Volume 20, Issue 3

The international community generally recognizes the importance of adopting adequate, timely and continuously updated prevention measures to reduce the risk of global health emergencies and pandemics. Nevertheless, as demonstrated by COVID-19, with its assumed mutation capacity, even the most sophisticated preventive measures cannot avoid the spread of new diseases. States are expected, therefore, to adopt specific preparedness measures to effectively anticipate, respond to, and recover from the impacts of likely pandemics. These measures have gained increasing interest in many treaties all over the world. The present article investigates the international obligations codified in universal instruments related to the adoption of preparedness measures for potential pandemics. Carefully examining relevant international treaties as well as emerging soft-law instruments, it will attempt to answer a pertinent question that has been raised time and again in the past and continues to be raised during the current COVID-19 crisis: are the existing preparedness measures still relevant and adequate or have they become obsolete or misleading? Since more COVID-19 viral waves are expected to arrive in the next months, the urgency of adopting adequate preparedness measures is even more evident. Moreover, the article analyses the current worldwide challenges related to the national implementation of preparedness measures. Considering the innovative drugs and diagnostics that are currently available, and that we can count on new technology platforms that significantly reduce the time needed to develop vaccines, it argues that inaction can no longer be justified, whether in legal, political or moral terms.

Between 2003 and 2016, Brazil carried out a World Bank-inspired “rule-of-law” reform that has failed to substantially increase access to justice. To buttress such a disheartening conclusion, this paper includes a case study of Brazil’s biggest litigation ever, which centered on the losses that bank customers had incurred because of heterodox national economic plans implemented in the late 1980s and early 1990s. By showing that the system of binding precedents consolidated in the reform ended up favoring “repeat players” over “one-shotters” in this litigation, this paper seeks to explain how institutional reforms that fail to tackle deep inequalities may backfire.

This article deals with the quality of energy generated in the autonomous mini and micro hydroelectric plants located in the mountainous regions of Cuba, where they are the only source of energy supply. The quality of energy generated and its availability are a right to the inhabitants of these communities, on an equal footing with those whose supply is through the electricity grid. In this sense, the legal and technical norms existing in Cuba, while defining equality of rights, also impose unviable technical and economic conditions.

The implications of the severe lockdown regime introduced in Italy in the context of the Covid-19 emergency can be correctly understood only through a broader look at how the text of the provisions adopted by the government is transformed by media reporting and law enforcement practice. From such a perspective, it appears clearly that we are witnessing nothing more than the most recent segment of a populist approach to the use of legal tools, the history of which starts well before the pandemic.

Delivery high-quality services to people in a wide range of social fields and improve the most living standards are considered the main objectives for any government. Many countries, including the UK, felt the need for managerial reforms in the public sector after the global economic crisis, and several steps were taken to introduce new managerial public administration including the private sector involvement which was the only practical solution to encourage national economic growth. However, it was witnessed that the UK government could not successfully complete some of its projects carried out with private sectors, resulting in the waste of financial resources and effect negatively on the quality services delivered to people. This paper therefore aims to highlight the pros/cons of UK government contracts in order to propose various suggestions for the promotion of public private partnership (PPP), and for effective management of these contracts that will prevent the wasting of public money.

European Union institutions are currently studying the regulatory intervention needed to face liability problems solicited by the use of autonomous artificial agents, whose unforeseeable actions may result in damage for their users or third parties. This paper intends to analyze some of the solutions proposed, by putting in relation – also from a historical perspective – the possibility of widening producers’ or users’ strict liability for actions by artificial agents even when they are not fully predictable and that of extending the status of legal actor to some of these artificial agents, so as to attribute the damaging fact directly to them.

This paper endorses the idea that the right to contest provided for by art. 22, § 3 GDPR, actually is the apex of a progressive set of tools the data subject has at his disposal to cope with automatic decisions and it should work as an architectural principle to create contestable systems. But in order to achieve that important role, it cannot be reduce to the right of human intervention, also provided for by art.22, § 3, nor to a generic opposition to the outcome of the automatic processing. Thus, drawing from a thorough analysis of the relationships among the rights included in art. 22, § 3 GDPR as well as from the juridical proper meaning of “ contestatio ”, it is concluded that the right to contest has its own proper nature as a hybrid substantial-processual right that is able to give concrete shape to all the other rights indicated in art. 22, § 3, included the much discussed right to explanation.

1. The changing image and structure of international law – 2. The exercise of public authority through delegation – 3. The question of state immunity in the context of hybridisation between public and private – 4. The content of the activity as a paradigm to guide the extension of state immunity – 5. The issue of limiting the immunity of delegated non state actors – 6. Conclusions

Often, when a problem arises, someone immediately declares: “There’s a regulatory gap to plug. What we need is a new rule.” As if everything could be solved with a new regulation. And, when we think of a regulation that can fix things, generally what we have in mind is a verbal – preferably written – regulation. There are two aspects we wish to highlight here. Firstly, behaviour can be regulated not only with verbal norms but also with non-verbal norms. Secondly, behaviour may even be regulated without any specific rule: this article is dedicated to this fascinating regulatory phenomenon.

The transnational market of reproductive services puts a strain on western European States that refuse to acknowledge surrogacy contracts on public policy grounds. The cases decided so far rise three questions. First, under what circumstances foreign surrogacy judgements should be recognised? Second, what would be the constitutional repercussions of the recognition of these judgements? Third, how would it be like a legislation at once effective and respectful of fundamental rights of all parties involved? This Article analyses these questions and how they relate to each other. Based on a transaction-cost economic framework an argument is made that neither top-down, nor market-based regulatory solutions overcome the constitutional arguments that uphold the ban to surrogacy. An alternative approach to legal reform is considered, grounded on IPL and substantive domestic measures.

Legal transplants are considered a significant factor in the evolution of legal systems. One example of transplant of a legal institution through its prestige is the diffusion of the trust from the English legal system to other common law systems and to many civil law countries. One of these is China that in 2001 enacted the Trust Law of the People’s Republic of China. This paper wants to analyse the trust under the Trust Law and to compare it with the original model in the English legal system, understanding how far or how close it is from the original one.

Effective October 1, 2018, the Member States of the European Union had to bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with Directive (EU) 2016/97 of the European Parliament and of the Council of January 20, 2016 on insurance distribution (IDD). The IDD arose out of a desire to give insurance customers equal protection regardless of the type of distributor from which they obtained insurance. Essentially, the IDD seeks to level the playing field of protections for insurance customers by simplifying, consolidating, and expanding customer protections when needed. The IDD has the stated goal of focusing on “the area of the disclosure of information” to customers. The directive is intentionally broad and applies “to persons whose activity consists of providing insurance or reinsurance distribution services to third parties.” Although it is much too early to predict the course of the IDD within the European Union, a comparison can be drawn with the Model Acts promulgated by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) in the United States to glean an inkling as to where the IDD might be headed. Parts of the Model Acts have been in place for a number of years and, while the legal regimes they cover are modestly different, there are nonetheless broad lessons that can be drawn in the comparison of the two. Whether the path of the IDD follows the arc of the Model Acts, or not, will perhaps be attributed to three instrumental aspects: 1. The IDD is unquestionably focused on customer protection. The NAIC is more nearly concerned with uniformity. It may be that the IDD’s focus will contribute to better traction among the EU Member States then Model Acts have experienced in the United States. 2. Unlike the IDD, the NAIC Model Acts are not comprehensive with respect to customer protection. 3. The NAIC Model Acts have seen inconsistent adoption by the states, a factor that has contributed to a lack of uniformity and constancy across any number of insurance products. While the IDD should not suffer from spotty adoption, the relative flexibility of the EU Member States in adopting more stringent rules may lead to a lack of uniformity and consistency similar to that of the Model Acts. Thus, the IDD may very well face the same headwinds faced by the Model Acts in the United States. Accurate predictions are always elusive when dealing with the implementation of regulation and legislation. Accordingly, we will watch with curiosity whether the IDD, which takes a much more global approach in customer protection, will see more success.