Case C-442/10, Churchill Insurance Company Limited v Benjamin Wilkinson and Tracy Evans v Equity Claims Limited [2011] ECR I-00000

Article 3 No. 1 of Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles, and to the enforcement of the obligation to insure against such liability, as amended, codified and repealed by Directive 2009/103/EC, OJ L - 103, of 02.05.1972. pp. 1–6. [First Motor Insurance Directive]

Article 2 No. 1 of Second Council Directive 84/5/EEC of 30 December 1983 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles, as amended, codified and repealed by Directive 2009/103/EC, OJ L – 8, of 11.01.1984. pp. 17–20. [Second Motor Insurance Directive]

Article 1 No. 1 of Third Council Directive 90/232/EEC of 14 May 1990 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles, as amended, codified and repealed by Directive 2009/103/EC, OJ L – 129, of 19.05.1990. pp. 33–35. [Third Motor Insurance Directive]

On the face of it, ‘better regulation’ sounds like a concept that no one could object to. But in contrast to past attempts to cut red tape for business and thus reduce unnecessary bureaucracy, the objective of the Juncker Commission's Better Regulation Agenda is to reduce “regulatory burden”.

The package, adopted on May 9th 2015, foresees the establishment of an impressive apparatus and toolbox for implementing the Agenda. Existing structures and procedures, such as the Regulatory Scrutiny Board and the Impact Assessment Guidelines, are being modified, and new elements such as the two REFIT Platforms, one for stakeholders and one for Member States, and the new Interinstitutional Agreement on better law-making, will be introduced.

The Agenda raises many questions and concerns From the perspective of a public interest organisation such as The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC). Several aspects of this new institutional and procedural architecture suggest that it is not designed to provide society–wide benefits by generating better regulation for all. Rhetoric about the need to reduce costs is the dominant theme throughout the entire package, framed by the ‘jobs and growth’ narrative.

This article focuses on the information requirements of public and private stakeholders engaged in critical infrastructure protection (CIP).With its emphasis on information management rather than information sharing, the article builds on existing research suggesting that the notion of information sharing inadvertently renders cooperation more difficult as it evokes impressions of information “dominance” rather than joint information ownership. The article proposes a joint public-private information management agenda based on core issues providing actionable information to tackle immediate threats and crosscutting issues looking at the long-term issues that are relevant to understand the overall context in which critical infrastructure development occurs.

This section discusses the regulation of “lifestyle risks”, a term that can apply to both substances and behaviours. Lifestyle risks take place along the line of “abstinence – consumption – abuse – addiction”. This can concern substances such as food, alcohol or drugs, as well as behaviours such as gambling or sports. The section also addresses the question of the appropriate point of equilibrium between free choice and state intervention (regulation), as well as the question of when risks can be considered to be acceptable or tolerable. In line with the interdisciplinary scope of the journal, the section aims at updating readers on both the regulatory and the scientific developments in the field. It analyses legislative initiatives and judicial decisions and at the same time it provides insight into recent empirical studies on lifestyle risks.

Collection and provision of scientific information for policy and decision-making is particularly important during emergencies or when uncertainty and ambiguity creates situation of fear and anxiety. This article offers two suggestions for addressing natural or technology risks, leveraging research by the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) and project contributors. The first advice is that concepts and instruments for risk governance be recognised and used as intermediation between evidence and policy. The second is that the role of the Chief Scientific Adviser in public sector organisations includes those of the Chief Risk Officer. These suggestions could help address the challenge for policymakers to deal with uncertainty and emergency, when little or contradictory evidence is available.

The issue of super-intelligent artificial intelligence (AI) has begun to attract ever more attention in economics, law, sociology and philosophy studies. A new industrial revolution is being unleashed, and it is vital that lawmakers address the systemic challenges it is bringing while regulating its economic and social consequences. This paper sets out recommendations to ensure informed regulatory intervention covering potential uncontemplated AI-related risks. If AI evolves in ways unintended by its designers, the judgment-proof problem of existing legal persons engaged with AI might undermine the deterrence and insurance goals of classic tort law, which consequently might fail to ensure optimal risk internalisation and precaution. This paper also argues that, due to identified shortcomings, the debate on the different approaches to controlling hazardous activities boils down to a question of efficient ex ante safety regulation. In addition, it is suggested that it is better to place AI in the existing legal categories and not to create a new electronic legal personality.

The impact of TTIPleaks on the negotiations of and debate about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has been more limited than its name and announcement would lead us to expect. This is, first, because the leaked ‘consolidated documents’ only show the European Union's (EU) and United States’ (US) positions on a number of negotiating areas but does not unveil concessions made by either side in the pursuit of a compromise. Therefore, it contains little surprising information for observers of the negotiations. But a second reason for the lack of uproar is that for only about half of the expected chapters in TTIP a text has been leaked, either because there is no consolidated text yet for the other issues in the negotiations or because Greenpreace did not get hold of it. One of the chapters lacking in the TTIPleaks is on ‘Trade and Sustainable Development’. This is an interesting issue area because the advocates often argue that this chapter will help ensure that TTIP upholds and strengthens social and environmental standards.

The case discusses the “Test-Achats” judgment of the ECJ in the overall context of the EU-non-discrimination principle in relations traditionally governed by private law and party autonomy. This principle has come from employment law and has been extended to consumption matters, at least with regard to such incriminated characteristics as gender, ethnic origin, and nationality. Even if the consequences of the ECJ judgment on the insurance market, including protection of insured persons themselves, by imposing “unisex”-tariffs from 21.12.2012 on may be viewed critically, the Court only draws the legal consequences of a prior decision of the EU legislator which cannot be delayed for an indefinite time span by the Member States (author's headnote).

This special issue provides several perspectives on the potential and limits of judicial risk regulation as a mechanism to redress actual and perceived regulatory failures. Central to this inquiry is the legitimacy of the court system to act as a risk regulator, specifically as compared to governmental actors. This article focuses on the question of institutional competency of juridical risk regulators from a law and economics (“L&E”) perspective. L&E scholarship will be used to help to understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of courts as risk regulators and helps us decide when courts may act as substitute risk regulators and when they are better positioned as complements.

This article considers the role of non-binding legal instruments adopted in Italy against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the early months of 2020. To verify whether the use of such instruments restricted fundamental and human rights beyond constitutional and legal limits, the article first gives an overview of hard law measures adopted in Italy against the coronavirus. It then focuses on soft law measures, the use of which became significant only in Phase II of Italy's response to COVID-19 and argues that non-binding legal instruments provided the public with instructions on gradually returning to normal life. This contribution contains case studies on the soft law measures adopted in relation to private economic enterprise and freedom of worship. Italian soft law deployed during the COVID-19 epidemic was borne out of coordination between the state and the Regions and as the result of (even informal) dialogue with the relevant stakeholders. Despite some criticism of the soft law measures used, their role in restricting constitutionally granted rights was marginal, because only hard law measures adopted nationally and locally limited personal rights and freedoms in order to contain the pandemic.

Given that cars have become icons for flexibility, individuality, and freedom, it comes as no surprise that the passenger car fleet in almost all of the EU Member States is constantly growing. In 2010 there were about 239 million heavy-duty vehicles and 35 million light-duty vehicles in the then 27 Member States, more than a quarter of the cars and trucks on the road worldwide. It is expected that this number will grow by 31%by 2030. Not only has the number of vehicles grown constantly over recent decades, but the distance travelled by each has increased as well. Cars, and the industries producing them, do however have significant impacts on the environment ranging from smog to climate change.

The regulation of nanomaterials is still surrounded by scientific uncertainty regarding their potential human health risks. It is therefore useful to consider learning approaches in the process of regulation. Effective regulation is conceptualised with regard to collaborative activities of state and non-state actors that enable mutual learning regarding the health risks of nanomaterials. A theoretical framework is offered for studying learning processes in the area of occupational safety and health. Drawing on the network governance literature, three learning types (namely substantive, strategic, and institutional learning) are distinguished. Analytical conditions are proposed and applied to the case of nanomaterials in Germany, thereby offering insights into learning processes in industry-initiated collaborative activities. It is concluded that the development of trust among network collaborators is decisive for learning processes. Accordingly, a proposal for research into specific stages of trust development is made.

Recent advancement in technology in the domain of Autonomous Intelligent Systems (AIS) shall eventually lead to autonomous technology that can perceive, learn, decide and create without any human intervention. Already now there are robots that create better versions of robots and computer programmes that produce other computer programmes. Although the ability to create is a quality that has traditionally been considered a human capacity, the sudden increase in the level of complexity of such systems as well as their learning abilities, shall ultimately render human intervention in the process of creation redundant. This makes the need to address creative agents and the challenges they bring ever more evident. This contribution assesses the output of AIS as Creative Agents and its relation to the EU framework for Intellectual Property.

“Negative claims” can be defined as claims indicating that certain ingredients, nutrients or substances are not present in a foodstuff. Legitimate uses of regulated negative claims in the EU include some nutrition claims and “gluten-free” claims. Some EU Member States have legislated on “GM-free” claims. The article describes in more detail some cases (i.e., BPA-free, MSG-free, Aspartame-free and palm oil-free), where negative claims are used with an implied message that whatever is used instead of the often “demonised” substance is safer, healthier or greener. The article argues that EU and EU Member States’ legislators and regulators should ensure that consumers are not misled by astute marketing techniques that have no informative agendas, but simply aim at denigrating certain products in order to promote “free-from” products. This issue is particularly timely and important given the imminent application of the EU's Food Information Regulation and the additional costs that it will impose on the industry in the name of providing complete, reliable and evidence-based information to consumers.

Regulation by design is an increasingly common approach in the governance of digital technologies. Under this approach, the developers of digital systems must adopt technical measures that implement the specific requirements mandated by law in their software. Some jurisdictions, notably the European Union (EU), have turned to regulation by design as a mechanism to automatically enforce legal requirements, but this article argues that such an approach can have important implications for long-term governance. Drawing from examples of regulation by design in EU law, it shows that by-design provisions delegate rule-making power to software designers, whose interpretations of the law become entrenched in digital systems. This delegation process suffers from legitimacy deficits, which are compounded whenever digital systems continue to enforce the designer-made rules as they operate for years and, sometimes, decades. Yet, these legitimacy deficits are not unavoidable, as regulation by design can be used to force designers to adopt technical and organisational practices that mitigate the risks of rule entrenchment to future generations. By mapping the long-term risks of regulation by design and potential solutions to them, this article provides a first step towards approaches to regulation by design that do not sacrifice the future for present interests.

This paper introduces the notion of legal tech solutionism and argues for how in an age where the development of legal tech is seen as a panacea for all ills it is important to evaluate the use and lifecycle of the technology before introducing it as a solution to the complex and structural problems that plague legal systems. It explores the framework of legal design and argues that legal design provides for a grounded and contextual approach to the development of legal products, content and services. To do this, the paper develops an approach that operates at three levels, including the value of building for usability, the importance of collaboration and community and the value of designing for many worlds to ensure an engagement with a plurality of contexts in the development of legal tech through evolving a grounded approach.

Nanosciences and nanotechnologies are a field of blooming technological applications, developed or manufactured at the nanoscale (a billionth of a meter). At this scale, matter shows new and unexpected properties. These may significantly differ from one case to the other, which results in a great diversity of different industrial applications, and eventually in very heterogeneous end-user products. As a matter of fact, the generic dimension of nanotechnologies, understood as a platform or enabling technology, drives their diversity, and potentially affects almost every industrial sector.