the obscure terms of the Brussels Convention.
Based on some essential cases, we will establish the place of comparison among other methods used by the judge (such as historical and teleological interpretation). We will equally ‘translate’ this use of comparison by European judges as a grammatical method of interpretation.
This comparison used by European judges is still an unrivalled practice, far in advance to other tentative from International Private Law to unify the application of uniform rules. Nevertheless, this might be an essential contribution of Europe in a field primarily forgotten by methodological doctrine.
It considers that particular rhetoric of change hides a bipartisan continuity in international trade policies of the U.S.toward China and Eurasia. Accordingly, it tried to determine whether the disruptive trade actions of the Trump administration concerning Eurasia and China would be pursued by a Biden administration.
Trump administration followed in a crescendo the antidumping and countervailing duties favoured in the last years by President Obama. The Trump administration also took a bolder stance by using other US legal mechanisms (out of WTO but not forbidden by WTO) to adopt trade sanctions against China and other countries.
However, according to expert commenters, a Hillary Presidency would have also used such legal mechanisms, albeit under different rhetoric. There is also a continuity in the escalation of US actions inside the WTO from Obama to Trump, who finally blocked the Appellate Body dispute settlement.
Given these deep continuities, the author considers that the trade war with tariffs and sanctions on China adopted by the Trump administration will remain in place for the time being under the Biden administration.
En dépit de son importance majeure dans l’évolution de la réflexion et de la pratique méthodologique, l’Interessenjurisprudenz est peu connue en dehors de l’Allemagne car elle est très souvent confondue avec l’école du « Libre droit ». C’est la raison pour laquelle nous lui consacrerons ce bref aperçu, essayant d’éclaircir le contexte de son apparition et de ses principaux enseignements.
acquired, among other means, by ’personalization’ or ‘profiling’: ICT tools gathering
contextualized information about individuals in men–computers interactions.
The paper begins with an overview of these ICT tools (behavioural targeting, recommendation engines, and personalization through social networking).
Based on these developments, the analysis focuses on a case study of social networks (Facebook) results and the trade-offs between ‘personalization’ and privacy constraints.
A deeper analysis will reveal unexpected challenges and the need to overcome the privacy paradigm.
Finally, a draft of possible normative solutions will be depicted, grounded in new forms of individual rights.
In the first part of the paper, we examine the relativity or dilatation of psychological time, which accompanies crossing particular levels or thresholds in brain activity. Such points are related to age, extreme emotions associated with sudden dangers, inner states (such as dreams), near-death experiences, trance, or mystical states.
In the paper's final part, we try to explain the speed up or 'dilatation' of the psychological time in crossing the mentioned thresholds. Our explanation considers that such 'dilatation' relates to the brain's more and more inner activity, which lets it function at its full (quasi-infinite) 'processing speed'.
This (quasi-infinite) 'processing speed' is a metaphor for the brain's hyper-connected architecture, which allows quasi-infinite parallel mental processes to happen in the same physical time.
This (quasi-infinite) 'processing speed' is a metaphor for the brain's hyper-connected architecture, which allows quasi-infinite parallel mental processes to happen in the same physical time.
For example, we can build a narrative covering each such cognitive process. However, unfolding such infinite narratives entirely (within a mega record) would take a quasi-infinite time in the physical world.
Hence a second (a moment of physical Now) would equal Eternity within the psychological (reconstructed) time.
The introduction assesses the goals and tools of the new US trade policy through President Trump's open declarations.
The first part identifies the strategies/tactics of the trade policy by analyzing actions of the new US administration as, for example, aluminum and steel tariffs or the renegotiations of KORUS or USMCA agreements.
A second part uses this frame to apprehend the US Administration's trade actions concerning actors, such as the EU, Japan, China, or WTO, and determine the possible outcomes with disruptive impact on the globalization process of the last three decades.
It focuses on the trade initiatives of the Trump Administration about China placed in the context of the recent American push for restructuring the global economic order.
The first part takes into account the business background of President Trump, able to explain his economic focus and non-conventional approach to economic policy and policy in general. Allying this with an assessment of the US economic and geopolitical position, one can identify the patterns, directions, strategies, resources, and capabilities in the service of international trade policies.
The second part focuses on the trade actions of the US Administration regarding China. We applied patterns identified in the first part to understand the logic of American trade actions and evaluate their possible outcomes.
We estimate that the new trade policies of the US administration to China will have a more consequential impact on global order than the fall of the Soviet Union in the 90s.
The conclusion starts with a brief introduction overviewing the contributions seen on themselves and examining their scope and methodology.
In the first part, the analysis is pursued by correlating each contribution through a 'horizontal' inquiry based on a post factum comparison. We introduce and apply the post-factum comparison after a brief survey of comparison as a scientific instrument, in general, and legal instrument in special.
In the final part, we move a step further and use the comparison as a heuristic instrument to formulate common topics for future research.
The first part circumscribes the meaning of comparison as an interpretative tool. Then, a step-by-step approach clarifies the purpose of comparison in general, interpreting comparison in particular, and realizes an overview of comparative interpretative practice by international tribunals and identifies hidden cases when the European judge employed the comparison.
The second part of the paper examines the emergence of comparative interpretation in topic case-laws relating to the European Community of Steel and Carbon (ECSC) Treaty. In the 50s and 60s, there was an unseen dialogue of the doctrine, the Advocates Generals, and the European judge about interpreting the ECSC Treaty's undetermined normative concepts. The outcome of this dialogue was the occurrence of a 'standard' interpretative comparison, as multi-comparison, which was used by the European judge ever since.
The third part of the article places this 'standard' comparison within a methodological perspective. This perspective requires an outline of interpretative methodologies of judges both in national and international law.
This outline offers the ground for 'translating,' methodologically speaking, the 'standard' comparison as a subset of the literal or grammatical interpretation belonging to an objective system of interpretation (embraced by EU Court). Moreover, this 'standard' comparison is strongly linked to multi-juralism (existence of many independent and parallel legal systems of Member States) and loosely coupled to multilingualism (the legal use of multiple languages within the EU), both essential characteristics of the European legal system.
In conclusion, this powerful and misunderstood tool of the judge had an essential role in the historical evolution of the European Union. It may also provide hints and solutions for national or international situations where pluralism at the legal level (multi-juralism) is at stake.
This part includes a brief overview of European supranational protection of the right to privacy, as framed in article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights and, more recently, in article 7 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The protections of the right to personal data in digital processing is a more recent occurrence in Europe. Few national constitutions or international instruments recognize such rights, and even fewer jurisdictional remedies are associated with it. There are some significant exceptions, mainly at the supranational level, such as the EU Data Protection Directive (recently replaced by the EU General Data Protection Regulation) and Article 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The second part of the article briefly explores these protections, their inherent logic, and the implementing mechanisms as clearly different from those characterizing the protections of the right to privacy.
The third part examines the articulation between the two protection mechanisms, as reflected by the reasoning of the European Union Court of Justice on the famous Gonzales case. The decision implemented a right of de-listing as "right to be forgotten on the Internet" by the search engines. We propose a new reading for the reasoning of the Court, which underlines the essential role of protections of the right to privacy in grounding and circumscribing the data protection mechanisms of the EU Data Protection Directive within the decision.
Last but not least, the article asses that the newly adopted EU General Data Protection Regulation will not affect the precedent created by the Gonzales and the adequate remedies it implemented.
In the following years his ambitious approach had little influence in a world where the practice of national judges was, and still is, characterized by ‘lex fori.’
However, the Convention of Brussels I represents a relatively recent evolution regarding conflicts of jurisdiction in Europe and has reinvigorated Rabel’s program, although within a different, international setting.
The paper first explores the historical significance and articulations of Rabel’s original program.
The second part focuses on a comparison used in trans-national/autonomous characterization of Convention of Brussels I by the European Court of Justice. Based on significant decisions within a 40-year period, this analysis uncovers the reasons, features, and limits of such a powerful interpretative instrument.
Eventually, this instrument might be used outside of international settings, for example in interpreting more recent EU Regulations (such as Brussels I, Brussels II, and Brussels III or Rome I, Rome II, and Rome III).
In a pragmatic approach of' ‘do first and then ask' Google started digitizing library collections from around the word.
More recently Google and its partners have settled an agreement that put an end to class actions introduced by copyrights holders. One of the most interesting parts in the settlement relates to orphan books, books whose copyright status is uncertain.
According to the agreement Google would be able, under certain conditions, to digitize and distribute these books electronically. It might have been one of most important breakthroughs in copyright, based on the 'opt out' option for copyright owners. However the agreement was rejected in some important parts (the ‘opt-out’ clause included) by a US Federal judge.
The fact that Google began scanning 'out-of-print' books created an awareness of importance of the issue in Europe. There were no class actions available in European countries on copyright issues. The only remedy might have been a top-down approach based on legislation – as extension of collective licenses used in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway or Iceland.
Most recently the French Senate began to discuss a bill aimed to build a framework for digital utilization with an 'opt-out' mechanism similar to the one envisioned in Google’s agreement.
The initial steps seemed to favor the US. That created in Europe an incentive to establish similar solutions for orphan books through statute law. The recent rejection of Google's agreement and its highly uncertain future might restart, once again, a transatlantic competition.
The Members States incur obligations of information and generally of facilitating the immediate applicability of the Regulation on their territory. Romania has fulfilled its obligations, ’ad minima’.
Some European legal systems (but not Romania) already had fast ‘ad hoc’ procedures for internal small claims in situations other than crossborder litigation. Such national procedures are generally not enforceable in cross-border disputes. This is now altogether different.
The right of access to justice and the right to access to court are guaranteed under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and are part of the general principles of European Union law. Effective access to justice is one of the fundamental conditions for the establishment of the rule of law.
This article examines, in the first part, the application of the Regulation in Romania from this access to justice perspective. We use an exegetic analysis since there is no actual practice yet.
In Romania an important reform of the Code of Civil Procedure has introduced an internal small claim procedure similar to the European one. This special procedure will ensure for purely national litigators the same advantages as those that are recognised by European regulation in cross-border context.
Therefore, the second part and the third part of the article will evaluate, from the same access to justice perspective, the European regulation vis-à-vis the national procedure which applies after 15 February, 2013, the date when the New Code has come into force.
A historical overview will uncover some pre-European tentative to use comparison to unify law.
Then, the analysis will focus on European judges’ comparative practice in the unified maters of the Brussels regime (more specifically, Brussels Convention). In the 70s, the European judge started to use comparison to interpret the obscure terms of the Brussels Convention.
Based on some essential cases, we will establish the place of comparison among other methods used by the judge (such as historical and teleological interpretation). We will equally ‘translate’ this use of comparison by European judges as a grammatical method of interpretation.
This kind of comparison used by European judges is still an unrivalled practice, far in advance to other tentative from International Private Law to unify the application of uniform rules. Nevertheless, this might be an essential contribution of Europe in a field primarily forgotten by methodological doctrine.
The first chapter scrutinizes the significance of autonomy in robots and the metrics used to quantify it, which were developed by the US Department of Defense.
The second chapter focuses on the autonomy of ‘state-of-the-art’ robots (e.g.; Google’s self-driving car, DARPA’s projects, etc) for navigation, ISR or lethal missions. Based on public information, we will get a hint of the architectures, the functioning, the thresholds and technical limitations of such systems. The bottleneck to a higher autonomy of robots seems to be their poor ‘perceptive intelligence’.
The last chapter looks to the requirements of humanitarian law (rules of ‘jus in bello’/rules of engagement) to the legal deployment of autonomous lethal robots on the battlefields. The legal and moral reasoning of human soldiers, complying with humanitarian law, is a complex cognitive process which must be emulated by autonomous robots that could make lethal decisions. However, autonomous completion of such ‘moral’ tasks by artificial agents is much more challenging than the autonomous implementation of other tasks, such as navigation, ISR or kinetic attacks.
Given the limits of current Artificial Intelligence, it is highly unlikely that robots will acquire such 'moral' capabilities anytime soon. Therefore, for the time being, the autonomous weapon systems might be legally deployed, but only in very particular circumstances, where the requirements of humanitarian law happen to be irrelevant.
Since no international instrument whatsoever covers the cyber attacks, the analogies with current international solutions are largely employed.
We illustrate also the developments with relevant examples taken from main powers’ doctrine and practice (US, Russia and China).
The starting points are the provisions regarding the use of
(armed)"force" under Article 2(4) and “armed attack” under Article 51 of United Nations Charter. The qualification of a cyber attack as use of “armed force” or “armed attack” is
based on a multi criteria threshold developed by Schmitt.
Other developments focus the capacity of present International law concepts (direct and indirect armed attack,
identification of the aggressor state, pertinence of pre-emptive or interceptive self defense vis-à-vis cyber ‘armed attack’, etc.) to answer cyber warfare’s structures and challenges.
Cioran ne laisse personne indifférent. Comment dévoiler la personnalité de Cioran au-delà de son charisme paradoxal? Il faut une approche heuristique pour trouver les bonnes questions et ensuite pour parvenir à des réponses correctes ou, au moins, à des pistes vers une solution.
On a choisi la voie d'une comparaison avec les psychographies des autres grands, come Nietzsche et Flaubert, pour éclairer la singularité de Cioran, et l'ampreinte de sa biographie sur son paysage interior.
A historical overview will uncover some pre-European tentative to use comparison to unify law.
Then, the analysis will focus on European judges’ comparative practice in the unified maters of the Brussels regime (more specifically, Brussels Convention). In the 70s, the European judge started to use comparison to interpret the obscure terms of the Brussels Convention.
Based on some essential cases, we will establish the place of comparison among other methods used by the judge (such as historical and teleological interpretation). We will equally ‘translate’ this use of comparison by European judges as a grammatical method of interpretation.
This comparison used by European judges is still an unrivalled practice, far in advance to other tentative from International Private Law to unify the application of uniform rules. Nevertheless, this might be an essential contribution of Europe in a field primarily forgotten by methodological doctrine.
It considers that particular rhetoric of change hides a bipartisan continuity in international trade policies of the U.S.toward China and Eurasia. Accordingly, it tried to determine whether the disruptive trade actions of the Trump administration concerning Eurasia and China would be pursued by a Biden administration.
Trump administration followed in a crescendo the antidumping and countervailing duties favoured in the last years by President Obama. The Trump administration also took a bolder stance by using other US legal mechanisms (out of WTO but not forbidden by WTO) to adopt trade sanctions against China and other countries.
However, according to expert commenters, a Hillary Presidency would have also used such legal mechanisms, albeit under different rhetoric. There is also a continuity in the escalation of US actions inside the WTO from Obama to Trump, who finally blocked the Appellate Body dispute settlement.
Given these deep continuities, the author considers that the trade war with tariffs and sanctions on China adopted by the Trump administration will remain in place for the time being under the Biden administration.
En dépit de son importance majeure dans l’évolution de la réflexion et de la pratique méthodologique, l’Interessenjurisprudenz est peu connue en dehors de l’Allemagne car elle est très souvent confondue avec l’école du « Libre droit ». C’est la raison pour laquelle nous lui consacrerons ce bref aperçu, essayant d’éclaircir le contexte de son apparition et de ses principaux enseignements.
acquired, among other means, by ’personalization’ or ‘profiling’: ICT tools gathering
contextualized information about individuals in men–computers interactions.
The paper begins with an overview of these ICT tools (behavioural targeting, recommendation engines, and personalization through social networking).
Based on these developments, the analysis focuses on a case study of social networks (Facebook) results and the trade-offs between ‘personalization’ and privacy constraints.
A deeper analysis will reveal unexpected challenges and the need to overcome the privacy paradigm.
Finally, a draft of possible normative solutions will be depicted, grounded in new forms of individual rights.
In the first part of the paper, we examine the relativity or dilatation of psychological time, which accompanies crossing particular levels or thresholds in brain activity. Such points are related to age, extreme emotions associated with sudden dangers, inner states (such as dreams), near-death experiences, trance, or mystical states.
In the paper's final part, we try to explain the speed up or 'dilatation' of the psychological time in crossing the mentioned thresholds. Our explanation considers that such 'dilatation' relates to the brain's more and more inner activity, which lets it function at its full (quasi-infinite) 'processing speed'.
This (quasi-infinite) 'processing speed' is a metaphor for the brain's hyper-connected architecture, which allows quasi-infinite parallel mental processes to happen in the same physical time.
This (quasi-infinite) 'processing speed' is a metaphor for the brain's hyper-connected architecture, which allows quasi-infinite parallel mental processes to happen in the same physical time.
For example, we can build a narrative covering each such cognitive process. However, unfolding such infinite narratives entirely (within a mega record) would take a quasi-infinite time in the physical world.
Hence a second (a moment of physical Now) would equal Eternity within the psychological (reconstructed) time.
The introduction assesses the goals and tools of the new US trade policy through President Trump's open declarations.
The first part identifies the strategies/tactics of the trade policy by analyzing actions of the new US administration as, for example, aluminum and steel tariffs or the renegotiations of KORUS or USMCA agreements.
A second part uses this frame to apprehend the US Administration's trade actions concerning actors, such as the EU, Japan, China, or WTO, and determine the possible outcomes with disruptive impact on the globalization process of the last three decades.
It focuses on the trade initiatives of the Trump Administration about China placed in the context of the recent American push for restructuring the global economic order.
The first part takes into account the business background of President Trump, able to explain his economic focus and non-conventional approach to economic policy and policy in general. Allying this with an assessment of the US economic and geopolitical position, one can identify the patterns, directions, strategies, resources, and capabilities in the service of international trade policies.
The second part focuses on the trade actions of the US Administration regarding China. We applied patterns identified in the first part to understand the logic of American trade actions and evaluate their possible outcomes.
We estimate that the new trade policies of the US administration to China will have a more consequential impact on global order than the fall of the Soviet Union in the 90s.
The conclusion starts with a brief introduction overviewing the contributions seen on themselves and examining their scope and methodology.
In the first part, the analysis is pursued by correlating each contribution through a 'horizontal' inquiry based on a post factum comparison. We introduce and apply the post-factum comparison after a brief survey of comparison as a scientific instrument, in general, and legal instrument in special.
In the final part, we move a step further and use the comparison as a heuristic instrument to formulate common topics for future research.
The first part circumscribes the meaning of comparison as an interpretative tool. Then, a step-by-step approach clarifies the purpose of comparison in general, interpreting comparison in particular, and realizes an overview of comparative interpretative practice by international tribunals and identifies hidden cases when the European judge employed the comparison.
The second part of the paper examines the emergence of comparative interpretation in topic case-laws relating to the European Community of Steel and Carbon (ECSC) Treaty. In the 50s and 60s, there was an unseen dialogue of the doctrine, the Advocates Generals, and the European judge about interpreting the ECSC Treaty's undetermined normative concepts. The outcome of this dialogue was the occurrence of a 'standard' interpretative comparison, as multi-comparison, which was used by the European judge ever since.
The third part of the article places this 'standard' comparison within a methodological perspective. This perspective requires an outline of interpretative methodologies of judges both in national and international law.
This outline offers the ground for 'translating,' methodologically speaking, the 'standard' comparison as a subset of the literal or grammatical interpretation belonging to an objective system of interpretation (embraced by EU Court). Moreover, this 'standard' comparison is strongly linked to multi-juralism (existence of many independent and parallel legal systems of Member States) and loosely coupled to multilingualism (the legal use of multiple languages within the EU), both essential characteristics of the European legal system.
In conclusion, this powerful and misunderstood tool of the judge had an essential role in the historical evolution of the European Union. It may also provide hints and solutions for national or international situations where pluralism at the legal level (multi-juralism) is at stake.
This part includes a brief overview of European supranational protection of the right to privacy, as framed in article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights and, more recently, in article 7 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The protections of the right to personal data in digital processing is a more recent occurrence in Europe. Few national constitutions or international instruments recognize such rights, and even fewer jurisdictional remedies are associated with it. There are some significant exceptions, mainly at the supranational level, such as the EU Data Protection Directive (recently replaced by the EU General Data Protection Regulation) and Article 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The second part of the article briefly explores these protections, their inherent logic, and the implementing mechanisms as clearly different from those characterizing the protections of the right to privacy.
The third part examines the articulation between the two protection mechanisms, as reflected by the reasoning of the European Union Court of Justice on the famous Gonzales case. The decision implemented a right of de-listing as "right to be forgotten on the Internet" by the search engines. We propose a new reading for the reasoning of the Court, which underlines the essential role of protections of the right to privacy in grounding and circumscribing the data protection mechanisms of the EU Data Protection Directive within the decision.
Last but not least, the article asses that the newly adopted EU General Data Protection Regulation will not affect the precedent created by the Gonzales and the adequate remedies it implemented.
In the following years his ambitious approach had little influence in a world where the practice of national judges was, and still is, characterized by ‘lex fori.’
However, the Convention of Brussels I represents a relatively recent evolution regarding conflicts of jurisdiction in Europe and has reinvigorated Rabel’s program, although within a different, international setting.
The paper first explores the historical significance and articulations of Rabel’s original program.
The second part focuses on a comparison used in trans-national/autonomous characterization of Convention of Brussels I by the European Court of Justice. Based on significant decisions within a 40-year period, this analysis uncovers the reasons, features, and limits of such a powerful interpretative instrument.
Eventually, this instrument might be used outside of international settings, for example in interpreting more recent EU Regulations (such as Brussels I, Brussels II, and Brussels III or Rome I, Rome II, and Rome III).
In a pragmatic approach of' ‘do first and then ask' Google started digitizing library collections from around the word.
More recently Google and its partners have settled an agreement that put an end to class actions introduced by copyrights holders. One of the most interesting parts in the settlement relates to orphan books, books whose copyright status is uncertain.
According to the agreement Google would be able, under certain conditions, to digitize and distribute these books electronically. It might have been one of most important breakthroughs in copyright, based on the 'opt out' option for copyright owners. However the agreement was rejected in some important parts (the ‘opt-out’ clause included) by a US Federal judge.
The fact that Google began scanning 'out-of-print' books created an awareness of importance of the issue in Europe. There were no class actions available in European countries on copyright issues. The only remedy might have been a top-down approach based on legislation – as extension of collective licenses used in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway or Iceland.
Most recently the French Senate began to discuss a bill aimed to build a framework for digital utilization with an 'opt-out' mechanism similar to the one envisioned in Google’s agreement.
The initial steps seemed to favor the US. That created in Europe an incentive to establish similar solutions for orphan books through statute law. The recent rejection of Google's agreement and its highly uncertain future might restart, once again, a transatlantic competition.
The Members States incur obligations of information and generally of facilitating the immediate applicability of the Regulation on their territory. Romania has fulfilled its obligations, ’ad minima’.
Some European legal systems (but not Romania) already had fast ‘ad hoc’ procedures for internal small claims in situations other than crossborder litigation. Such national procedures are generally not enforceable in cross-border disputes. This is now altogether different.
The right of access to justice and the right to access to court are guaranteed under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and are part of the general principles of European Union law. Effective access to justice is one of the fundamental conditions for the establishment of the rule of law.
This article examines, in the first part, the application of the Regulation in Romania from this access to justice perspective. We use an exegetic analysis since there is no actual practice yet.
In Romania an important reform of the Code of Civil Procedure has introduced an internal small claim procedure similar to the European one. This special procedure will ensure for purely national litigators the same advantages as those that are recognised by European regulation in cross-border context.
Therefore, the second part and the third part of the article will evaluate, from the same access to justice perspective, the European regulation vis-à-vis the national procedure which applies after 15 February, 2013, the date when the New Code has come into force.
A historical overview will uncover some pre-European tentative to use comparison to unify law.
Then, the analysis will focus on European judges’ comparative practice in the unified maters of the Brussels regime (more specifically, Brussels Convention). In the 70s, the European judge started to use comparison to interpret the obscure terms of the Brussels Convention.
Based on some essential cases, we will establish the place of comparison among other methods used by the judge (such as historical and teleological interpretation). We will equally ‘translate’ this use of comparison by European judges as a grammatical method of interpretation.
This kind of comparison used by European judges is still an unrivalled practice, far in advance to other tentative from International Private Law to unify the application of uniform rules. Nevertheless, this might be an essential contribution of Europe in a field primarily forgotten by methodological doctrine.
The first chapter scrutinizes the significance of autonomy in robots and the metrics used to quantify it, which were developed by the US Department of Defense.
The second chapter focuses on the autonomy of ‘state-of-the-art’ robots (e.g.; Google’s self-driving car, DARPA’s projects, etc) for navigation, ISR or lethal missions. Based on public information, we will get a hint of the architectures, the functioning, the thresholds and technical limitations of such systems. The bottleneck to a higher autonomy of robots seems to be their poor ‘perceptive intelligence’.
The last chapter looks to the requirements of humanitarian law (rules of ‘jus in bello’/rules of engagement) to the legal deployment of autonomous lethal robots on the battlefields. The legal and moral reasoning of human soldiers, complying with humanitarian law, is a complex cognitive process which must be emulated by autonomous robots that could make lethal decisions. However, autonomous completion of such ‘moral’ tasks by artificial agents is much more challenging than the autonomous implementation of other tasks, such as navigation, ISR or kinetic attacks.
Given the limits of current Artificial Intelligence, it is highly unlikely that robots will acquire such 'moral' capabilities anytime soon. Therefore, for the time being, the autonomous weapon systems might be legally deployed, but only in very particular circumstances, where the requirements of humanitarian law happen to be irrelevant.
Since no international instrument whatsoever covers the cyber attacks, the analogies with current international solutions are largely employed.
We illustrate also the developments with relevant examples taken from main powers’ doctrine and practice (US, Russia and China).
The starting points are the provisions regarding the use of
(armed)"force" under Article 2(4) and “armed attack” under Article 51 of United Nations Charter. The qualification of a cyber attack as use of “armed force” or “armed attack” is
based on a multi criteria threshold developed by Schmitt.
Other developments focus the capacity of present International law concepts (direct and indirect armed attack,
identification of the aggressor state, pertinence of pre-emptive or interceptive self defense vis-à-vis cyber ‘armed attack’, etc.) to answer cyber warfare’s structures and challenges.
Starting from international instruments and national laws, the analysis will further focus on some global Court decisions or arbitration awards.
Students will understand the challenges, the debates, and the development of international investment ideas regarding this developing field of transnational law. The course shall be in the interest of students who want to develop a career with a global dimension.
The students will acquire a 'reservoir' of solutions useful in their future career and the understanding of the landscape of the Global Economy.
The course examines the dynamics of the Global Economy. It uses a historical perspective on economic development throughout the ages.
Each class will be a mixture of lectures and seminars based on critical issues and discussing the materials (handouts) distributed in advance.
The course will cover mainly the significant decisions and the tactics strategy adopted by the U.S. executive branch (i.e., Trump Administration) about international trade.
The objective of the curse is to familiarise students with legal thinking of the executives concerning international trade policy.
The students will acquire a ‘reservoir’ of solutions very useful in their future career and an understanding of the rapidly changing landscape of global trade.
Since we are not native speakers, only a basic level of English will be required. Therefore the evaluation will not assess, in any case, the English language abilities.
Course description
The course explores the dynamics of the reshaping of international trade by the new U.S. Administration (Trump Administration).
Having a business background, U.S. President Trump is bringing a particular economic focus and a non-conventional economic-commercial policy on the international level. We try to identify the patterns, directions, strategies, and impact of this foreign trade policy.
After developments concerning general concepts of trade, the course is focusing the global trade actions and the negotiation (or renegotiation) process initiated by the U.S. with South Korea, NAFTA(Canada, Mexico), China, Japan, E.U., etc.
We apply patterns identified in the first part of the course to understand the logic and the possible outcome of these trade actions. We estimate that the new trade policies of the U.S. administration will have a more consequential impact on global economic and political developments than the fall of the Soviet Union in the 90s.
Inspired by economical and political achievements of the US, certain European states created European Communities, during the 50s.
Facing a number of crises and unprecedented challenges the new entities evolved and become the single successful integrative initiative of today- the European Union.
The course focus, from a historical and comparative perspective (Europe vs. US), the political background and the legal solutions that shaped the European Union. Students will acquire a deep understanding of the challenges, the risks and legal instruments in relation to European integration.
The subtitle of the course might be “ Comparative federalism in historical perspective; US vs. European Union”, therefore the essential development are comparative and historical.
US was the model for European integration at different levels ( institutional, constitutional, legal procedure, Central bank system, agricultural policies).
Recent challenges created by emerging Information technologies imposed another evolution of protecting mechanisms under concepts such as information privacy, data protection, right to be forgotten on the Internet, etc.
This course examines "information privacy," an individual's right to control his or her personal information held by others, in relation to IT technologies and the Internet (privacy as a source right, data protection, right to be forgotten on the Internet, etc).
Starting from relevant rules from national legal systems or international instruments the analysis will focus fundamental decisions of national or supranational courts.
Therefore the course explores, through comparison, the legal thinking of highest judges in Europe and/or US.
Some important decisions will illustrate, in a step by step approach, different methods of interpretation used by the highest jurisdictions.
The tumultuous history of XXth century explains why Europe developed a multidimensional structure for the protection of human rights (freedom of speech included) : national constitutions, supranational structures around European Council, the integrated system of the European Union.
The course examine the protection of the freedom of speech as a right expanding over these 3 dimensions.
It examines a powerful but difficult to grasp tool.
The comparison is a powerful instrument, since EU judge use it extensively to solve hard cases.
It is difficult to grasp since comparison is a multidimensional instrument. On one side comparison is a method of interpretation alongside other methods (grammatical, systematical, historical or teleological). On the other side comparison is a formula for determination by EU judge of a source of EU law, ie the common principles of national laws. Therefore comparison is a method of interpretation but also a 'procedure ' for 'construction' (development) of EU law by judge. Hence comparison is a technique of EU judge.
A preliminary chapter underlines certain difficulties of the research. The first one concerns the delimitation of technical use of comparison by judges from comparison used by legal scholars. Another difficulty relates to the hidden use of comparison by the EU Court.
Afterwards the research is developed on three stages: a formal analysis, a functional analysis, and, finally, an analysis of inner justification for comparison.
The formal analysis identifies 4 kinds of comparisons: standard, unifying, normative, diversity.
The functional analysis differentiates 'administrative' functions (the building up of judicial remedies or control mechanisms over European institutions) and 'constitutional' functions (the mimicking of federalism and the build up of a protection for human rights).
The search for inner justification of comparison find it in the special nature of European Union system, which lacks sovereign powers (as ‘competence of competence’) and therefore is essentially different from a classic federation.
Note: The following downloadable excerpt is reproducing a part of preliminary chapter and is written in French.