The War Within: Gaza, Netanyahu and Israel’s Security Services

Almost no one today doubts that AI systems will increasingly affect our lives in the near future. Growing interactions of humans with non-human intelligent systems are both a source of threats and a source of hopes. In this paper, some ethical challenges in the development and application of weak and strong AI systems are analyzed. Then, legal challenges that appear when legislators attempt to regulate uncertain and unpredictable phenomena such as AI are discussed. Here we show that despite these challenges, an appropriate law is the most optimal response to threats and hopes related to AI. We also point out that the development of AI will be a major political challenge. Politicians will have to find a difficult compromise between, on the one hand, consenting to the inevitable and essentially beneficial technological development for humanity and, on the other hand, certain risks and dangers, probably also inherent in the specificity of AI functioning.

Legal and Political Obstacles to Smoke-Free Regulation in Minnesota Regions

As communities move toward statewide smoke-free regulation, progress is often stymied by legal and political challenges that arise when multiple cities and counties share regulatory power within what is, for economic purposes, a single population center. Political challenges are exacerbated by legal inconsistencies and uncertainties, such as confusing and conflicting lawmaking power in boards of health, cities or counties, and diverse procedures and timelines for adopting and amending ordinances. Surprisingly little research is available about the legal and political obstacles communities face in regulating tobacco on a regional basis. Researchers used case study methodology to analyze legal and political challenges that seven multi-jurisdictional Minnesota regions faced in smoke-free ordinance campaigns between 2000 and 2006, to examine the approaches regulatory authorities took in each of these communities, and to identify strategies to help public health advocates, health organizations, policymakers, and legal professionals anticipate, avoid, and address these obstacles. Legal impediments included confusing rules for passing smoke-free laws via ballot measures (initiatives and referenda); distracting lawsuits; and conflicts over legal jurisdiction. Political challenges included the recurrent argument for regional consistency, protracted timelines, pending legislation and elections, and mayoral vetoes. Legal and political challenges similar to those in this study appear in smoke-free campaigns across the U.S. By recognizing the risks posed by these obstacles, advocates will be better prepared to advance smoke-free policies effectively.

It analyzes the legal differences in the regulation of national armed forces between EU member states and how these differences constitute significant obstacles to the creation of a single army of the European Union. The discussion covers historical attempts and current debates around European defense integration, highlighting the tension between national sovereignty and collective security. The article examines the role of NATO, various national interests, and the legal, political and financial challenges that prevent the creation of a cohesive EU military force. These factors contribute to further dependence on national defense structures and NATO, and not to the formation of a single European military entity. The author concludes that the main reasons why the EU may not create a common army in the near future include: national sovereignty (each EU country has its own army and military policy. Many countries fear losing control over their national security and sovereignty by handing these issues at the EU level), different strategic interests (EU member states have different foreign policy and security interests, which complicates the formation of a unified approach to defense issues), NATO membership (most EU countries are also NATO members, already have a system of collective security, which has been functioning for decades, the creation of a separate EU army may cause duplication of functions and even disputes with NATO), financial costs (the creation and maintenance of an army at the EU level would require significant financial costs, which may be too burdensome for some countries, especially against the background of economic difficulties) , political will (creating a joint army requires a strong political will and agreement among all EU members. At the moment there is no such unity), institutional and legal challenges (implementing new institutional structures and legal frameworks for a joint army would require considerable time and effort, which also slows down the process). These factors have proven to make the creation of an EU army a complex and possibly long-term process that may never be completed.

When 2015 began, the US-Israel relationship was viewed as being in the midst of a crisis because of tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu and President Barack Obama over the Iran nuclear issue, the moribund peace process and their problematic personal interactions. American Jews, meanwhile, became more active in combatting the anti-Semitic campaign to delegitimize Israel, particularly on university campuses, and more openly critical of Israeli policies that were perceived by some as undermining the nation’s democratic foundation and threatening religious pluralism. Still, while headlines focused on the enmity between Bibi and Barack, ties between Israel and the US remained strong because of the support of the American public and Congress, and the depth and breadth of connections between the peoples of Israel and the US in business, academics, military cooperation and a range of other activities that are immune to the vagaries of politics in Washington and Jerusalem.

This article addresses some of the implications of the EU's proposed Marine Strategy Directive for ongoing work in the regional seas conventions and for national work on regional marine strategies. The starting point is the proposed directive's focus on the ecosystem approach to the protection of the marine environment. Key elements within this approach are analysed, such as integration of environmental considerations into other policy areas; introduction of ecological quality objectives; and establishment of holistic monitoring and assessment programmes. Is it possible to transform these concepts into legally binding obligations? What will the implications of the proposed directive be for the rights and obligations of EU Member States under international law? A Management Plan for the Norwegian Part of the Barents Sea (‘Barents Plan’) was adopted by the Norwegian Government in March 2006 and approved by the Norwegian Storting (Parliament) in June 2006. It provides an example of a concrete application of the concepts in the proposed directive. Based on an analysis of the proposed Marine Strategy Directive and the Barents Plan, some key political and legal challenges are discussed in this article.

The article proposes a systematic assessment of the right to the Internet in the context of modern legal and political challenges. The authors substantiate the thesis that the right to the Internet is a complex category that cannot be considered solely in terms of providing technical capabilities and overcoming the digital divide (inequality) between different social groups and states. Much more complex and important is the consideration of the right to the Internet in the context of the corresponding duty of states not to impede the possibility of information exchange via the Internet, as well as in the plane of the search for a “golden mean” between the right to the Internet and natural human rights.The main purpose of the article was to determine the main features of the right to the Internet in the context of human and civil rights and freedoms and to analyze the main manifestations of digital discrimination as a consequence of the digital divide.A detailed methodological basis of the article contributed to the achievement of the abovementioned purpose. The research was based on a systematic method, which made it possible to consider the right to the Internet as a complex and dynamically developing legal and political category. The authors used functional and logical (deduction, induction and analogy) methods, as well as a number of particular scientific methods: historical, sociological and statistical. The approach proposed in the article to determine the key parameters of the right to the Internet was substantiated mainly on the basis of the application of comparative legal, formal legal and axiological methods.The methodology of the research made it possible to formulate and substantiate the conclusion that the right to the Internet in the face of modern legal and political challenges is undergoing a qualitative transformation both in the direction of expanding the positive obligations of the state to overcome the digital divide, and in the direction of restricting the right to freedom of Internet communication under the auspices of ensuring the right to privacy and the need to respect the public interest. The presence of «double standards» in determining the boundaries of the right to the Internet leads to conflicting legal decisions and allows us to predict the aggravation of this contradiction in the context of the rapid development of digital platforms and the active sanction policy of the collective West.

Indirect or delegated governance engages private organizations, tax expenditures, or service users to deliver programs that would otherwise be provided by the government directly. This paper explains the rise of indirect governance in terms of policymakers’ strategic use of “attenuation” to avoid political and legal challenge. Attenuation is the process by which a government obscures its role in promoting a particular policy goal, through communication strategies (attenuating rhetoric), or by utilizing private third parties and the tax system to deliver a benefit (attenuated design). Deploying policy‐maker interviews and an original historical database of private school choice programs and their legal and political defense, 1953–2017, I argue that pursuing both attenuated design and attenuating rhetoric at once helps policies pass and spread by publicly dissociating the government from legally contentious policy outputs.

What will democratic systems in the European Union (EU) look like in the next decade and beyond? Will tech-savvy policy-makers respond to the demands of citizens in an effective and timely manner? Or will the much-celebrated ‘co-creation’ of public policies via digital tools continue to remain an empty slogan? In this Chapter, we move from a broad reflection on the impact that technology is having on all levels of society, and particularly on human relations, to an analysis of the role of technology in the policy cycle. We claim that technology has dramatically changed both the number of ‘connections’ between citizens and public regulators, and their quality. We also argue that the outcomes of this enhanced interconnectivity have been uneven, and the results not always positive. Overall, citizens (and corporations) have benefited from the enhanced ‘access’ they have gained vis-a-vis public authorities through new communication channels. These benefits, however, have not been mirrored by equally significant progresses in design and implementation of public policy. Public authorities have struggled with the impact of new technologies on policy-making. Communities and citizens now expect public regulators to respond both immediately and effectively to their demands. However, for the most part public regulators have been unable or unwilling to effectively harness new technologies to foster participatory and inclusive governance. As a result, the legitimacy of public regulators has been politically and legally challenged by dissatisfied communities and stakeholders. The chapter focuses on the EU, which is often accused of not being inclusive or democratic. As EU institutional responsibilities have expanded over time, calls for greater openness have increased. Conventional narratives of the EU’s democratic deficit paint a picture of a dysfunctional decision-making system run by elites located in Brussels. In reality, we claim in this chapter, EU institutions continually seek to enhance and increase interactions with stakeholders, with experimental efforts having intensified over the last decade. This Chapter makes two contributions toward improving our understanding of experimental approaches to the democratisation of EU policy-making. First, it identifies and critically examines two models of experimentalism of EU policy-making. “Exploratory experimentalism” focuses on exploration and discovery. Over the last two decades, most of the EU’s efforts to foster participation have been this type. “Evaluative experimentalism”, instead, explores the feasibility and potential of a new policy intervention. We argue that design-thinking – i.e. the approach to policy-making from a design perspective – is one promising form of evaluative experimentalism currently tested in EU policy-making. We maintain that design-thinking might deliver the right solutions for building more inclusive, engaging, and interactive channels of cooperation between citizens and EU institutions. Second, this Chapter develops a new regulatory model, which it calls the “regulatory gaming” model. Regulatory gaming makes use of design-thinking, and more precisely of playful design, to foster civic engagement. A few examples are discussed in this Chapter. These include prize challenges, scenario simulations, and online serious games. The outcomes of regulatory gaming are still uncertain. Some observers believe fun-design enables EU administrations to adapt to contemporary societal, political and legal challenges. Critics, however, describe playful policy-making as a mere institutional make-up, incapable of successfully addressing the challenge of democracy. They raise ethical, legal, and political concerns, The conclusive section of this Chapter will discuss five challenges for regulatory-gaming, and will speculate on possible solutions from EU decision-makers.

The intention of this paper is to provide an up to date overview of the key legal, political and practical challenges arising from the proposal by Airtricity/Mainstream Renewable Power to construct a European offshore Supergrid, a super-structure of interconnected HVDC subsea electricity networks designed to span the coastal regions of the European continent. The paper takes a multi-disciplinary and comparative approach of the legal and policy positions in three core European offshore wind energy markets and is motivated by a firm belief that the Supergrid is an ``achievable'' energy infrastructure project. Two central objectives of the Europe Union's energy policy are rooted in the Supergrid proposal. In the first instance, the Supergrid would enhance the expansion of renewable electricity generation in Europe, thus acting as an implementation tool for the European Union's climate change obligations. At the same time, the proposal would also contribute to the achievement of the union's triple energy policy goals: Emission reductions, energy security and technical competitiveness. In its second capacity, by developing an interconnected offshore grid network, the Supergrid would duplicate the congested European onshore grid and serve as a vast interconnector between energy markets. By enabling for the first time the genuine competitive trading of electricity across the union's borders, the proposal would considerably contribute to the achievement of the single European electricity market.

Book reviewed: New Religious Movements in the 21st Century: Legal, Political and Social Challenges in Global perspective, Philip Charles Lucas and Thomas Robbins (eds), Routledge 2004 (0‐415‐96576‐4), 364 pp., pb £19.99

In order to create sustainable health systems, many countries are introducing ways to prioritise health services underpinned by a process of health technology assessment. While this approach requires technical judgements of clinical effectiveness and cost effectiveness, these are embedded in a wider set of social (societal) value judgements, including fairness, responsiveness to need, non-discrimination and obligations of accountability and transparency. Implementing controversial decisions faces legal, political and public challenge. To help generate acceptance for the need for health prioritisation and the resulting decisions, the purpose of this paper is to develop a novel way of encouraging key stakeholders, especially patients and the public, to become involved in the prioritisation process. Through a multidisciplinary collaboration involving a series of international workshops, ethical and political theory (including accountability for reasonableness) have been applied to develop a practical way forward through the creation of a values framework. The authors have tested this framework in England and in New Zealand using a mixed-methods approach. A social values framework that consists of content and process values has been developed and converted into an online decision-making audit tool. The authors have developed an easy to use method to help stakeholders (including the public) to understand the need for prioritisation of health services and to encourage their involvement. It provides a pragmatic way of harmonising different perspectives aimed at maximising health experience. All health care systems are facing increasing demands within finite resources. Although many countries are introducing ways to prioritise health services, the decisions often face legal, political, commercial and ethical challenge. The research will help health systems to respond to these challenges. This study helps in increasing public involvement in complex health challenges. No other groups have used this combination of approaches to address this issue.

This article provides a critical overview of the key commercial, technical, legal, and political challenges the Eastern Mediterranean region faces in regard to the development of its natural gas resources and proposes possible ways to overcome them. To that aim, it first gives an up-to-date overview of the upstream developments in the region. It then discusses the challenges facing the monetization of the gas discoveries by looking at both the commercial challenges hampering exploration and field development and the technical challenges involved in exporting the gas to the immediate and distant markets. While examining the legal and political challenges related to maritime delimitation and political alignments, it highlights the role of gas. Finally, it offers some possible ways to overcome those challenges.

Towards the end of the Obama era, the project of a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) raised considerable political and legal challenges both in the United States and in the European Union. This chapter addresses the political and legal challenges raised by investor-state arbitration as projected in the TTIP. This is followed by an analysis of how various concerns were processed within the constitutional and legal regimes of foreign trade law in the United States and the European Union, respectively, and how responsive constitutional doctrine on both sides of the pond is to the concerns raised. The chapter concludes that the U.S. and the EU systems allowed for specific venues of political contestation and provide for different roles of judicial review.

Understanding the motivating impulses behind offenders’ actions in acts of so-called ‘hate crime’ is fundamental to the conceptualisation of ‘hate crime’ and the legislative and criminal justice responses to the problem. In focusing on anti-Jewish incidents as a case study, this chapter unravels the particular harms inflicted by incidents of 'hate crime' against Jews and critically evaluates the appropriateness of labelling such incidents as ‘antisemitic’. Informed by a discussion of evidence of offender motivations in anti-Jewish 'hate crime' the chapter explores the political and legal challenges involved in countering the problem.