Technological advances have made digital evidence central to criminal proceedings, particularly with the widespread use of end-to-end encryption and password or biometric protection of devices. This context creates a legal dilemma: on one side, the prosecutorial duty of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate and uphold public order; on the other, the defendant’s fundamental right not to produce evidence against oneself, enshrined in the nemo tenetur se detegere principle. This article examines the collision between these fundamental rights, discussing whether refusal to provide passwords to electronic devices falls under the protection against self-incrimination, and whether a legal distinction exists between providing a password (an act of knowledge) and unlocking a device through biometrics (a physical act). The paper also analyzes the current case law of the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court and Superior Court of Justice, still marked by divergences, along with comparative perspectives from the United States, Germany, and the European Court of Human Rights. The methodology combines doctrinal, jurisprudential, and comparative law approaches, highlighting constitutional foundations for personal data protection and privacy rights. Legitimate investigative alternatives available to the Public Prosecutor’s Office are explored, such as advanced forensic techniques, international cooperation, and the use of open-source intelligence, provided that proportionality and human dignity are respected. The study concludes that technology poses new challenges for criminal proceedings but cannot justify the erosion of constitutional safeguards. The distinction between “knowing” and “being” (passwords versus biometrics) emerges as a significant criterion, though greater jurisprudential uniformity and potential legislative regulation are required. Balancing investigative efficiency with fundamental rights is essential to ensure the legitimacy of state action in the digital sphere.
This article addresses the growing tension between medical responsibility and patient autonomy in the context of telemedicine, investigating the legal limits of informed consent when the care relationship unfolds in virtual environments. The study examines how the absence of direct physical contact, technological mediation, and digital access inequalities pose new challenges to the validity and effectiveness of consent, as well as to the delimitation of the physician's professional obligations. The research analyzes the current Brazilian legal framework, particularly Law No. 13,989/2020, the resolutions of the Federal Council of Medicine, and the constitutional principles of human dignity and private autonomy, articulating them with contributions from bioethics and comparative medical law. A systematic bibliographic review methodology is adopted, with analysis of national and international works indexed in databases such as SciELO, CAPES, and university repositories. The main findings indicate that the traditional model of informed consent proves insufficient to capture the particularities of teleconsultation, demanding the construction of new normative parameters that recognize the specificity of the virtual bond between physician and patient. Furthermore, the absence of uniform regulation generates legal uncertainty for both healthcare professionals and users of telemedicine services. The article concludes that the realization of patient autonomy in the digital environment requires not only legislative adaptation, but also investment in digital literacy and institutional mechanisms for consent verification.
Purpose This study aims to examine green finance’s role in expanding renewable energy and diversifying Gulf economies, focusing on regulations, private sector participation and innovative tools like green sukuk and blockchain. Design/methodology/approach Mixed-methods analysis employs Dynamic Panel Data (DPD) and Difference-in-Differences (DiD) estimates to assess the effectiveness of green finance in terms of scalability, investors’ confidence and transformation in six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies. Qualitative information about trends in investments and policies comes through stakeholder interviews. Findings Established governance and uniform laws build confidence in investors and stimulate renewable energy development. Saudi Arabia and the UAE use effectively green bonds and sukuk, and Kuwait and Oman face investment disincentives through fragmentation in laws and regulations. Transparency and efficiency are boosted through blockchain technology. Public–private partnerships (PPPs) and risk-sharing, in lessons drawn in sub-Saharan Africa and in Southeast Asia, pay dividends in maximizing green finance. Practical implications The findings suggest that aligning regional policies with global sustainability standards and fostering greater private sector engagement are crucial to optimizing green finance’s impact on the region’s long-term economic and environmental goals. Originality/value Integrating best practice globally, Islamic finance and blockchain, this paper proposes a region-sensitive model for sustainability for the Gulf region. It offers a comparative analysis of green financial models and sees a role for new financial technology in delivering transparency and a transition to a low-carbon economy.
Abstract Article 58 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) contains a provision which allows for the involuntary withdrawal, or expulsion, of a State from the ECHR if it has been expelled from, or ceased to be a member of, the Council of Europe (CoE). By comparing Russia's exit from the ECHR in 2022 with that of Greece in 1969, this article demonstrates that involuntary withdrawal poses a number of legal problems—partly as a result of it not having been considered during the drafting of the ECHR or the Statute of the CoE, and partly because of the highly unclear basis on which involuntary withdrawal operates. The article then conducts a comparative analysis of other regional human rights systems and public international law principles on treaty withdrawal in order to suggest a more comprehensive legal foundation for expulsion.
This article discusses the relationship between subsidiary protection status granted to persons fleeing indiscriminate violence in armed conflicts under article 15(c) of the European Union (EU) Qualification Directive (soon to be Qualification Regulation) and international humanitarian law. This is done by assessing jurisprudential developments at the supranational and national levels through a comparative empirical study of State practice in the EU and by providing an autonomous understanding of the provision. The article enquires into how the different elements of article 15(c) have been interpreted historically (following the first Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) judgment in Elgafaji), and in response to its decision in Diakité. It thereby delineates the scope of the provision in principle, but also in practice by tracking the implementation of CJEU jurisprudence in the field of subsidiary protection. The empirical study demonstrates that whereas judicial enquiry initially focused on determining the existence of an armed conflict in the relevant country of origin using international humanitarian law, since the CJEU’s judgment in Diakité, judicial determinations centre on the element of ‘indiscriminate violence’. However, although appellate authorities no longer explicitly refer to international humanitarian law norms as the legal framework through which to interpret article 15(c), judicial interpretation of the various elements of article 15(c) is still based on corresponding norms. The article demonstrates how the norms of international humanitarian law, including the location and intensity of armed confrontations between fighting parties, the control of territory by armed groups, and their capacity to undertake sustained and concerted military operations, continued to inform judicial approaches to the definition and assessment of indiscriminate violence following Diakité. The article contends that interpreting article 15(c) entirely, or even merely, by reference to principles of international humanitarian law is inconsistent with the purpose of the international protection regime in the EU and fails to reflect the nature of violence in contemporary armed conflicts.
Thijs L van der Plas, Stephen Law, Michael JO Pocock
The growing demand for scalable biodiversity monitoring methods has fuelled interest in remote sensing data, due to its widespread availability and extensive coverage. Traditionally, the application of remote sensing to biodiversity research has focused on mapping and monitoring habitats, but with increasing availability of large-scale citizen-science wildlife observation data, recent methods have started to explore predicting multi-species presence directly from satellite images. This paper presents a new data set for predicting butterfly species presence from satellite data in the United Kingdom. We experimentally optimise a Resnet-based model to predict multi-species presence from 4-band satellite images, and find that this model especially outperforms the mean rate baseline for locations with high species biodiversity. To improve performance, we develop a soft, supervised contrastive regularisation loss that is tailored to probabilistic labels (such as species-presence data), and demonstrate that this improves prediction accuracy. In summary, our new data set and contrastive regularisation method contribute to the open challenge of accurately predicting species biodiversity from remote sensing data, which is key for efficient biodiversity monitoring.
Introduction: the article analyzes the term "technological leadership" as one of the national goals of the Russian Federation, designated by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated 05/07/2024 No. 309 «On the national Development Goals of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2030 and for the future up to 2036». Purpose: based on the generalization of scientific views on the legal category of "technological leadership" to identify its essence and identify the prospects for its legal regulation, realizing the predictive function of the theory of state and law and the foundations of legal futurology. Methods: descriptive, comparative-legal; theoretical methods of formal and dialectical logic. Private scientific methods were used: system analysis and the method of content analysis and interpretation of legal norms. Results: a critical understanding of the essence of the term "technological leadership" made it possible to identify its legal features and determine its true meaning. The author considers the definition of "technological leadership" to be the most relevant from the point of view of the concept of social constructivism as technological development. In addition, according to the author, building a hierarchy of regulatory legal acts on technological leadership is very difficult, because technological progress affects all relations in society and, consequently, its regulation is difficult to limit to several legal acts. That is why the author concludes that the ambiguity of the perception of technological development and the lack of uniform rules for the use of its achievements form an objective request for a common regulatory framework at both the national and international levels. Conclusions: based on the concept of convergence of private and public law, the author proposes to form a legal framework (norms-principles) of technological leadership in the Russian legal field, or rather technological development, primarily due to the uncertainty of the subject of legal regulation. It is possible to recommend as principles of technology policy formation: human-centricity of technologies; definition of ethical standards for artificial intelligence; international exchange of open data; creation of a common framework for technology control, consideration of threats and risks, etc.
While discussing various issues related to interpretation of genocide from historical, moral and political perspectives, it is impossible not to address the legal issues, because genocide is not a just an occurrence – it is first and foremost one of the most serious international crimes against humanity. The legal aspect is all the more important given that the unambiguity, precision, specificity and uniformity of the legal wording have a major impact on the possibility of bringing perpetrators to justice; bringing the wording in line with global practice leads to more effective cooperation and guarantees and ensures assistance in investigating one or other case. Therefore, we would like to present a small comparative analysis on the approach to genocide in the Lithuanian legal system and how it is perceived in international law, wherefrom the concept of genocide originated.
The dual mandate of sports agents constitutes a paradigmatic instance of the normative tension between autonomy and systemic unity within the broader legal order governing professional sport. This contribution undertakes a comparative analysis of the regulatory treatment of dual representation under both national and international instruments, with specific reference to the Italian legislative framework (Legislative Decree No. 37/2021 and FIGC Regulations 2025) and the FIFA Football Agent Regulations 2025 (FFAR 2025).The inquiry is premised upon the conception of sports law not as an autonomous or self-contained legal order, but as a specialised sector integrated within the general legal system, characterised by a multi-level structure encompassing state, federal, and international sources. Within this systemic configuration, the Italian model adopts a functional and proportionate approach: dual representation is permissible subject to stringent safeguards of informed consent, disclosure, and conflict-of-interest management. By contrast, the FIFA framework, animated by considerations of transparency and integrity, enshrines a general prohibition on dual mandates, save for narrowly construed exceptions that render its practical application residual.This comparative examination reveals not merely a divergence in regulatory technique but a deeper antinomy between distinct normative rationales. The Italian framework, grounded in private autonomy and proportionality, privileges contractual freedom within a regime of procedural transparency. On the other hand, the FIFA model, conversely, embodies a preventive and prohibitive logic, privileging integrity over autonomy. The coexistence of these divergent paradigms engenders regulatory asymmetry and legal uncertainty, particularly in cross-border transactions that typify the football industry, thereby undermining both market efficiency and systemic coherence.In light of these findings, the paper advocates for a harmonised European regulatory intervention aimed at reconciling the principles of integrity, transparency, and contractual autonomy. Such harmonisation may be pursued either through an internal recalibration of the FFAR or through the enactment of a “European Sports Act” grounded in Article 114 TFEU, which would provide a uniform and binding normative framework. Ultimately, the establishment of a proportionate and coherent European discipline on dual representation constitutes not merely an instrument for enhancing the governance of sport, but also a necessary condition for safeguarding the unity and internal consistency of the European legal order as a whole.
The article examines the institution of prejudice (preclusion) in criminal proceedings, with a particular focus on its application in cases involving the criminal liability of legal entities. The author analyzes the historical, comparative-legal, and doctrinal aspects of prejudice, highlighting its importance for procedural efficiency, legal certainty, and the uniformity of judicial practice. Special attention is paid to the conflicts arising between the principle of binding judicial acts and the principle of free evaluation of evidence. Based on the analysis of the legislation of the Republic of Armenia, the case law of the Cassation and Constitutional Courts, as well as international standards (in particular, the 2005 UN Convention against Corruption and the practice of the European Court of Human Rights), the author concludes that facts established in cases against natural persons cannot automatically have preclusive effect in criminal proceedings against legal entities. The article emphasizes the necessity of independently establishing the elements of a crime with respect to organizations, which is determined by the differing aims and subject matter of proof concerning natural and legal persons. Considering the fact that the institution of criminal liability of legal entities as prescribed by the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia, adopted on May 5, 2021 and entered into force on July 1, 2022, has not yet become the subject of a comprehensive study and practical application, and numerous questions on the topic require clarification, it can be stated that the chosen topic remains relevant.
The article is devoted to the current problem of the lack of a clear definition of the concept of “public order” in the context of private law relations and the ensuing issues of recognition and enforcement of foreign judicial and arbitration decisions in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The aim of the research is to substantiate the need to define and clarify the concept of public order. As a result of the comparative legal analysis, it was revealed that the clause on public order is enshrined in the national legislation of different countries and in international documents, and is also applied by courts, but is absolutely vague and does not have clear criteria for application. In this regard, the authors came to the conclusion that the uncertainty of this term can negatively affect law enforcement practice, creating legal uncertainty and the possibility of arbitrary decisions. The article provides an analysis of existing points of view on the content of public order and considers two opposing approaches: on the need to clarify the concept of public order and the position that its definition should remain flexible and undetermined. Considering the importance of ensuring legal predictability in the area of recognition and enforcement of foreign court and arbitration decisions, the authors concluded that it is necessary to define the conditions for the application of public order by developing its concept, which will ensure uniform judicial practice in the Republic of Kazakhstan and its further improvement.
Moses Banyeh, Abdul-Rafik Abdulai, Ernest Kofi Annan
et al.
Sex estimation models are specific to populations and cannot be generalized due to genetic and environmental variabilities. This retrospective cross-sectional study, conducted between January and September 2023 at the Tamale Teaching Hospital, included 119 (50.9 %) females and 115 (49.1 %) males aged 23–82 years. Measurements, including manubrium length (M), manubrium width (MW), sternal body length (B), combined manubrium and sternal body lengths (CL), corpus sterni width at first sternebrae (CSWS1), and corpus sterni width at third sternebrae (CSWS3), were obtained from Computerized Tomographic (CT) images of the sternum using DICOM Viewer, accurate to 0.1 cm. Subsequently, sternal area (SA) and sternal index (SI) were calculated. Univariable and stepwise multivariable discriminant function analysis (DFA) and logistic regression (LR) models were developed using a training sample (70 %), and cross-validation was performed on a holdout sample (30 %). Results showed that the linear measurements, excluding M, and sternal area were higher in males than females (P<0.001), while the sternal index was <50 % in males but >50 % in females (P<0.001). Univariable sex estimation accuracies, in cross-validation, ranged from 43.7 % to 92.9 % in DFA and 50.0–92.9 % in LR. For multivariable models, the accuracy ranges were 92.9–94.3 % in DFA and 91.6–93.0 % in LR. The sternal body length was the most accurate at 90.1 % in DFA and 90.2 % in LR, with lower sex bias (male-female) in LR than in DFA (-0.1 vs. 8.7). The sternum proves valuable for sex estimation, with sternal body length as the most accurate linear measurement. However, multivariable models, particularly LR, demonstrate higher accuracy compared to DFA.
The first codified Hungarian Penal Code was Article V of 1878, which was called the Csemegi Code after State Secretary Károly Csemegi. Article V of 1878, the general part of the Hungarian Penal Code on crimes and misdemeanours, remained in force until 1951 and the special part until 1962. It is well known that the Code left very deep traces in Hungarian criminal law thinking. However, its influence is still alive and can be of decisive importance for the understanding of certain legal institutions even today. The law interpretation governing specific cases is carried out by the investigating authorities, the prosecutor’s office, and the court. In addition, legal interpretation in jurisprudence is also present, primarily in scientific literature. The two types of legal interpretation interact with each other, as legal practitioners are also expected to be scientifically grounded, but legal literature cannot be independent from the guidelines of legal practice either. Scientific and legal interpretation can be grammatical, logical, historical, or systematic. Codex Csemegi can obviously appear in the field of historical interpretation.
Comparative law. International uniform law, History of Law
The extended Third Law of thermodynamics for nonequilibrium jump processes is studied in previous collaborative papers (Kh et al.,2023) [1,2], where the nonequilibrium heat capacity and the excess heat with the corresponding quasipotential are introduced. The extended Third Law states that the nonequilibrium heat capacity vanishes under two conditions as the temperature approaches zero. The current paper presents a concise overview of key papers addressing the nonequilibrium calorimetry and the nonequilibrium Nernst postulate (the nonequilibrium Third Law of thermodynamics). The quasipotential is a crucial quantity to calculate the nonequilibrium heat capacity. The new result presented in this work includes an interpretation of the quasipotential in terms of the mean time taken by the Markov jump process, starting from a given state, to reach other states for the first time.
El artículo analiza el derecho a la verdad en la jurisprudencia de la CIDH a la luz de las teorías de la justicia. En la primera parte se argumenta que, aunque el concepto de justicia transicional no puede asimilarse a ninguna de las teorías de la justicia existentes, se puede definir como un concepto multidimensional que combina varios elementos de dichas teorías. Tras explicar la medida en qué varias dimensiones de las teorías de la justicia se ven reflejadas en el derecho a la verdad tal y como lo define la CIDH, se subrayan algunos límites de la conceptualización de la Corte, en particular el hecho de que ignora la dimensión procedimental de la justicia. Así pues, la conclusión presenta un argumento a favor de la deliberación democrática, lo cual nos obliga a repensar el papel de los tribunales en la construcción de un relato sobre el pasado.
Terahertz (THz) technologies have been of interest for many years due to the variety of applications including gas sensing, nonionizing imaging of biological systems, security and defense, etc. To date, scientists have used different classes of materials to perform different THz functions. However, to assemble an on-chip THz integrated system, we must understand how to integrate these different materials. Here, we explore the growth of Bi2Se3, a topological insulator (TI) material that could serve as a plasmonic waveguide in THz integrated devices, on technologically-important GaAs (001) substrates. We explore surface treatments and find that atomically smooth GaAs surface is critical to achieving high-quality Bi2Se3 films despite the relatively weak film/substrate interaction. Calculations indicate that the Bi2Se3/GaAs interface is likely selenium-terminated and shows no evidence of chemical bonding between the Bi2Se3 and the substrate. These results are a guide for integrating van der Waals materials with conventional semiconductor substrates and serve as the first steps toward achieving an on-chip THz integrated system.
We investigate the extended-Schmidt (ES) law in volume densities ($ρ_{\rm SFR}$ $\propto$ $(ρ_{\rm gas}ρ_{\rm star}^{0.5})^{α^{\rm VES}}$) for spatially-resolved regions in spiral, dwarf, and ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs), and compare to the volumetric Kennicutt-Schmidt (KS) law ($ρ_{\rm SFR}$ $\propto$ $ρ_{\rm gas}^{α^{\rm VKS}}$). We first characterize these star formation laws in individual galaxies using a sample of 11 spirals, finding median slopes $α^{\rm VES}$=0.98 and $α^{\rm VKS}$=1.42, with a galaxy-to-galaxy rms fluctuation that is substantially smaller for the volumetric ES law (0.18 vs 0.41). By combining all regions in spirals with those in additional 13 dwarfs and one UDG into one single dataset, it is found that the rms scatter of the volumetric ES law at given x-axis is 0.25 dex, also smaller than that of the volumetric KS law (0.34 dex). At the extremely low gas density regime as offered by the UDG, the volumetric KS law breaks down but the volumetric ES law still holds. On the other hand, as compared to the surface density ES law, the volumetric ES law instead has a slightly larger rms scatter, consistent with the scenario that the ES law has an intrinsic slope of $α^{\rm VES} \equiv$1 but the additional observational error of the scale height increases the uncertainty of the volume density. The unity slope of the ES law implies that the star formation efficiency (=$ρ_{\rm SFR}$/$ρ_{\rm gas}$) is regulated by the quantity that is related to the $ρ_{\rm star}^{0.5}$.
Abstract Twenty-eight years after the creation of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA), private international law remains a “Cinderella subject” in western and central Africa. Indeed, there are no coherent sets of rules regarding the law applicable to contractual obligations, international jurisdiction, as well as the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments under OHADA law. This article contends that the main reason behind the lesser importance given to private international law in the OHADA region can be found in OHADA’s unification technique itself: OHADA unifies (and does not merely harmonize) business law. Its Uniform Acts are directly applicable and overriding in all the Member States; therefore, one could (erroneously) think that courts would never have to grapple with difficult questions as to which Member State’s law would apply to a dispute falling within the scope of a Uniform Act, as the laws of all the Member States would yield the same results. This article demonstrates that the Uniform Acts are incomplete either because they contain gaps or because they sometimes refer to the national legislations of the Member States. Thus, the unification of the substantive rules does not eliminate the need for the existence and the unification of conflict-of-laws rules. Moreover, this article provides a tour d’horizon of the existing seldom private international law rules under OHADA law. Additionally, it suggests new avenues for the development of a future OHADA legislation on the law applicable to contractual obligations, international jurisdiction, as well as the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments.