We summarize the potential impact that the European Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation will have on the routine use of machine learning algorithms. Slated to take effect as law across the EU in 2018, it will restrict automated individual decision-making (that is, algorithms that make decisions based on user-level predictors) which “significantly affect” users. The law will also effectively create a “right to explanation,” whereby a user can ask for an explanation of an algorithmic decision that was made about them. We argue that while this law will pose large challenges for industry, it highlights opportunities for computer scientists to take the lead in designing algorithms and evaluation frameworks which avoid discrimination and enable explanation.
ABSTRACT This paper introduces the strategic approach to regulating personal data and the normative foundations of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’). We explain the genesis of the GDPR, which is best understood as an extension and refinement of existing requirements imposed by the 1995 Data Protection Directive; describe the GDPR’s approach and provisions; and make predictions about the GDPR’s implications. We also highlight where the GDPR takes a different approach than U.S. privacy law. The GDPR is the most consequential regulatory development in information policy in a generation. The GDPR brings personal data into a detailed regulatory regime, that will influence personal data usage worldwide. Understood properly, the GDPR encourages firms to develop information governance frameworks, to in-house data use, and to keep humans in the loop in decision making. Companies with direct relationships with consumers have strategic advantages under the GDPR, compared to third party advertising firms on the internet. To reach these objectives, the GDPR uses big sticks, structural elements that make proving violations easier, but only a few carrots. The GDPR will complicate and restrain some information-intensive business models. But the GDPR will also enable approaches previously impossible under less-protective approaches.
In the particular world of contemporary EU law, European society has the meaning of a place. Appreciating this requires considering the relationship between European society and another key concept, that of EU values. This relationship is one of mutual balance but also tension: while the latter are abstract calls for offensive action on the part of EU institutions, the former is identified as a concretely located space that must be preserved and defended. The paper begins with a close textual reading of Article 2 TEU, focusing on the provision’s specific architecture. There, European society appears as a singular reality – that of a concretely situated perimeter of social relations that the EU claims as its own – which pre-exists the EU’s institutionality and enables its foundational commitments to the realisation of a series of values. The second and most important part of the paper then contends that this particular arrangement should be understood as a function of the EU’s evolving external ambitions and self-positioning vis-à-vis the outside world. Thus, contrary to the common tendency to see the EU’s external projections as resulting from its own internal identity and dynamics, I will argue that here it is the internal that follows the external. On this basis, it will be shown that the complementary relationship between European society (as place) and EU values (as action) that I identified in the architecture of Article 2 TEU is reflective of the delicate compromise between the rise of the EU’s neo-imperial ambitions at the regional and global levels (for which values serve as a vehicle) and the construction of an increasingly hard boundary between an inside and an outside to the EU order (which the concept of European society serves to draw, justify and implement).
The disappearance of a natural person, especially when he or she is also a sole proprietor of a business, causes legal problems. Such situations are not directly regulated by legal acts, i.e., the legislators do not refer to the impact and consequences of the disappearance on the performed business activity. Meanwhile, the fact that a sole proprietor goes missing may have a negative impact on his or her situation, including the content of the obligations binding on him or her. This paper discusses how the relatives, in particular the spouse of the missing person, may behave in such circumstances. The considerations carried out concern Polish law and Slovak law, as there is no specific regulation of the declaration of missing person who is a sole proprietor introduced on the model of foreign regulations, the article places emphasis on the comparison of both selected regulations. The conclusion indicated that until the missing person is recognised as dead, family members or other relatives do not have any competence to take any action on behalf of the missing sole proprietorship circumstances, other entities may operate, i.e., attorney-in-fact, proxy, according to Polish law custodian established pursuant to Art. 184 of the Family Code, the custodian established pursuant to Art. 144 of the Code of Contentious Civil Procedure, or prosecutor. Similarly, under the Slovak law, until the missing person is declared dead, a guardian, or a representative appointed by the court pursuant to Section 68 of the Civil Procedure Code, acts for such person.
Financial market is expected to play an important role in transition towards more sustainable setup of the business environment. The European Commission published the EU’s Strategy for Financing the Transition to a Sustainable Economy in 2021, requiring the inclusion of environmental, social and governance considerations into investment decision making. Yet, small, open EU economies, such as Slovakia, are in a specific position when implementing this legal framework. For instance, Slovakia does not have any meaningful stock market to speak of, although its bond and collective investment markets perform better. To assess the adoption of sustainable finance elements and to assess the convergence on the Slovak bond market towards standard practice, we investigated current practices on the corporate bond market of nonfinancial corporations. We conducted our research through a review of corporate bonds prospectuses published during 2020-22, in which, to assess current market practices, we examined and evaluated selected criteria and indicators related to issuers and bonds and compared them. These criteria include for example issuer´s business and purpose of finance, form, yield, security, or transferability of bonds. We find that relevant variable criteria and indicators related to reviewed bonds, compared in our research, are similar, indicating that the market converged into a standard practice. Finally, we find almost no evidence of adoption of the sustainable finance elements although there are hints of market uptake of sustainable practices.
One of the aspects that caracterizes the period of the so-called Dominate (Dominatus) or Absolute Monarchy is the fact that the imperial power makes use of religion to legitimize itself. From another perspective, changes in the organization of the Imperial Chancery took place that reflect the reality of an absolute monarchy of divine right supported by a complex bureaucracy and a strong army, with important impact on the tax system. An exponential price increase characterizes the crisis of the 3rd century AD from Aurelian onwards and justifies Diocletian’s despotism on economic issues. Characteristic of this epoch is an Imperial Government formed by several Emperors at the same time. A system of Imperial Tetrarchy was thus established. The radical change in the imperial policy concerning Christianity took place under Emperor Constantine. After the Milan Agreement (313 AD), Constantine assumed himself more and more as the protector of the Church, collaborating with the Bishops in their fight against heresy and legislating favourably towards Christianity. The definitive division of the Empire into two took place after the death of Emperor Theodosius I, Augustus in the East between 379 and 394 AD, only Emperor in 394/395 AD, with two Emperors, one in the Eastern Roman Empire, the other in the Western Roman Empire. The so-called Barbarian Invasions, that is, the assault of several Germanic tribes and tribal groups on Roman territory in the 5th century has caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Yet the Eastern Half of the Empire continued to exist. In the 5th century the Western Roman State underwent a gradual disintegration. The conclusion of foedera, that is, treaties with Non-Roman Barbarian Groups which contained a right to settle on the territory of the Roman Empire, were instruments of power, to which the weakened Roman Emperors resorted in order to be able to continue to assert their claim to sovereignty over the territory of the Roman Empire. For other reasons, too, the authority of the Roman emperors came under scrutiny. The spread of the so-called patronage in both the Eastern and Western Roman Empires means, for example, that prominent personalities such as imperial officials and large landowners maintain private armies (e.g.: buccellarii) that act in their own interest and are not in the service of the common good. Especially after the reign of Majorian (457-461 AD), the disintegration of the Western Roman State could no longer be stopped.
History (General) and history of Europe, History of Law
Artykuł stanowi studium przypadku stosowania specjalnego niemieckiego nazistowskiego wojennego prawa karnego w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie, a dokładnie rozporządzenia o ochronie przed młodocianymi zbrodniarzami. Dokonano w nim szczegółowej analizy jednego postępowania karnego od powzięcia informacji o przestępstwie przez policję aż do wykonania kary. Sprawa będąca przedmiotem analizy została wybrana ze względu na jej szczególny charakter. Dotyczyła bowiem podwójnego zabójstwa (morderstwa) o podłożu kryminalnym, dokonanego przez młodocianego sprawcę na żydowskich ofiarach. W artykule przedstawiono, jak wyglądała praktyka stosowania prawa karnego w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie, mająca charakter przyspieszony i uproszczony. Podkreślono kwestię niejasności prawa, niepewności sytuacji oskarżonego oraz braku możliwości skutecznej obrony. Rozwój nazistowskiego prawa karnego następował w kierunku prawa karnego sprawcy. Niemieckie prawo karne stosowało bezwzględnie karę śmierci albo rozszerzało jej stosowanie.
History (General) and history of Europe, History of Law
За разлику од већине кривичних дела из спо-
редног законодавства, бављење пружањем ветеринарске помоћи
без поседовања одговарајуће стручне спреме није укључено у
нови Кривични законик Републике Србије, који је ступио на сна-
гу 1. јануара 2006. године, већ је остало у Закону о ветеринар-
ству, који се овде јавља као извор такозваног споредног кривич-
ног законодавства. Ово кривично дело представља озбиљан облик
повређивања и угрожавања не само угледа и интегритета ветери-
нарске професије већ и живота, здравља и добробити животиња.
Упркос томе, ни у теорији ни у пракси стручњаци не посвећују
довољно пажње правним аспектима овог негативног али учеста-
лог феномена. Зато аутор овог рада настоји да представи, објасни
и критички анализира појам и основне карактеристике овог кри-
вичног дела и казну прописану за његове учиниоце у позитивном
праву Републике Србије. Поред тога, аутор указује на нека посебно
спорна питања у вези са овим кривичним делом, као што су: његов
назив, место у кривичном законодавству и природа друштвених
добара и вредности која се штите том инкриминацијом. Коначно,
узимајући за узоре неке од земаља у региону, аутор предлаже и
одређене измене постојећег законског решења, које би допринеле
ефикаснијем спречавању, санкционисању и сузбијању овог облика
криминалитета.
Law in general. Comparative and uniform law. Jurisprudence, Law of Europe