ABSTRACT A growing scholarly literature describes people who moved from Europe’s East to its West as racialised. Others speak of ‘migratization’ or ‘xenophobia’. Many of these contributions have in common that they conceive of discrimination as occurring after migration. What is more, they focus on the attitudinal dimension of ‘prejudice’, as expressed in the media or the narratives of East–West movers themselves. What thereby slips from view is that racism has geopolitical-economic and legal dimensions, and structures life opportunities. This article explores how categories such as ‘Eastern European’ are invoked, deployed and how they are put to work – via policy or the law. The analysis shows that neoliberal policies have attributed a distinctive positionality to ‘Eastern Europeans’ in West European racial hierarchies. I argue that people from Europe’s East are distinctively, yet ambiguously racialised, and discuss facets of this ambiguity. Most notably, they are inferiorised within Europe, but often positioned within global racialised categories of ‘Europeanness’. This racialisation is not a product of twenty-first century mobilities but reflects and reproduces the peripheralisation of Europe’s East. Of course, racialisation shapes everyday lives after migration; yet, it also channels the life opportunities of those born in the East over the course of generations.
Tobias Erik Reiners, David Prochotta, Tilman Schell
et al.
Abstract Background The European hamster (Cricetus cricetus) was once a pest on European farmland, but its numbers have declined dramatically in recent decades, making it a critically endangered species throughout Europe and beyond. While it is strictly protected by EU law and several conservations, breeding and release programs have been initiated, and little is known about the level of genetic erosion and inbreeding on a European scale. Results Here, we present a chromosome-level de novo genome of a female hamster and a first population genomic analysis from the western range of the species’ distribution, using Illumina short reads (10 × coverage) from 34 individuals. The genome is 2.89 Gbp long, with 11 chromosome-level scaffolds and around 600 unplaced scaffolds and scaffolds N50 of 267 Mbp. The genome is above the average length of a mammalian genome and longer than that of other studied hamster species. Four distinct hamster populations with no admixture can be identified, indicating highly isolated populations with limited connectivity. Heterozygosity (Ho) is generally low (< 0.05%, comparable to polar bears) with some exceptions of populations with Ho near zero and a few with Ho as high as 0.2%. Conclusions Most dramatically, the genomes of individuals used as founders for conservation breeding programs show exceptionally long runs of homozygosity, questioning its long-term suitability. This study confirms earlier concerns about the dramatically decreasing genetic diversity of the European hamster and provides a basis for future conservation efforts, which require consideration of population genetic factors.
This essay proposes three axioms to clarify the status of unwritten law and unwritten sources of law. The first axiom asserts that written and unwritten norms share the same ontological status as abstract institutional entities, differing only in their modes of inscription and accessibility. The second axiom argues that their epistemological distinction is weak: both statutes and customs rely on overlapping forms of documentary and testimonial justification, despite following divergent procedural paths. The third axiom contends that laws and sources of law are not categorically distinct, but functionally interwoven, often reinforcing each other within the normative fabric of legal systems. Rather than offering final answers, these axioms serve as conceptual instruments – provisional yet clarifying tools for navigating the complex relations between codified rules and evolving practices. By foregrounding this triadic framework, the essay invites a renewed philosophical inquiry into the fluid architecture of normative authority.
The GDPR contains an accuracy principle, as most data privacy laws in the world do. In principle, data controllers must ensure that personal data they use are accurate. Some have argued that the accuracy principle does not apply to personal data in the form of opinions about data subjects. We argue, however, from a positive law perspective, that the accuracy principle does apply to opinions. We further argue, from a normative perspective, that the accuracy principle should apply to opinions.
Tobias Rüttenauer, Kasimir Dederichs, David Kretschmer
Immigrant residential segregation can profoundly shape access to opportunities, immigrant integration, and inter-group relations. Yet we lack systematic evidence on how segregation varies across Europe, and what structural factors are associated with these patterns. This study addresses the gap by focusing on two questions: (i) how does immigrant-native segregation vary across urban areas in Europe, and (ii) which urban area- and country-level characteristics are consistently linked to segregation? Using harmonised 1x1 km grid-level data from the 2021/22 census, we calculate spatially weighted Dissimilarity Indices for all 717 Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) across 30 European countries. We combine these measures with rich data on demographics, the economy, housing, immigrant populations, and policy. To identify robust correlates of segregation, we apply a Specification Curve Analysis across 16,164 regression models. Segregation is higher in Western and Northern Europe compared to most of Eastern and Southern Europe. Moreover, we show that segregation is heavily driven by macro-spatial dynamics between diverse urban cores and relatively homogeneous suburban areas. At the urban area level, segregation is systematically linked to the demographic composition and spatial distribution of the local population, economic conditions, housing market characteristics, as well as the composition of the immigrant population. At the national level, established immigrant destinations are more segregated, while migration and integration policies are not consistently linked to segregation. These findings offer the most comprehensive comparative assessment of immigrant segregation across Europe to date, revealing how structural conditions relate to spatial integration.
Lapo Santarlasci, Armando Rungi, Loredana Fattorini
et al.
Artificial intelligence has become a key arena of global technological competition and a central concern for Europe's quest for technological sovereignty. This paper analyzes global AI patenting from 2010 to 2023 to assess Europe's position in an increasingly bipolar innovation landscape dominated by the United States and China. Using linked patent, firm, ownership, and citation data, we examine the geography, specialization, and international diffusion of AI innovation. We find a highly concentrated patent landscape: China leads in patent volumes, while the United States dominates in citation impact and technological influence. Europe accounts for a limited share of AI patents but exhibits signals of relatively high patent quality. Technological proximity reveals global convergence toward U.S. innovation trajectories, with Europe remaining fragmented rather than forming an autonomous pole. Gravity-model estimates show that cross-border AI knowledge flows are driven primarily by technological capability and specialization, while geographic and institutional factors play a secondary role. EU membership does not significantly enhance intra-European knowledge diffusion, suggesting that technological capacity, rather than political integration, underpins participation in global AI innovation networks.
AbstractThe so-called “rule of law crisis” we are facing nowadays in Europe is almost certainly the most complex and profound one the European Union (EU) has faced since the Communities were initially founded. There are several reasons that may justify this statement. I will mention the two that I find the most prominent.
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
Transition pathways for Europe to achieve carbon neutrality emphasize the need for a massive deployment of solar and wind energy. Global cost optimization would lead to installing most of the renewable capacity in a few resource-rich countries, but policy decisions could prioritize other factors. In this study, we focus on the effect of energy independence on Europe's energy system design. We show that self-sufficiency constraints lead to a more equitable distribution of costs and installed capacities across Europe. However, countries that typically depend on energy imports face cost increases of up to 150% to achieve complete self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency particularly favours solar photovoltaic (PV) energy, and with declining PV module prices, alternative configurations like inverter dimensioning and horizontal tracking are beneficial enough to be part of the optimal solution for many countries. Moreover, we found that very large solar and wind annual installation rates are required, but they seem feasible in light of recent historical trends.
Jnaneshwar Baslingker, Riddhipratim Basu, Sudeshna Bhattacharjee
et al.
It is well-known that the largest eigenvalue of an $n\times n$ GUE matrix and the length of a longest increasing subsequence in a uniform random permutation of length $n$, both converge weakly to the GUE Tracy-Widom distribution as $n\to \infty$. We consider the sequences of the largest eigenvalues of the $n\times n$ principal minor of an infinite GUE matrix, and the the lengths of longest increasing subsequences of a growing sequence of random permutations (which, by the RSK bijection corresponds to the top row of the Young diagrams growing according to the Plancherel growth process), and establish laws of fractional logarithms for these. That is, we show that, under a further scaling of $(\log n)^{2/3}$ and $(\log n)^{1/3}$, the $\limsup$ and $\liminf$ respectively of these scaled quantities converge almost surely to explicit non-zero and finite constants. Our results provide complete solutions to two questions raised by Kalai in 2013. We affirm a conjecture of Paquette and Zeitouni (Ann. Probab., 2017), and give a new proof of $\limsup$, due to Paquette and Zeitouni (Ann. Probab., 2017), who provided a partial solution in the case of GUE minor process.
The article provides a general evaluation of the Russian direction of Japan’s foreign policy as of late 2023 and analyzes the factors that determine its contents. It considers the speeches of the Prime Minister of Japan, the sections of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s publications which focus on Russia-Japan relations, analyzes the state of economic ties given the sanctions imposed by Japan on Russia, and studies the place of Russia in Japan’s National Security Strategy, adopted in late 2022. The author comes to the conclusion that, despite the obvious influence of the U.S. on the Japanese position regarding Russia, one can hardly speak of Washington bluntly imposing its views on Tokyo. Rather, we find an already established consensus regarding this issue between Japan and the U.S. Meanwhile, the “foreign pressure” is not limited to interaction with the United States, as cooperation with multilateral formats of the “collective West” starts to play an increasingly important role for Japan. From the point of view of domestic politics, the situation also facilitates the continuation of Tokyo’s anti -Russian course, as, within the country, those expressing alternative points of view are de-facto subject to ostracism and “cancelling.” But, even given all these negative factors, one can still glimpse some signs of pragmatism in the Russian direction of Japan’s foreign policy. This lets one hope that, should the Ukrainian crisis be resolved, the Japanese leadership will not put obstacles in the way of normalization of Russia-Japan relations.
South Asia. Southeast Asia. East Asia, Bibliography. Library science. Information resources
We present preliminary results about Legistix, a tool we are developing to automatically consolidate the French and European law. Legistix is based both on regular expressions used in several compound grammars, similar to the successive passes of a compiler, and on a new specialized language of functional type, allowing to describe the changes applied to the texts. Instead of creating manually a full consolidated version of a text at each modification date, Legistix generates automatically programs from legal documents written in natural language to automatically create the consolidated versions.
Our project aims at helping and supporting stakeholders in refugee status adjudications, such as lawyers, judges, governing bodies, and claimants, in order to make better decisions through data-driven intelligence and increase the understanding and transparency of the refugee application process for all involved parties. This PhD project has two primary objectives: (1) to retrieve past cases, and (2) to analyze legal decision-making processes on a dataset of Canadian cases. In this paper, we present the current state of our work, which includes a completed experiment on part (1) and ongoing efforts related to part (2). We believe that NLP-based solutions are well-suited to address these challenges, and we investigate the feasibility of automating all steps involved. In addition, we introduce a novel benchmark for future NLP research in refugee law. Our methodology aims to be inclusive to all end-users and stakeholders, with expected benefits including reduced time-to-decision, fairer and more transparent outcomes, and improved decision quality.
As concerns about unfairness and discrimination in “black box” machine learning systems rise, a legal “right to an explanation” has emerged as a compellingly attractive approach for challenge and redress. We outline recent debates on the limited provisions in European data protection law, and introduce and analyze newer explanation rights in French administrative law and the draft modernized Council of Europe Convention 108. While individual rights can be useful, in privacy law they have historically unreasonably burdened the average data subject. “Meaningful information” about algorithmic logics is more technically possible than commonly thought, but this exacerbates a new “transparency fallacy”—an illusion of remedy rather than anything substantively helpful. While rights-based approaches deserve a firm place in the toolbox, other forms of governance, such as impact assessments, “soft law,” judicial review, and model repositories deserve more attention, alongside catalyzing agencies acting for users to control algorithmic system design.
Objectives: The aim of this issue of the journal is to study the way in which "making a family" influences access to rights and the integration of migrant families in Europe (France, Germany), North America (Quebec) and Djibouti, from Yemen, Syria, Tunisia, Mozambique or Brazil. Similarly, and reciprocally, he is interested in the impact of law on family experiences in a migratory context.Methodology: The ethnographic observation approach, through the cross-referenced collection of life stories and the reconstruction of the life contexts of these migrants (while respecting their words and their anonymity) makes it possible to discover, sometimes in a counter-intuitive way, the effects of the policies on their lives.Results: It often happens that within the same migrant family the legal status of its members is different, and therefore their rights to be regularised or not. As a result, these families - and more broadly, entire groups of migrants - have to carry out important work in terms of information for access to residence rights, work, access to schooling for their children, health, nationality, etc. Nothing is guaranteed a priori.Conclusion: We can imagine how much migration will continue in the face of climate change and political unrest throughout history. It is likely that a policy evaluation approach, or lack thereof, by those affected, will be increasingly necessary in the future.Contribution: This thematic issue of the journal Enfances Familles Générations highlights, from a historical and comparative approach, the impact of the legitimacy of being part of the national community to which these men and women have migrated (Destremau, 2022).
Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology, The family. Marriage. Woman