PANEL SESSIONS III TUESDAY JUNE 26 2018 11.00 AM – 12.30 PM

Room: CPD-LG.37

  • GOVERNING TECHNOLOGY UNDER INTERNATIONAL AND EUROPEAN LAW: ENHANCING SECURITY WHILST SAFEGUARDING RIGHTS (?)
    Cutting-edge technologies may have a beneficial impact, including in terms of enhanced security and democracy. Yet, distinctive elements of the current technological era, such as the raising role of private actors and the growing automation, challenge traditional legal categories and raise new regulatory concerns. International and EU law are continuously confronting with a whole array of new issues, which call into question their effective capability to adapt to a dynamic World. Whereas practice shows that the spectrum of relevant legal issues is constantly growing, this Panel intends to provide a broad overview of the main emerging trends, by accommodating papers that tackle different technologies (Internet, drones, autonomous weapons systems, databases) and apply different legal perspectives. The aim is that of identifying real normative gaps, which cannot be filled by somehow stretching or reshaping the existing legal rules, but rather call for a proactive role of Public Law.
  • EU Anticipatory Border Governance in the Age of Interoperability. A Legal Appraisal of the New ‘Flexiciency’ Paradigm
    Within the European Agenda on Security, interoperability has passed from being a management concept to an encompassing policy goal, achieved through integration of sensor networks with IT databases. This move may trigger a huge impact on the economics of border protection, particularly in the context of maritime surveillance. This paper deals with the opportunities and challenges linked to the search for enhanced interoperability in EU border policy, unpacking the trade-off between the policy goal of attaining the highest-possible threshold of ‘flexiciency‘ and the legal obligation to ensure consistency with the principle of solidarity and fundamental rights protection. It contends that the quest for interoperability is leading to an evolution of EU anticipatory border governance, as based upon pre-emption and extra-territorialisation.
  • The Use of Autonomous Weapons Systems in Domestic Law Enforcement Operations: Testing the Resilience of International Human Rights Law
    The compatibility of AWS with International Human Rights Law (IHRL) is nowadays largely unexplored. Plausibly, the reason can be find in an apparent lack of practice related to the use of AWS outside the context of an armed conflict. Moreover, contrary to International Human Rights Law, IHRL does not contain specific limitations on the use of weapons and does not foresee any review mechanisms such as that established by Article 36 of the CCW. However, this justification is no longer tenable. Despite the absence of specific treaty limitations, States‘ freedom to choose means and methods for law enforcement activities is affected by the standards flowing human rights treaties and elaborated upon by the jurisprudence of international and regional human rights bodies. Against this background, the proposed paper scrutinizes the way in which the future introduction of AWS in the context of law enforcement will affect the content and the extent of States‘ human rights obligations.
  • Privates involvement in law enforcement activities: a preliminary assessment of the emerging role of Internet Services Providers under EU law
    The image of Internet as a tool providing easier, maybe even more democratic, access to the freedom of expression has by now proved to be too idyllic. Indeed, Internet has also shown is face as a vehicle, if not a catalyst, of conducts that impinge on individuals‘ rights no less seriously than off-line conducts. Online hate speech is a case in point. At the same time, another distinctive feature of the Internet has consolidated, notably the difficulty (luckily/unluckily) for the public authorities to get full control of it. This awareness led governments, and also international organizations such as the EU, to establish some form of cooperation with the Internet Services Providers, involving them in typical law enforcement activities. Assuming a EU law perspective, the paper aims at reconstructing the emerging role of ISP and its impact on the protection of fundamental rights of individuals affected by their quasi-public activity.
  • EU Law and Cross-border Online Disputes Over Defamation and Copyright Infringements: the Need for a Brand-new “less Is More“ Normative Approach
    The new media and communication technologies have significantly increased the number of online cross-border disputes between individuals and businesses involving the security and protection of personal identity and intellectual creations. The digital era challenges the traditional methods of coordination between States, based on geographical localization, revealing a substantial gap in Internet governance world-wide, which leads to complex jurisdictional conflicts. The EU law approach for online torts disputes resolution shows both legislative gaps and critical interpretative solutions. Despite some initiatives for a substantive harmonization between MSs, the existing EU law instruments do not distinguish between offline and online torts. The paper highlights the non-suitability of the current EU regulation as to online disputes concerning personality rights and copyright infringements and proposes a brand-new “less is more“ normative approach.
  • The Passenger Name Record (PNR) ‘dilemma‘ within and beyond European Union’s borders: balancing security concerns and the protection of fundamental human rights
    Whilst the collection of PNR data is increasingly perceived by States as a vital risk assessment tool against security threats, the delivery, on 26 July 2017, of the CJEU‘s negative Opinion on the new envisaged EU-Canada PNR agreement – where the Court found that several provisions of the said draft agreement did not comply with Articles 7 and 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights on the protection of private life and personal data – has made the fate of the EU PNR regime uncertain. At the same time, the increase in the number of States requesting and collecting PNR data worldwide seems likely to contribute to a proliferation of privacy issues beyond the EU borders, questioning the consistency of national or supranational PNR regimes with human rights norms enshrined in universal and regional instruments. Whereas legal scholarship has so far mainly focused on the EU PNR ‘dilemma‘, the present paper purports to broaden the analysis to encompass also this ‘universal scenario‘.