Suchergebnisse

Careful to avoid uninformed positioning, I limited myself in my previous contribution to a Science & Technology Studies (STS)-flavoured stance about the need for closer scrutiny of existing or novel technologies when considering the role of law and regulation. Detailed accounts of individual technologies allow better assessments of possible ethical dilemmas created by these technologies. Although authors disagree about the degree of moral agency of artefacts or things, most agree that these are more than simple passive instruments. Things influence us and our perceptions about good and bad. Things act and interact. They mediate and impact on our moral understandings.9 Knowledge about how things do that is not easy. Latour, in particular, criticises every ideal of knowledge and mastery in this area. Technologies simply escape mastery. They are the source of a continuous paradox for humans that praise technology for its functional utility, for its neutrality (neither good or bad) and for it being a means to an end, while these technologies never cease to introduce a history of enfoldings, detours, drifts, openings and translations that abolish ideas like 'function' and 'neutrality'. Latour therefore sheds a critical light on modern humans that have acquired the habit to dominate but fail to see that there are no masters anymore, no clear distinctions between means and end that would allow to identify crazed technologies and 'to bind back the hound of technology to its cage'. Morality and technology interact, often in unpredictable ways, and there is a need to conceive another history, another reassembly of morality and technology. How Latour conceives this reassembly in practice is not clear. A process with openness for predictable and unpredictable outcomes could bring about the necessary dignity of both morality and technology, whereby we renounce the idea of putting the first on the side of means and the second on the side of ends. Latour is no believer in contemporary mantras such as more transparency, or more accountability, assessment and evaluation of options. Wrongly applied, these approaches would lead us again to the impossible ideal of mastery and knowledge of things.

The aim of this chapter is to look for analytical tools at an abstract level to help further the debate on the many legal and practical issues besetting the public spheres of transitional and international criminal justice. To that end, I propose a global criminal law perspective, encompassing both transitional justice and international criminal law and transnational criminal law, and inquire into the principles that could guide us. Can we simply apply domestic principles of criminal law and criminal justice at the transstate level? Admittedly, a theoretical framework developed for sovereign states can be adapted to an interstate context. Yet, the inherent weaknesses of the modern principled approach to criminal law remain—for instance, the lack of an empirical basis, and of respect in practice, for the use of the harm criterion or the ultima ratio principle. The result is a certain cynicism regarding the actual capacity of modern criminal law principles to steer legislative and judicial developments. I suggest looking elsewhere when discussing how to govern and imple- ment global criminal justice and advocate a procedural approach, relying on two theoretical frameworks. The first was proposed by Brants, Mevis and Prakken in 2001, and looks to procedurally oriented principles to address criminal justice issues, in particular transparency, accountability and participation. The second is also a call for a procedural approach but launched in the context of the Global Administrative Law project and the debate on global constitutionalism. Can these two approaches be connected? What are their limits and possibilities for global criminal justice and their application for global criminal law? Finally, how do they interrelate and could they provide a way forward in terms of a methodology to judge their application in each and every single case, given the many insights on this to be found in governance literature?

Literature concerning human rights protection by the European Court on Human Rights after 9/11 is very often coloured by optimism. Some authors hold that judicial control by the European Court on national anti-terrorism measures is very strict, especially compared to U.S. judicial review. Others suggest the existence of a strict privacy test developed by the European Court as a bulwark again anti-terrorism measures that give too much discretion to law enforcement authorities. In this paper we discuss the 'classical' European framework with regard to 'hard' anti-terrorism measures and the privacy framework that is relevant for new, 'softer' anti-terrorism measures. it is argued that this optimistic reading of the European human rights framework in the area of security especially with regard to the latter is flawed and based on a misunderstanding of the case law of the European Court. This analysis leaves little room for optimism about judicial review of the legislator in Europe and urges for an attitude of self-restraint.

Literature concerning human rights protection by the European Court on Human Rights after 9/11 is very often coloured by optimism. Some authors hold that judicial control by the European Court on national anti-terrorism measures is very strict, especially compared to U.S. judicial review. Others suggest the existence of a strict privacy test developed by the European Court as a bulwark again anti-terrorism measures that give too much discretion to law enforcement authorities. In this paper we discuss the 'classical' European framework with regard to 'hard' anti-terrorism measures and the privacy framework that is relevant for new, 'softer' anti-terrorism measures. it is argued that this optimistic reading of the European human rights framework in the area of security especially with regard to the latter is flawed and based on a misunderstanding of the case law of the European Court. This analysis leaves little room for optimism about judicial review of the legislator in Europe and urges for an attitude of self-restraint.

This book, Ageing and Invisibility, is the result of two years of research and part of the European Union (EU) FP7 project SENIOR (social, ethical and privacy needs in ICT for older people). The project was initiated to provide a systematic assessment of the social, ethical and privacy issues surrounding the use of computers and information technology for and by an ageing population. The direction of demographic change is clear in many societies worldwide: the population is ageing rapidly. By 2050 the number of people over 50 is expected to have increased by 35%, and those over 80 by a stagger.

Directive 2016/680 provides for two procedures for the exercise of the rights of access to one's data: a direct one (that is, directly against the law enforcement authority) and an 'indirect' one, in which the responsible Data Protection Authority (DPA) exercises the right of access of the data subject against the law enforcement authority which refused the direct access, including by carrying out a legality check on the data processing of the personal data of the individual requesting access. The recent judgment in Ligue des droits humains ASBL treated the question of the powers of DPAs in the framework of this procedure, amongst others, as a matter of DPA independence. Existing literature has observed that the implementing laws of three Member States – Belgium, France and Germany – severely restrict the powers of the DPAs when these perform the 'indirect' right of access, for example to carry out the legality check and inform the individuals of the results of the check. In the this article we will argue that these national restrictions constitute an unjustified interference with the requirement on DPA independence in EU data protection law, including in Article 8(3) of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Earlier this year, the European Commission (EC) registered the 'Civil society initiative for a ban on biometric mass surveillance practices', a European Citizens' Initiative. Citizens are thus given the opportunity to authorize the EC to suggest the adoption of legislative instruments to permanently ban biometric mass surveillance practices. This contribution finds the above initiative particularly promising, as part of a new development of bans in the European Union (EU). It analyses the EU's approach to facial, visual and biometric surveillance, with the objective of submitting some ideas that the European legislator could consider when strictly regulating such practices.