¹ Alexander Morgan Capron, The Blind Men and the Elephant: An Introduction to Multidisciplinary Legal Analysis, 1 S. CAl. Interdisc. L.J. 1 (1992); Kim Diana Connolly, Promoting Justice Through Interdisciplinary Teaching, Practice, and Scholarship Elucidating the Elephant: Interdisciplinary Law School Classes, 11 Wash. U. J.L. & Pol'y 11 (2003).Google Scholar

² E.g. information technology prepared the ground for the computer, cell-phones, and the internet. Biotechnological developments gave us in-vitro fertilization, genetic screening, more targeted pharmaceuticals, and genetically modified crops. Nanotechnology researchers manipulate individual atoms, develop improved materials, and aim to miniaturize just about everything.Google Scholar

³ Report of the Committee of Legal Affairs with Recommendations to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Robotics (2015/2103(INL)) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A8-2017-0005+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN.Google Scholar

⁴ Hypotheses of distinctions are: Automation, semi and fully autonomous; or strong versus weak autonomy, more details in Andrea Bertolini, Robots and Liability – Justifying a Change in Perspective, in Rethinking Responsibility in Science and Technology 143 (Fiorella Battaglia, Nikil Mukerji & Julian Nida-Rumelin eds., 2014).Google Scholar

⁵ Think for example to the humanoids or collaborative robots.Google Scholar

⁶ The concept of convergence is well clarified by the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media in the Report Technological Convergence, Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights (2017), http://semantic-pace.net/tools/pdf.aspx?doc=aHR0cDovL2Fzc2VtYmx5LmNvZS5pbnQvbncveG1sL1hSZWYvWDJILURXLWV4dHIuYXNwP2ZpbGVpZD0yMzUzMSZsYW5nPUVO&xsl=aHR0cDovL3NlbWFudGljcGFjZS5uZXQvWHNsdC9QZGYvWFJlZi1XRC1BVC1YTUwyUERGLnhzbA==&xsltparams=ZmlsZWlkPTIzNTMx:Google Scholar

⁷ Two broad types of approaches are usually followed: A product approach (e.g. U.S), and a process approach (e.g. EU). The use of genetic engineering in food represents an example: The EU legislation is referred to it as a process-based legislation because the reason for passing it in the first place is the method of production—the process. The United States, Canada, and some other countries have chosen to place GMOs under the general legislation. In these cases, the characteristics of an organism—the product—are the subject of the legislation. These characteristics are the reason for implementing the legislation, product-based legislation, regardless of the techniques used and the way in which the organism is produced. Process, therefore, stands for the technique used to make the crop, in this case genetic modification. Product stands for the crop and its characteristics. Stephen Yarrow, The Canadian Federal Regulatory Framework for products of biotechnology - A product-based approach. Lezing opens the COGEM Symposium, The new GMO debate. Den Haag, 2 October 2008.Google Scholar

⁸ Professor Koops underlines that “technology has always had a certain normative element—it is never neutral.” Bert-Jaap Koops, Criteria for Normative Technology: An Essay on the Acceptability of ‘Code as Law’ in Light of Democratic and Constitutional Values, in Regulating Technologies: Legal Futures, Regulatory Frames and Technological Fixes 157 (Rodger Brownsword & Karen Yeung eds., 2007). The code as law idea has been put on the agenda by scholars like Joel Reidenberg and Lawrence Lessig. It basically refers to the notion that increasing technology is intentionally being used in a normative way, thus influencing people's behavior to an ever-larger extent (see, for example, the “Digital Right Management”). Lawrence Lessig, Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999).Google Scholar

⁹ Cockfield, Arthur J., Towards a Law and Technology Theory, 30 Man. L.J. 383 (2004), available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=615088 (discussing the development of legal analysis that broadly considers the interplay between law and technology theory and evaluating different interpretive responses to technological change).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Id. Google Scholar

¹¹ Price, Monroe E., The Newness of New Technology, 22 Cardozo L. Rev. 1885 (2001). In the field of international law, see generally Della, Joseph W. Penna, Law in a Shrinking World: The Interaction of Science and Technology with International Law, 88 Ky. L.J. 809 (2000); Picker, Colin B., A View From 40,000 Feet: International Law and the Invisible Hand of Technology, 23 Cardozo L. Rev. 149 (2001); see also Tribe, Laurence, Channeling Technology Through Law (1972).Google Scholar

¹² David Friedman, Does Technology Require New Law?, 25 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 71 (2001).Google Scholar

¹³ The orientation towards Grand Challenges is ambitious. It creates a challenge for science, technology, and innovation (STI) policies and practices as we know them because they are a different kind of usual STI policy concerns. Grand Challenges are sometimes seen as priorities for R&D and innovation stimulation, and treated that way, for example, through dedicated public funding (see Horizon 2020 EU strategy). European KET Strategy: EC Communications (2009)512 & (2012)341. Nanotechnologies, advanced materials, micro and nanoelectronics, photonics, biotechnology, and advanced manufacturing.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Think, for example, to the societal challenges of health: It results nowadays from the combination of several KETs for advanced products as new nanotechnologies-based diagnostics—new target drug delivery and release, regenerative medicine.Google Scholar

¹⁵ For further constructive research elements: Roberto Scarciglia, Metodi e comparazione giuridica (2016). See § B and note 35.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Matthias Siems, Comparative Law 8 (2014) (figure 1.1.). The author also emphasized how precisely other disciplines are able to contribute to comparative legal research also depends on the actual research questions (p. 9). This is not the first time that comparative lawyers have used geometric figures to express the idea of comparative law as a field open to other cultural fields and disciplines. See the Mensky's kite model, Werner Mensky, Flying Kites in a Global Sky: New Models of Jurisprudence, in Islamic Symbols in European Courts 143 (Roberto Scarciglia & Werner Mensky eds., 2014); also, graphics on legal families were already used, see Mattei, Ugo & Monateri, Pierluigi, Introduzione breve al diritto comparato 79 (1997).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Lastly, Vincenzo Zeno-Zencovich, Comparative legal Systems A short introduction, 97–99 (2017), http://romatrepress.uniroma3.it/ojs/index.php/CLS/article/view/1143/1134.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Siems, supra note 16.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Connolly, supra note 1, at 11; e.g. Law and Literature; Law and Cinema; Law and Technology etc; for example, on Law & Superstition, see Vincenzo Zeno-Zencovich, Il lato oscuro della legge: diritto e superstizione, in 2 Rivista di diritto civile 309 (2013); Vincenzo Zeno-Zencovich, The Dark Side of Force: Superstition and/as Law, 2 Comp. L. Rev. (2011); on Law & Music, see Resta, Giorgio, Variazioni comparatistiche sul tema: “diritto e musica”, in Comparazione e diritto civile (2011), http://www.comparazionedirittocivile.it/prova/files/urb_resta.pdf.Google Scholar

²⁰ It is even simplistic to mention law and economics without presenting the current discussion and clarification about this distinction: Law and economics, where the two disciplines are on the same level and economic analysis of law, where the law is the object of the study. Guido Calabresi, The Future of Law & Economics: Essays in Reform and Recollection (2016); see also Ulen, Thomas S., The Unexpected Guest: Law and Economics, Law and Other Cognate Disciplines, and the Future of Legal Scholarship, 79 Chi. Kent L. Rev. 403 (2004); Posner, Richard A., The Decline of Law as an Autonomous Discipline: 1962-1987, 100 Harv. L. Rev. 761 (1981) (describing this development and explaining it as the result of a declining political consensus, the rise of disciplines complementary to law, a decline in lawyers' confidence in their ability to reform the legal system, and scholars' innate desire to innovate).Google Scholar

²¹ The Italian legal academia offers an insightful landscape: See the Italian Association of Comparative Law Fifth Young Comparatists Biennial Conference, New Topics and Methods in Comparative Legal Research and Its Relations With Social Sciences (May 27–28, 2016); see also University of Milano Workshop, New Paths in Comparative Law (April 5, 2017).Google Scholar

²² See Glendon, Mary Ann, Paolo Carozza & Picker, Colin B., Comparative Legal Tradition in a Nutshell (3d ed. 2008); Ugo Mattei, An Opportunity Not to Be Missed: The Future of Comparative Law in the United States, 46 Am. J. Comp. L. 709 (1998).Google Scholar

²³ Examples are numerous. Research in the field of food law often emphasized it. E.g. Matteo Ferrari, Risk Perception, Culture, and Legal Change: A Comparative Study on Food Safety in the Wake of the Mad Cow Crisis (2009).Google Scholar

²⁴ Comparatists have already complained about the positivistic approach of functionalism. See Frankenberg, Gunter, Comparative Law as Critique (2016); Pierre Legrand, Negative Comparative Law, in Journal of Comparative Law, 405–454 (2015); Pierre Legrand, Munday, Comparative Legal Studies: Traditions and Transitions (Pierre Legrand & Robert Munday eds., 2003). To exemplify the explicit openness of comparative law to other non-legal knowledge, see Monateri, Pier Giuseppe, Methods of Comparative Law (2013); G. Samuel, Methodology in Law and Comparative Law: Contributions from the Sciences and Social Sciences, in Methodologies of Legal Research: Which kind of Method for What kind of Discipline 35 (Mark Van Hoecke ed., 2004).Google Scholar

²⁵ For example, see Sacco, Rodolfo, Il diritto muto. Neuroscienze Conoscenza Tacita, Valori Condivisi, (2015); Vincenzo Zeno-Zencovich, Lessons from a Traffic Light. A Juridical Scherzo, Eur. J. Comp. l. & governance 3 (2016).Google Scholar

²⁶ See Scarciglia, supra note 15, at 84 (comparing deep and surface comparative law).Google Scholar

²⁷ See infra § C. III.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ralf Michaels, Comparative Law by Numbers? Legal Origins Thesis, Doing Business Reports, and the Silence of Traditional Comparative Law, 57 Am. J. Comp. L. 765 (2009).Google Scholar

²⁹ The concept of implicit comparative law is proposed by Matthias Siems. See Siems, supra note 16. It is a complex concept based on the fundamental premise that comparative method is a tool applicable to all social sciences.Google Scholar

³⁰ See Sacco, supra note 25.Google Scholar

³¹ Dario Antiseri, I Fondamenti Epistemologici Del Lavoro Interdisciplinare (1972); Fabrizio Ravaglioli, Introduzione, in Interdisciplinarietá (Fabrizio Ravaglioli ed., 1974); Karl Larenz, Storia Del Metodo Nella Scienza Giuridica (1966).Google Scholar

³² Antiseri, supra note 31.Google Scholar

³³ Scarciglia, supra note 15, at 92; Geoffrey Samuel, An Introduction to Comparative Law: Theory and Method (2014).Google Scholar

³⁴ Tanja Ehnert, The EU and Nanotechnologies: A Critical Analysis (Modern Studies in European Law) (2017).Google Scholar

³⁵ Antiseri, supra note 31, at 71. For an example of the use of numerical comparative law, see Siems, Mathias, Comparative Legal Certainty: Legal Families and Forms of Measurement, in The Shifting Meaning of Legal Certainty in Comparative and Transnational Law 115 (Mathias Siems et al. eds., 2017).Google Scholar

³⁶ Giovanni Pascuzzi, La Scienza Giuridica è Disciplinare: Può Esserlo la Didattica Nella Facoltà di Giurisprudenza?, in Il Foro Italiano 94 (2007).Google Scholar

³⁷ Francesco Parisi & Barbara Luppi, Quantitative Methods in Comparative Law, in Methods of Comparative Law (Pier Giuseppe Monateri ed., 2012).Google Scholar

³⁸ It is theorized that the importance of interdisciplinarity was first attributed to Roscoe Pound in 1907 and affirmed the importance for law professors to overcome the pure legal notions and to understand circumstances—such as social and economic conditions—where legal principles are applied. Roscoe Pound, The Need for a Sociological Jurisprudence, 19 The Green Bag 5 (1907).Google Scholar

³⁹ Commonly, the term “interdisciplinarity” means instruction that emphasizes the connection of “two or more academic disciplines that are usually considered distinct.” See American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed. 2000). In true interdisciplinary work, such connections benefit and contribute to the outcome. See The Oxford English Dictionary 1098 (2d ed. 1989) (“[o]f or pertaining to two or more disciplines or branches of learning; contributing to or benefiting from two or more disciplines”).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Basarab Nicolescu, Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity (2002).Google Scholar

⁴¹ Hélène Zimmermann, Developing Empirical Legal Research in Legal Training: A Canadian Experience in a Civil Law School, presented at Law & Soc'y Assn. Annual Conference (June 7, 2012) (discussing how researchers' “methodological choices also form a sort of crystallization point for identity”—as if one could not be, fully, both a sociologist and a jurist.) “Interdisciplinarity is fashionable, but when someone is (for example) both a scientist and a legal scholar, his colleagues want to know which one he really is—he may be fully both, but he may be treated as if he were fully neither.”Google Scholar

⁴² Hussey, Deborah M. Freeland, Law & Science: Toward a Unified Field, 47 Conn. L. Rev. 529 (2014).Google Scholar

⁴³ Gabriele Bammer & Michael Smithson, Uncertainty and Risk: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (2012).Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Rosenfield, Patricia L., The Potential of Transdisciplinary Research for Sustaining and Extending Linkages Between the Health and Social Sciences, 35 Soc. Sci. & Med. 1343 (1992).Google ScholarPubMed

⁴⁵ The workshop was “Interdisciplinarity: Teaching and Research Problems in Universities” organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in collaboration with the French Ministry of National Education and University of Nice. In his contribution, Piaget described transdisciplinarity as a superior stage of interdisciplinary without stable boundaries between the disciplines. Jean Piaget, L'épistémologie des relations interdisciplinaires (LéoApostel et al., 1972). A key date in this development is 1994, when the Charter of Transdisciplinarity was adopted by the participants at the First World Congress of Transdisciplinarity (Convento da Arrábida, Portugal).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Nicolescu, supra note 40.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ To exemplify the type 1 kind of interdisciplinarity, the author states that aGoogle Scholar

Mathias Siems, The Taxonomy of Interdisciplinary Legal Research: Finding the Way Out of the Desert, J. Commonwealth L. & Legal Educ. 5 (2007).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Id. Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Mihail Roco & William Sims Bainbridge, Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology, and Cognitive Science (2003). On May 11, 2001, a planning meeting was held at the National Science Foundation to organize a workshop that brings together leaders in science, industry, and government to consider how cutting-edge developments in different areas of science might be integrated to advance the enhancement of human capacities.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Ryan Calo, Michael Froomkin & Ian Kerr, Robot Law (2016).Google Scholar

⁵¹ This was proposed by Mihail Roco and William Sims Bainbridge. Roco & Bainbridge, supra note 49.Google Scholar

⁵² See https://cordis.europa.eu/foresight/ntw-expert-group.htm; see also Nordmann, Alfred, Converging Technologies – Shaping the Future of European Societies, Int'l Inst. for Applied Sys. Analysis (2004).Google Scholar

⁵³ ETC Group, Down on the Farm: The Impact of Nano-Scale Technologies on Food and Agriculture (2004).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Id. Google Scholar

⁵⁵ The dynamic of scientific research is the requirement of autonomy and flexibility. Ethical considerations create a wide belief that soft and self-regulation provide suitable regulatory tools for emerging science and technology applications. Flear, Mark L. et al., European Law and New Health Technologies (2013).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Tanja Enhnert, The Legitimacy of New Risk Governance—A Critical View in Light of the EU's Approach to Nanotechnologies in Food, 21 Eur. L.J. 44 (2015).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Ulrike Felt et al., The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (4th ed. 2016)Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Ulrike Felt et al., Eur. Commission, Report of the Expert Group on Science and Governance to the Science, Economy and Society Directorate, Directorate-General for Research, European Commission, Taking European Knowledge Society Seriously (2007). EC's Directorate-General for Research asked us “to analyze the growing uneasiness which affects the relations between science and society and to explore ways to develop constructive interactions between techno-scientific expertise and public concerns with a view to more effective European governance.”Google Scholar

⁵⁹ René von Schomberg, A Vision of Responsible Innovation, in Responsible Innovation: Managing the Responsible Emergence of Science and Innovation in Society (Richard Owen, Maggy Heintz & John Bessant eds., 2013).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ The EU Commission has published its call for proposals on developing a normative and comprehensive governance framework for responsible research and innovation (RRI). For all the related documents on RRI, see http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/responsible-research-innovation. A clear identification of the concept of RRI was presented by Dr. von Schomberg. See René von Schomberg, Eur. Commission, Towards Responsible Research and Innovation in the Information and Communication Technologies and Security Technologies Fields (2011) (describing RRI as a “transparent, interactive process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view on the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products (in order to allow a proper embedding of scientific and technological advances in our society)”).Google Scholar

⁶¹ Felt, supra note 57.Google Scholar

⁶² Iris Benohr, EU Consumer Law and Human Rights 74 (2013).Google Scholar

⁶³ Maurice Adams, Comparative Law in a Globalizing World: Three Challenges, in Reflections on Global Law 131 (Shavana Musa & Eefje de Volder eds., 2013).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ In the U.S., the first comprehensive federal regulatory policy for ensuring the safety of biotechnology research and products was developed with the Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology (1986), https://www.aphis.usda.gov/brs/fedregister/coordinated_framework.pdf. The Framework was updated with the Modernizing the Regulatory System for Biotechnology Products: Final Version of the 2017 Update to the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology (2017), https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-01/documents/2017_coordinated_framework_update.pdf.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ In food law, for example, the European Food Safety Agency is deputed to conduct the scientific evaluation, while the European Commission provides the regulations.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ In food law, three authorities are in charge of both the risk assessment and risk management functions for the different kinds of foods: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Council Directive 2001/95, 2001 O.J. (L 011) (EC).Google Scholar

⁶⁸ This differentiation—either due to a characteristic of the product related to the defect or by analogy with another nanoproduct—between different levels of risk is stated by Geraint Howells. See Howells, Geraint, Product Liability for Nanotechnology, 4 J. Consumer Pol'y 381 (2009).Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Council Directive 85/374, 1985 O.J. (L 210) (EC).Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Ragnar Lofstedt, Risk versus Hazard – How to Regulate in the 21st Century, 2 Eur. J. of Risk Reg. 149 (2011). He underlined that during the 1970s the doubts were: Should regulations be based on hazard classification—that is, the potential for a substance, activity or process to cause harm or adverse effect—or a risk—a combination of the likelihood and the severity of a substance, activity or process to cause harm—assessment? In other words, should regulators ban substances that have an intrinsic ability to cause harm, or should they examine whether there is a real probability that these substances will actually cause harm, in part based on exposure? The author exemplified that the UK is overall more risk based than Sweden.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Even if civil liability is an older institute than administrative regulation, their interaction has already been extensively examined. One of the first and most famous contributions is Guido Calabresi, The Costs of Accidents (1970).Google Scholar

⁷² For a deep analysis, see Cafaggi, Fabrizio, A Coordinated Approach to Regulation and Liability in European Law: Rethinking Institutional Complementarities (2005).Google Scholar

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⁷⁴ Enrico Al Mureden, Il Danno da “Prodotto Conforme”: Le Soluzioni Europee e Statunitensi Nella Prospettiva del Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T.T.I.P.), in Contratto e Impresa 388 (2015).Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Precautionary principle is defined by the European Communication as following:Google Scholar

Communication from the Commission on the Precautionary Principle, COM (2000) 1 final (Feb. 2, 2000); see also Jonathon Wiener et al., The Reality of Precaution: Comparing Risk Regulation in the United States and Europe (2010).Google Scholar

⁷⁶ After endorsements of precautionary regulation in cases like Ethyl Corp. v. EPA, 541 F.2d 1 (D.C. Cir. 1976) and Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978), the US Supreme Court held in Industrial Union Dept., AFL-CIO v. American Petroleum Inst., 448 U.S. 607 (1980) (the Benzene case) that OSHA cannot regulate on the basis of mere conjecture about uncertain risks; the court ruled that the agency must demonstrate significant risk before regulating.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ See Communication from the Commission on the Precautionary Principle, supra note 75.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ E.g. Food law (e.g. BSE Jurisdiction), chemicals; products for children; tobacco market, etc.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ A part of the Italian literature interpreted it as a principle directed to influence policy makers and regulation or with an approach finalized to permeate regulation and the interpretation of liability rules. A recent study on PP is Wiener, supra note 75. They critique the flip-flop hypothesis contending that Europe has become more precautionary than the US. They assert that no clear general patterns of convergence, divergence or flip-flop can be identified in risk-regulation between the two legal systems across field. For a complete analysis, see Mureden, Enrico Al, Principio di precauzione, tutela della salute e responsabilità civile (2008).Google Scholar

⁸⁰ The recent resolution of the European Parliament on February 16, 2017 with recommendations to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Robotics stated that robotic research activities should be conducted in accordance with the precautionary principle, anticipating potential safety impacts of outcomes and taking due precautions, proportional to the level of protection, while encouraging progress for the benefit of society and the environment. See Report of the Committee of Legal Affairs with Recommendations to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Robotics, supra note 3.Google Scholar

⁸¹ RRI is furthermore a cross-cutting issue in Horizon 2020, which will be promoted throughout Horizon 2020 objectives. In many cases, inter and transdisciplinary solutions will have to be developed, which cut across the multiple specific objectives of Horizon 2020. Within the specific objectives of program, actions can focus on thematic elements of RRI, as well as on more integrated approaches to promote RRI uptake. For a whole vision of the RRI impact in all science and technology European policies, see Report of the Expert Group on the State of Art in Europe on Responsible Research and Innovation on Options for Strengthening Responsible Research and Innovation (2013), https://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document_library/pdf_06/options-for-strengthening_en.pdf.Google Scholar

⁸² One approach to embed the relevant values into the entire design process is by adopting the impact assessment methodologies. These were developed for many specific domains, such as the environment, privacy (PIA), data protection (DPIA) and robots. For the latter, see Fosch-Villaronga, Eduard, Creation of a Care Robot Impact Assessment, 9 Int'l J. Soc. Behav. Educ. Econ. Bus. & Indus. Eng'g 1913 (2015); see also Ronald Leenes et al., Regulatory Challenges of Robotics: Some Guidelines for Addressing Legal and Ethical Issues, 9 L. Innovation & Tech. 1 (2017).Google Scholar

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⁸⁴ See supra note 26.Google Scholar

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⁸⁶ Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (1992).Google Scholar

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⁹⁰ Modern risk theory experts already combined the several perspectives.Google Scholar

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⁹³ Around the Thirty, earlier attempts for risk classifications were out in place. Herbert Blumer, Science Without Concepts, 4 Am. J. Soc. 515 (1931). From then on, innumerable classifications were presented, and studies were committed to identify criteria for classifications. A detailed literature on the topic of risk perception classifications following different disciplines (sociology, communications, philosophy, etc.) is offered by Ortwin Renn, Concepts of risk: a classification, in Social theories of risk 53–79 (Krimsky, Sheldon,1992).Google Scholar

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Wiener, supra note 75.Google Scholar

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¹⁰⁴ Although the GMO Labeling law provides information about the different ways companies will be permitted to disclose GMO ingredients, it leaves the specific regulations implementing the law to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to establish by July 2018. Therefore, some uncertainty about the details of the new law remains for food companies, industry groups, and consumers. It also remains to be seen how, if at all, the new law and the buzz surrounding it will cause some companies to modify any prior decisions to label GMO-containing products.Google Scholar

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¹⁰⁶ In this regard, all the analysis of the U.S. Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School is meaningful, see http://www.culturalcognition.net/. The Cultural Cognition Project is a group of scholars interested in studying how cultural values shape public risk perceptions and related policy beliefs. Cultural cognition refers to the tendency of individuals to conform their beliefs about disputed matters of fact—e.g., whether humans are causing global warming; whether the death penalty deters murder; whether gun control makes society safer or less —to values that define their cultural identities. Project members are using the methods of various disciplines—including social psychology, anthropology, communications, and political science—to chart the impact of this phenomenon and to identify the mechanisms through which it operates. The Project also has an explicit normative objective: To identify processes of democratic decision-making by which society can resolve culturally grounded differences in belief in a manner that is both congenial to persons of diverse cultural outlooks and consistent with sound public policymaking. On the specific field of converging technologies, see Kahan, Dan et al., Cultural Cognition of the Risks and Benefits of Nanotechnology, 4 Nature Nanotechnology 87 (2009); or Dan Kahan et al., Risk and Culture: Is Synthetic Biology Different?, Geo. Wash. Faculty Publ'n & Other Works (2009), https://ssrn.com/abstract=1347165.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Bertolini, supra note 4. The author advises that the justification of an approach of “exceptionalism” on the base of their technological new characteristics.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Ryan Calo, Robotics and the Lessons Cyberlaw, 103 Cal. L. Rev. 513 (2015).Google Scholar

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¹¹⁰ Report Technological Convergence, Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, supra note 6.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ For a wider perspective on the transformation in law's relationship with humans and nonhumans, see Viljanen, Mika, A Cyborg Turn in Law?, 18 German L.J. 1277 (2017).Google Scholar

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¹¹³ It refers to the fact that our social interactions operate as modulators, something like interpersonal thermostats that continually reset key aspects of our brain function as they orchestrate our emotions. See Goleman, Daniel, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships 5 (2007).Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ “The primary importance of the legal culture literature in recent comparative law is that it reminds us of law's significance in addressing social relations shaped by tradition, ultimate values and benefits, and elusive affectual or emotional elements.” Cotterrell, supra note 88.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ The nanotechnology field is an example. Where it was possible, the EU Commission has continued to recommend to apply and adapt the existing legal framework.Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ See infra note 85.Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ Report of the Committee of Legal Affairs with Recommendations to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Robotics, supra note 3.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ Asimov's Laws must be regarded as being directed at the designers, producers and operators of robots, since those laws cannot be converted into machine code: (1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; (2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; and (3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. Also, a robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. See Asimov, Isaac, Runaround, in I, Robot (Isaac Asimov ed., 1950).Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ Leenes, supra note 82.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ They suggested not to think to a specific technology as the target of regulation but relatively specific domains as personal data; health and safety concerns etc. Id. Google Scholar

¹²¹ Lars Erik Holmquist & Jodi Forlizzi, Introduction to Journal of Human-Robot Interaction Special Issue on Design, 3 J. Hum. Robot Interaction 1 (2014). A field where the concept of by-design developed was privacy. Privacy regulators in Canada, the US, and the EU have become increasingly vocal in calling for privacy to be designed-in to new products and services, rather than added as an afterthought following consumer complaints and regulatory action. Designed-in privacy is likely to be much more effective if included throughout the product or policy design lifecycle, as a much broader range of options is available to a designer than to an engineer trying to make changes to a product following a privacy incident. A privacy by design requirement is implied by Data Protection Directive Article 17. Directive 95/46, 1995 O.J. (L 281) 31 (EC); see also Brown, Ian, Britain's Smart Meter Programme: A Case Study in Privacy by Design, 28 Int'l Rev. L. Computers & Tech. 172 (2014). The General Data Protection Regulation embraces privacy by design without detailing how it can or should be applied, see Article 23 Proposal for a Regulation on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the Protection of Natural Persons with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data, and Repealing Directive 95/94/EC, 2016 O.J. (L 119).Google Scholar

¹²² Holmquist, supra note 121.Google Scholar

¹²³ Report Technological Convergence, Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, supra note 6.Google Scholar

¹²⁴ Bertolini, supra note 4.Google Scholar

¹²⁵ The example is proposed by the same author id. at 162, 165.Google Scholar

¹²⁶ As well as non-legal arguments: anthropological, sociological, economic, etc.Google Scholar