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This book discusses the pros and cons of information and communication (ICT) neutrality. It tries to be as objective as possible from arguments of proponents and opponents, this way enabling readers to build their own opinion. It presents the history of the ongoing network neutrality debate, the various concepts it encompasses, and also some mathematical developments illustrating optimal strategies and potential counter-intuitive results, then extends the discussion to connected ICT domains. The book thus touches issues related to history, economics, law, networking, and mathematics. After an introductory chapter on the history of the topic, chapter 2 surveys and compares the various laws in place worldwide and discusses some implications of heterogeneous rules in several regions. Next, chapter 3 details the arguments put forward by the participants of the net neutrality debate. Chapter 4 then presents how the impact of neutral or non-neutral behaviors can be analyzed mathematically, with sometimes counter-intuitive results, and emphasizes the interest of modeling to avoid bad decisions. Chapter 5 illustrates that content providers may not always be on the pro-neutrality side, as there are situations where they may have an economic advantage with a non-neutral situation, e.g. when they are leaders on a market and create barriers to entry for competitors. Another related issue is covered in chapter 6, which discusses existing ways for ISPs to circumvent the packet-based rules and behave non-neutral without breaking the written law. Chapter 7 gives more insight on the role and possible non-neutral behavior of search engines, leading to another debate called the search neutrality debate. Chapter 8 focuses on e-commerce platforms and social networks, and investigates how they can influence users actions and opinions. The issue is linked to the debate on the transparency of algorithms which is active in Europe especially. Chapter 9 focuses on enforcing neutrality in practice through measurements: indeed, setting rules requires monitoring the activity of ICT actors in order to sanction non-appropriate behaviors and be proactive against new conducts. The chapter explains why this is challenging and what tools are currently available. Eventually, Chapter 10 briefly concludes the presentation and opens the debate.

1. Introduction: a bit of history -- 2. Definitions -- 3. Pros and cons: the arguments in the debate -- 4. Mathematical analysis -- 5. Non-neutrality pushed by content providers -- 6. A more general view of neutrality -- 7. Search Neutrality -- 8. Algorithmic transparency -- 9. Tools to monitor neutrality -- 10. Conclusions.

There is a widespread agreement in modern democracies that a state should not force its citizens to lead lives they do not endorse themselves. It is also generally agreed that state acts should not be justified by appealing to the authority of religious books. Such claims are often reformulated as holding that state action should be neutral with respect to the ideals of the good life, or that the justification of state acts should be neutral with respect to basic beliefs. But does the use of the term neutral add anything important to the original wording? Does it point to a common principle - a principle of state neutrality (PSN) - that unites such judgments? If it does, what normative work PSN is supposed to do? What is its basis? What are the things towards which it requires the acts of the relevant type to be neutral? Such questions call for a theory of neutrality. The theory of neutrality has its natural home in the liberal tradition. Liberalism had a neutralist bent since its beginnings. But a systematic account of PSN was not laid out before the 1970s and '80s when John Rawls and others restated the foundations of liberal theory. While particular neutrality judgments are widely accepted, the general conception of liberal neutrality elicited strong critical reactions. Some of the critiques took liberalism's commitment to neutrality as evidence that the liberal view of the individual, society, and politics is deeply flawed. Others attacked liberal neutrality as reflecting a mistaken interpretation of what liberalism really is about. The debate subsided in the last decade or so, without settling, however, on a standard view. State neutrality remains a controversial idea. This article tries to spell out its main tenets and to explain how they hang together. It examines the central objections, and explores revisions that may enhance the theory's defensibility.

Traditional neutrality.--The technical problem.--Neutrality and the classification of war.--Neo-neutrality and the "disqualification" of war

Reprinted from America's interests as affected by the European War. Vol. LX of The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Philadelphia, July, 1915. Publication no. 916. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Most major economies use a value added tax (VAT) which is a derivation of the French 1954 taxe sur la valeur ajoutée. The initial imposition of VAT in France and its spread around the world have been driven by economic reasons. This book focuses on one of these economic triggers: the neutrality of VAT as regards the functioning of the economy. It demonstrates that the reason VAT was chosen in France and why thereafter it spread around the world was because it offered the possibility to collect governmental revenue while allowing the economic forces of the market to interplay without being adversely affected. 0The prerequisite conditions for the existence of VAT neutrality are therefore identified herein along with an overview of the VAT mechanism, demonstrating that the concept of neutrality is built into the VAT system in a manner that allows for the preservation of the natural functioning of the market. After the definition of VAT neutrality is set forth, the elements that comprise VAT neutrality are tested against the realities on the ground and the issues that infringe the neutrality of VAT are identified and analysed. In conclusion, remedies for these issues are being sought by a review of the causes of infringement of VAT neutrality in the perspective of selected proposals for modified VAT systems. These proposals include redesignating the place where VAT is levied and improving VAT collection. Ultimately, the proposed solution has recourse to the roots of VAT together with the most advanced technological tools available to give back to VAT the power to levy revenue while letting the economic forces of the market interplay without instigating any adverse influence

[EN]The Spanish government maintained a benevolent neutrality policy towards the Entente Powers during the First World War. Liberal and Conservative cabinets decided it was the only position consistent with their country's traditionally friendly relations with Great Britain and France. ; Peer reviewed

The growing importance of state-owned enterprises (SOE) in the global marketplace has given rise to concerns about how to ensure competitive neutrality ? a level playing field ? where public and private entities compete. The book aims to serve as a resource for governments that intend to ensure that public and private businesses compete on equal terms. It provides a catalogue of relevant practices and experiences in OECD and other jurisdictions. The publication is structured around eight ?building blocks? of competitive neutrality including how to ensure debt, tax or regulatory neutrality; ca

Cover; Half Title; Series Page; Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of Contents; List of Tables; Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction: Why Neutrality?; Why Neutrality?; Arguments for Studying Neutrality; What Is Neutrality?; Is There a World History of Neutrality?; Territorial and Maritime Neutrality; Is Neutrality Possible?; Collective Security and Neutrality; Neutrality and International Relations Theory; Remarks to the Reader; Further Reading; 2. Birth of Maritime Neutrality: 1500-1650; Introduction; The Scramble for the Oceans, 1492-1522; Oceanic Claims and the Asian Political Order

In dieser Dissertation argumentiere ich (gegen John Rawls und andere) erstens dafür, dass perfektionistische Gründe gute Gründe für Gesetze sind, die ein Staat erlässt, ohne, zweitens, die These zu teilen, die Joseph Raz in The Morality of Freedom vertritt, dass nur die Gesetze eines Staates legitim sind, die mit perfektionistischen Gründen gerechtfertigt werden können – weil alle anderen die Autonomie der Bürger notwendig verletzen würden. Im ersten Punkt halte ich den Perfektionismus für die Standardposition, und die gängigen liberalen Argumente für einen neutralen Staat überzeugen nicht, egal ob sie als ökumenische oder nicht-neutrale vertreten werden. Die ökumenischen Argumente, wie sie etwa bei Rawls und Bruce Ackerman zu finden sind, überzeugen nicht, weil sich ihre behauptete Neutralität letztlich als schädlich parteiisch erweist. Die nicht-neutralen Argumente, die unter anderem von Rawls und Charles Larmore angeführt werden, reichen nicht aus, um die Notwendigkeit eines Prinzips der staatlichen Neutralität zu begründen. Und zwar aus verschiedenen Gründen: Einer dieser Gründe ist, dass die Berufung der Konsequenzialisten auf den Wert der Autonomie übersieht, dass der Wert der Autonomie in Wertkonflikten anderen Werten nicht überlegen ist, und ein zweiter Grund wäre, dass Rawls in seinem Appell an die "Bürden des Urteils", etwa in seinem Buch Political Liberalism, eher voraussetzt als zeigt, dass Respekt vor der Autonomie der Bürger die staatliche Förderung des Guten ausschließt. Zu dem zweiten Punkt mache ich geltend, dass es unerheblich ist, ob die These von Raz, dass Autonomie wertlos wird, wenn den Bürgern nicht ausreichend gute Optionen an Lebensformen zur Verfügung stehen, zwischen denen sie wählen können, überzeugend ist oder nicht, weil daraus nicht folgt, dass der Staat das Gute in jedem möglichen politischen System fördern muss. Es ist einfach nicht der Fall, dass die Zahl der den Staatsbürgern offenstehenden wertvollen Lebensformen unter eine Schwelle fällt, die den Wert der Autonomie erst möglich macht, sobald der Staat das Gute nicht fördert. ; I argue, in this dissertation, first, that, contrary to the views of John Rawls and others, governments are entitled to make policy on the basis of perfectionist judgements, but second, that the claim, in particular as it is argued for in Joseph Raz's The Morality of Freedom, that governments must make policy on a perfectionist basis, failing which the autonomy of citizens will be damaged, cannot be sustained. I argue the first point on the grounds that perfectionism is the default position, and that standard liberal arguments, which I categorise as either ecumenical or non-neutral, for a principle of state neutrality fail. The ecumenical arguments, which I discover in the writings of Rawls and Bruce Ackerman, fail because their purported neutrality turns out to be damagingly partisan. The non-neutral arguments, which I discover in the writings of, amongst others, Rawls and Charles Larmore, fall short of establishing the necessity of a principle of state neutrality for a number of widely-differing reasons, which include, for example, that a consequentialist appeal to the good of autonomy cannot establish that the good of autonomy trumps all other goods, or any other combination of goods, in all conflicts of goods which might arise, and that Rawls's appeal to the burdens of judgement, founds in his Political Liberalism, assumes rather than shows that respect for the autonomy of citizens rules out state promotion of the good. I argue the second point on the grounds that although Raz is correct in arguing that autonomy is of no value unless the options between which citizens can choose are worthwhile forms of life, it does not follow that the state must promote the good in any and every possible political dispensation, as it is simply not the case that, in general, unless the state promotes the good, the number of valuable forms of life available to citizens will fall below the threshold which is necessary for their autonomy to be worth having.