This article uses the case study of Slovakia and its lackluster experience with a judge-dominated judicial council to demonstrate that formal institutions have only limited impact on the ideational level. We show that the transformation of the Slovak post-communist judiciary relied on the presumption that judges‘ interests are automatically complementary to principles of the rule of law. Therefore, the majority of implemented reforms insulated the judiciary from the political branches of power, but allowed strong hierarchical relationships inside the courts to exist. In contrast to international expectations, judicial authorities used judicial empowerment to create or strengthen competing informal practices, which helped them to maximize their power. We argue that the lack of internalization of judicial independence might explain why institutional self-governance reforms failed to trigger changes in the professional role conception of judges in regimes riddled with deeply embedded informal institutions. In order to tackle this problem, we propose that future research on the relationship between institutional safeguards and decisional judicial independence should focus on the process through which actors internalize new institutional incentives.

In the context of growing anxieties regarding the place and role of law in the future of the Europe Union (EU), this article reflects upon the extent to which Paul Kahn’s cultural study of law’s rule could be relevant for the place and role of EU law in these respects. Drawing upon Kahn’s monograph Making the Case: The Art of the Judicial Opinion, this article analyses the Laval judgment for these purposes, as one of the most controversial cases ever decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). On this basis, the article shows how the cultural analysis of law advanced by Kahn can help us to sharpen our sensibilities with regard to the deeper layers of moral and political meaning that EU law expounds and to thereby enable us to expand our horizons as well as conversations on the socio-political and economic composition of EU law. Yet this article also raises skepticism about the cultural study of EU law’s rule. Given the diverse cultural idiosyncrasies and traditions by which citizens of EU Member States live, it questions whether EU law can be assessed from the point of view of a collective identity believed to best persuade EU citizens of the authority of EU law.

The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 received an unprecedented amount of criticism from civil society and human rights organizations for the human rights risks and adverse human rights impacts related to organizing and staging the event. Interestingly, it was the first World Cup that was delivered with a team of human rights volunteers monitoring human rights issues at event venues on match days.1 Given the novelty of this project, this Article first informs about the FIFA human rights volunteers (HRV) program in general and second, it analyses to what extent it can be considered a concrete and practical example of an organization’s human rights due diligence (HRDD) and remedy efforts. As some of the broader business and human rights literature suggests, there seems to be a lack of practical examples of how corporations implement HRDD, making FIFA’s HRV program an exception worth studying.

This article explores digitalization’s impacts on the existing international investment law regime. In particular, it examines whether international investment agreements (IIAs) apply to the digital economy, analyzing their scope of application, including the definition of protected investment and protected investor, as well as the territorial application of those treaties. We conclude that the IIAs and their provisions are, in principle, not intended for the digital era. However, their usually broad definitions are likely to cover investments in digital assets, if there is a flexible interpretation of the required territorial nexus. However, we believe caution should be exercised about including digital transformation commitments in IIAs, as they could increase the chance of investor-state dispute settlement (-ISDS-).

China’s participation in the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been a rollercoaster of milestones and frictions. China has emerged as a leading trading nation, which has contributed to the expansion of world trade. Some of its trading partners, however, and most vocally the United States, complain that China has reached its new status by eluding its WTO commitments. Under President Trump, the United States reacted strongly against China, almost bringing the WTO (but not China!) to its knees. These actions have been criticized in different ways: Some underline their unilateral character (and the ensuing legal issues they raise), whereas others focus on the regime-neutrality of the WTO, which should, in principle, be able to accommodate Western liberal democracies, developing countries, and socialist countries like China equally. In this short Article, we argue that staying idle is no solution to the China issue and that addressing it through unilateral actions is no solution either. Both approaches would only deepen the current WTO crisis. In our view, the only viable solution for the WTO system requires adding new disciplines to the existing multilateral rules.

It is increasingly clear that autonomous agents can commit international crimes such as torture and genocide. This article aims to construct ‘electronic liability’ for such international crimes. It will argue that it is not sufficient to hold the persons or programmers behind the autonomous agents liable, but that it should be possible to hold the autonomous agents that commit international crimes liable. It will examine ways in which legal personality can be attributed to machines and argue that if there is a continuum of potential subjects of ICL, then the argument for electronic personhood and liability of machines is as compelling as for other non-humans such as corporate entities and animals. It will be argued that the ICC will potentially only be able to meaningfully prosecute international crimes committed by autonomous agents if it is willing to accommodate strict liability and other faultless models of liability that have so far been anathema to international criminal justice.

This article introduces and comments on some of the themes raised by contributors to the special issue on my work. The contributions are divided into two categories. First, those delving into the sources and coherence of my many different projects. Second, those who try to apply to the law of the European Union the methods I have deployed to study American constitutionalism.

There are two contrasting claims regarding the Hungarian judiciary. The Government asserts that it is in the best shape, while many other voices label it as captured or dependent. This article shows how both of these claims can be true, depending on the interplay between formality and informality and shows how a few small loopholes allow some actors to rig the judicial system. Therefore, the Hungarian judiciary is similar to Schrödinger’s cat, which is claimed to be dead and alive at the same time.

The synergy between formality and informality requires a network of a handful of trusted people in managerial positions to administer case allocation, promotion, and disciplinary systems, which seem to be very effective tools. Few small technical loopholes and some special remedies suffice to micromanage important cases precisely because key positions are captured which work as gatekeepers or emergency brakes. Most of these tools are legal in a very formal technical sense of the word because they rely on acts of Parliament. A formal legalism, a very thin understanding of the Rule of law, and a majoritarian mindset serve as a legitimizing ideology for the whole legal system.

State-Owned Enterprise (SOEs) are business entities owned by governments. Unlike private enterprises which operate on profit-motivation, SOEs often act on motives different from profit-making such as fulfilment of governmental or political purposes. Due to this peculiar feature, activities of SOEs sometime are disruptive of competitive market. In order to regulate activities of SOEs so that international market would not be unduly disturbed, GATT: Article XVII states that SOEs shall operate on a profit-motive in international trade. More recently, CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership) and other FTAs include chapters devoted to the regulation of SOEs which provide that Contracting Parties ensure that their SOEs act on profit-motive so as not to cause disruption to the international market. On the other hand, competition laws of trading nations provide rules for prohibiting abusive conducts of dominant enterprises and this includes the prohibition of abuses by SOEs. However, applications of those two sets of regulations (GATT and CPTPP on one hand and competition laws on the other) are made independently from each other without being coordinated. This article surveys details of regulation of SOEs under CPTPP as a representative example of FTAs regulation and of competition laws of nations and suggests ways in which those two sets of rules can be coordinated in order to increase the effectiveness of legal disciplines imposed on SOEs’ activities.

The COVID-19 pandemic elicited a surge in the use of digital tools to replace “classic” manual disease tracking and contact tracing across individuals. The main technical reason is based on the disease surveillance needs imposed by the magnitude of the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus since 2020, particularly how these needs overwhelmed governments around the world. Such developments led to stark variations across countries in terms of legal approaches towards the use of digital tools, including self-reporting software and mobile phone apps, for both disease tracking and contact tracing. Against this backdrop, in this article I highlight some of the normative challenges posed by the digitalization of disease surveillance, underscoring its almost non-existent regulation under international law. I look back at the historical emergence of the epidemiological principles underlying this procedure, by referring to John Snow’s trailblazing work in cholera control. I emphasize how the COVID-19 pandemic prompted both technical and normative shifts related to the digitalization of these procedures. Furthermore, I refer to some of the overarching obstacles for deploying international law to tackle future tensions between the public health rationale for digitalized disease tracking and contact tracing, on the one hand, and normative concerns directly related to their legality, on the other hand. Lastly, I put forward conclusions in light of the current juncture of international health law reforms, and how they so far display limited potential to herald structural changes concerning the legality of the use of digital tools in disease surveillance.

The Israeli democracy regulates the operation of the judiciary through the constraints of formal rules that check the political actors, the individual judges, and the judiciary. Basic laws, laws and regulations prescribe the operation of every subject. Yet beyond these formal rules, informal institutions and practices are sometimes equally important in the operation of the judiciary, as they are in any constitutional system. In Israel, some of these informal institutions are crucial for the flourishing of democracy and the rule of law, through their protection of judicial independence from external political interference. The imminent possibility that political actors may set some of them aside is nothing less than a potential transformation in the constitutional order. Over the past few decades, judges and court administrators have introduced other internal informal institutions in the administration of the Israeli Judiciary, which qualify formal judicial accountability mechanisms in ways that may prove to be detrimental to democratic principles. This article discusses informal institutions that are important in the operation of the Israeli judiciary, separating the former external kind that are conducive to the rule of law—such as the illegitimacy of political and partisan considerations in judicial appointments—and whose disregard may signal democratic decay from the latter internal kind that may prove detrimental to the courts—such as opaquely changing who is responsible for court administration. Lastly, the political attempt to change informal institutions, detailed herein, can be seen as a harbinger of the current attempt to change formal institutions in the constitutional status of the judiciary in Israel.

Trade law and competition law have grown up in their separate silos. This means that restraints by the states and restraints by private parties are treated in separate boxes, and with few exceptions, they have been treated so through the years. Yet, some of the worst restraints that do some of the greatest damage are best characterized by the synergy between the two. These trade-and-competition, or hybrid public/private, restraints fall under the radar screen, and defendants in litigation play one set of laws off against the other, hiding behind limits and immunities. This is the Blind Spot of the Article’s title – the space between the silos. This Article unearths the Blind Spot, gives examples of what we know and what we need to know, and proposes a methodology to illuminate and eliminate the Blind Spot.

This Article gives a cautionary account of the rise of judicial oligarchs in Georgia, highlighting how their rule distorts judicial governance and undermines judicial independence. The Georgian judiciary is portrayed as a pyramid-like structure where judges’ positions are determined by their influence on judicial governance and decision-making. Judicial oligarchs are a select few judges at the top that have acquired system-wide influence over the judiciary through their trusted affiliates, leaving other judges with minimal influence at the bottom of the pyramid. Research indicates that judicial self-governance bodies, such as judicial councils, can easily be manipulated by a handful of judges independently or through collusion with politicians. This can occur especially when most judges have little interest and the ability to participate meaningfully in governance. The Article explains how judicial oligarchs get judges to elect them and their affiliates as judicial council members. Informal networks and institutions contribute to their electoral success. There appears to be a shared expectation that judges will not challenge the oligarchs’ authority by publicly disagreeing with them or competing with them in elections, or else face sanctions. Research also cautions that de-politicization in the sense of excluding politicians from the bodies of judicial governance will not necessarily prevent politicians’ informal meddling with judicial decision-making. Collusion between judicial oligarchs and ruling party politicians forms part of the broader strategy of weakening the checks and balances and allowing the ruling party to operate without constraints. Thus, judicial oligarchs help to perpetuate oligarchization in the political sphere.

Since the Revolution of Dignity, civil society has become a major stakeholder in Ukraine's multiple reform processes. Judicial reform has been particularly salient as it aims to transform the country’s judiciary, long plagued by interrelated problems of political dependence, oligarchic capture, and internal corruption, into an autonomous guarantor of the rule of law. This Article examines how Ukrainian civil society has developed into an informal institution in Ukraine’s judicial reform. Building upon an overview of judicial reform efforts in Ukraine and a general theoretical framework of informality, this contribution studies how Ukrainian civil society influences the reform process, using the example of the country’s Constitutional Court. We argue that civil society has become an influential informal institution which plays an increasingly important role in judicial reform in Ukraine.