Ricochet Effect on Courts: Analysing the Impact of Online Transition on the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights Domestic and international courts are prominent actors of justice, promoting changes in society. But what happens to courts when they are forced to operate in a digitalized world? The pandemic led most judges to comply with the restrictions by holding court sessions through a computer screen. This article presents an analysis on how the online transition changed the daily operations of courts through exogenous shocks – such as the COVID-19 pandemic (2019-2023) and artificial intelligence (AI) tools. At first glance, the solution is to hold sessions online, following the example of the United Nations and the Committees of the European Parliament. Although holding online sessions is a better solution than suspending or postponing them, this may have influenced profoundly the structure of courts. The article provides an example of both domestic and international courts to enrich this scenario of adjudication before and after online sessions started to be held. Unlike sessions held by other institutions, courts operate through specific Rules of Procedure, which have been affected by the digitalization of courts’ hearings. The article describes and evaluates several effects after the implementation of these online sessions, with a research design that includes a mix-methods approach with interviews, participatory observations and reports. It is foreseeable that courts may be forced to operate in a hybrid model – holding sessions both in person and online. To better function and continue to be actors of social change, courts will have to undergo institutional remodelling to adapt to upcoming crises and innovations.

How to Strengthen Trust in Digital Transformation of the Court Systems? Experience from China In the 21st century, digitalization has emerged as a prominent and transformative force, reshaping nearly every aspect of modern life. The wave of digital transformation has significantly impacted judicial systems globally, with China leading this shift through the implementation of what is referred to as ‘smart justice’. This transition involves the integration of digital technologies into traditional judicial practices. While technologies offer clear benefits, including improved efficiency, transparency and accessibility, they also introduce complexities that challenge judicial trust. Trust is the foundation of any effective judicial system, and in the context of smart justice, rebuilding trust through responsible digital innovation is essential. This article categorizes the issue of trust within judicial systems by examining it through three dimensions: cognitive trust, affective trust and trust belief. It analyses the origins of the current trust challenges from these perspectives and identifies key pathways for improvement in China. Chinese courts and legal scholars have actively engaged with these challenges by exploring diverse strategies to ensure that technological adoption enhances, rather than erodes, public trust. This article critically evaluates these institutional responses and situates them within broader global discussions about digital justice. It argues that while China’s model may not be universally replicable due to political and legal particularities, it offers valuable insights into how digital transformation can be harnessed to support trust in judicial institutions. These lessons are especially relevant for other jurisdictions navigating similar digital reforms while seeking to uphold the foundational values of fairness, accountability and public trust.

Measurement Is Meaning? Normative Challenges for an European Union Legislative Framework for Sustainable Food Systems The European Union is working on a legislative framework for sustainable food (FSFS). It is part of the Farm to Fork strategy (F2F), which aims for a ‘fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food system’. The system, among others, aims to decrease pesticide and fertilizer use, increase the percentage of organic agriculture and ensure the effective use of technological innovations. Several authors have highlighted the potential contradictions and challenges the FSFS might pose. Solutions have also been proposed to resolve these issues. This article deepens some of the procedural, technical and normative choices that need to be made when developing a legislative FSFS. Next, the article discusses three commonly used strategies to deal with such choices and cautions legislators not to fall into similar traps seen in the history of regulating genetically modified (GM) crops in Europe to resolve these challenges. I argue that political and normative discussions on what kind of food system is ‘sustainable’ should not be avoided or continuously redirected to scientific, technical or legal debates or to stakeholders. Although each of these processes provides essential input for political decision-making, the decision-making itself ultimately relies on political debate, particularly on complex and normative matters such as sustainability, where full consensus seems unattainable. After taking into account all input in a reasoned debate, only by taking a political decision – regardless of its nature – can a subsequent step be taken in which the adequacy of the decision can be evaluated and adjusted if necessary.

Locked-In to Pesticide Dependence: An Analysis of Law-Making Processes Behind European Union Pest Management Transitions The Proposal for a Regulation on the sustainable use of plant protection products (SUR) represented one of the most serious attempts to address the deleterious health and environmental impacts of pesticides in the European Union (EU). Despite the EU’s stance on pesticides as pollutants, and the political support by the European Commission for the SUR, it was voted down by the European Parliament in late 2023. While the SUR would have been the first binding legal instrument to set specific targets on the total amounts of pesticides used throughout the European Union within a more comprehensive food system context, its absence leaves us the existing regulatory framework for pesticides, which institutionalizes pesticide use as the main pest management strategy. Given the likelihood that much-needed future pesticide policies and regulations will follow in the SUR’s footsteps, the dynamics surrounding the drafting and voting down of the proposal provide an interesting case study for exploring how European law-making processes ‘lock’ food systems into unsustainable behaviours like pesticide dependencies. To this end, this article, using critical discourse analysis, identifies the narratives deployed to obstruct the pest management transition and details how overarching power dynamics manifested within the SUR’s law-making process to uphold lock-ins that reinforce capitalist resource-intensive approaches to agriculture.

The Challenges of Digital Platforms’ Algorithms and Their Impact on the Freedom of Expression – A Normative Assessment of the Digital Services Act By recognising the pivotal role of the internet in shaping public discourse, this article embarks on a critical evaluation of the existing regulatory frameworks, aiming to navigate the challenges introduced by the symbiotic relationship between digital platforms’ algorithms and critically assessing the efficacy of current regulatory approaches in preserving freedom of expression. First, this article meticulously examines four challenges: algorithmic biases, automated content moderation, transparency and accountability of algorithms, and intermediaries intertwined with algorithms, scrutinising their role in enabling filter bubbles and echo chambers. Second, we examine the regulatory landscape concerning freedom of expression on digital platforms through the lenses of critical instruments such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the E-Commerce Directive (ECD) and then the recently introduced Digital Services Act (DSA). A normative analysis of the DSA in light of its challenges to uphold freedom of expression, compared with its predecessors, reveals the evolution of legal frameworks in response to the dynamic digital environment. Although legally designated as hosting services, Very Large Online Platforms’ (VLOPs) use of tracking technologies, algorithmic content curation and behavioural profiling places them beyond the passive or neutral roles envisioned for hosts or mere conduits. This hybrid operational model exposes a critical structural incoherence within the DSA’s tripartite framework, which risks leaving the most powerful digital actors insufficiently regulated. Finally, the synthesis crystallises the articles’ findings, emphasising the imperativeness of enhanced transparency, independent regulatory oversight, and the imperative to decouple regulatory financing from and by the big tech.

To Trust and to Be Trusted: Exploring Levels and Drivers of Trust in and Between Courts in the European Multilevel Judicial System Recently, a research agenda emerged on trust between courts in Europe, predominantly in the context of the preliminary ruling procedure or the Protocol 16 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). However, little is known about how trust differs across the levels of judicial hierarchy in a complex multilevel judicial system such as Europe. Building on the insights from trust literature and based on empirical evidence from surveys and interviews conducted with Slovenian and Croatian judges, this article explores the divergences and drivers of trust in and between courts in Europe. More specifically, it explores reciprocal trust between first-instance, second-instance, Supreme Court and Constitutional Court judges in Slovenia and Croatia, as well as one-way trust of national judges in the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The result show that courts are the most trusted among the political institutions and that the CJEU, the ECtHR and national Supreme Courts enjoy the highest levels of trust. Age, training in European law, knowledge of foreign languages and trust in national versus European institutions were found to be the most important drives of judicial trust in the CJEU and the ECtHR, while trust in national Supreme Courts and Constitutional Courts is driven by trust in national political institutions, age and type of court. The article also explores the concept of reciprocal trust and concludes that trust levels between the two courts in a reciprocal trust relationship are similar, which may suggest that trusting an actor in a reciprocal trust relationship may result in being trusted back.

Reversing the Lens: In National Judiciaries the CJEU Trusts? Insights from EU Migration and Asylum Law Trust and distrust have been explored as drivers influencing the choices of national courts in the preliminary ruling procedure, that is, whether to hand over the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). This article proposes a novel account by reversing the roles to explore the CJEU’s trust and distrust in national judiciaries. While the reliance on national courts is inherent in the decentralised system of European Union (EU) law enforcement, the CJEU can impose significant limitations on national courts’ discretion in the application and enforcement of EU law. Trust and distrust in national judiciaries reflect the CJEU’s effort to reconcile averting claims of judicial activism with safeguarding the rule of law and promoting further European integration. Drawing on earlier literature on trust and distrust between judicial actors in Europe, this article conceptualises the CJEU’s trust and distrust in national judiciaries. It also establishes an analytical framework for analysing them through identifying trust-related considerations in the CJEU’s preliminary rulings: the intensity of interference with national procedural autonomy, the frequency of the use of deference to national courts, and the rigidity of the assessment of judicial independence. Zooming into the CJEU’s case law in a highly politicised area – EU migration and asylum law – suggests a shift from trust to distrust in national judiciaries. Having exposed vulnerabilities of Member States’ judicial structures, the rule of law and migration crises put into question the trustworthiness of national judiciaries and invite rethinking the judicial architecture of the EU.

Courts, Security and Trust This article investigates the relationship between trust, security and the judiciary in Romania. Following the democratic transition and European Union (EU) membership, the Romanian legal system faced two crucial tasks: dealing with the past through means of transitional justice, such as lustration (vetting), and dealing with the future through anti-corruption measures that were to strengthen the rule of law and enable economic development. In dealing with both tasks, the Romanian judiciary was essential in making far-reaching decisions whose consequences went far beyond the legal system. In this article, the author examines some of the implications of the decisions in these two areas for the levels of trust within the judiciary and trust in the judiciary.

Public Participation Before the Court of Justice of the EU: Enhancing Outside Party Judicial Participation via Amicus Curiae Briefs This article assesses the participatory dimension of the EU judicial system against increasing demand for civil society’s participation before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). First, it explores the judicial participatory opportunity structure before the CJEU, that is the various legal remedies foreseen in the EU legal order. Second, it examines the realities of judicial practices open to both parties and third parties to a dispute by identifying the structural conditions preventing them from gaining access to the Court. It also documents the emergence of a new, informal practice of ‘shadow’ amicus curiae briefs aimed at countering limited outside third-party participation. Third, it assesses whether the extant CJEU’s opportunity structure available to outside parties to a dispute is in line with the Treaty-enshrined participatory imperative stemming from the principle of openness – Article 11 TEU (‘take into account citizens’ views) – that of equality – Article 9 TEU (‘equal attention to all stakeholders’) and Article 13 TEU (an institutional framework which serve citizens’ interests) – and that of participation under Article 10(3) TEU (‘Every citizen shall have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union’), as they apply to the EU judicial system. Fourth, it argues that these principles require the CJEU to re-evaluate the current judicial framework to ensure that the EU judicial system appropriately addresses not only individual and societal interests when those are parties to a dispute but also when, albeit equally affected, they find themselves outside of it. Ultimately, it demonstrates that the practice of amicus curiae briefs may provide a suitable means to not only compensate for the for limited standing – including in third-party interventions – but also to broaden the Court’s access to the dispersed and untapped expertise and greater civil society participation in court proceedings, thus legitimising the CJEU’s output and throughput.