Synthetic biology, as an emerging field that integrates life sciences and engineering technology, is driving profound transformations in global science, ethics, and legal systems. In international legal framework, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have established initial hard law governance systems. However, these frameworks still face structural limitations in terms of technical adaptability, the scope of provisions, and institutional coordination. Soft law, with its flexibility, non-binding nature, and ability to build consensus, is increasingly becoming an essential supplement to the international response to the ethical risks of synthetic biology. International organizations, industry alliances, and non-governmental actors are constructing a multi-layered soft law governance network through ethical guidelines, policy recommendations, and codes of conduct, providing institutional support for risk identification, technology classification, and behavioral guidance. Soft law is well-suited to perform the roles of guiding and providing feedback in governance, while hard law should focus on the construction of systems of rights and responsibilities and the establishment of obligations. There is a collaborative governance model that integrates both soft and hard law. This model, characterized by “soft law guidance, hard law consolidation, and soft law feedback,” aims to create a flexible and enforceable governance framework. This approach ensures that soft law provides a timely and adaptive starting point, hard law offers a uniform and accountable foundation, and a feedback loop allows for continuous adjustment based on practical experience.

Abstract This paper adopts a sociosemiotic perspective to examine how normative consensus and legitimacy are constructed in global artificial intelligence (AI) governance discourse. Drawing on a corpus of forty-seven international normative documents, the study identifies an emerging cross-textual consensus around three core principles – Safety, Human-centric and Fairness – and analyses how these are semiotically encoded. The findings reveal tensions between state and non-state actors, and between semiotic agreement and practical implementation. For instance, ‘Safety’ is often framed through securitisation discourse, while ‘Human-centric’ is increasingly grounded in international human rights frameworks. The study further shows that discursive strategies such as nominalisation help establish surface-level consensus but introduce ambiguity that undermines enforceability. By conceptualising governance texts as dynamic semiotic systems, this research moves beyond the hard law–soft law dichotomy, revealing global AI regulation as a contested arena of meaning-making. It offers a theoretical basis for advancing more inclusive and operational governance models.

Paving a path for energy to become more reliable, affordable and cleaner embodies the energy trilemma. Meeting these differing demands requires heterogeneous approaches amongst states. Merely focusing on one aspect of the trilemma to the detriment of the others, or penalising stakeholders for exclusively failing to do enough to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through hard law obligations, is unconstructive. Instead, what is needed is guidance on how to construct regulatory energy roadmaps. Soft law as an instrument is well suited to provide such guidance and accelerate the transformation of energy systems, without replacing the role of states in the formation of national and international law. For soft law to generate widespread acceptance, standard setting must involve broad geographic and stakeholder participation and account for the fragmented nature of energy-relevant topics. Stakeholders are generally more willing to endorse non-binding standards that make it possible to bridge differences without the fear of forced concessions, let alone impositions. Both industry-driven and government-led standards already steer future energy pathways. This article examines a number of these initiatives and argues that soft law that accounts for national realities could become a fundamental component of the energy regulatory toolbox in the twenty-first century.

This paper investigates the effects of regulations aiming to optimise the multi-agency relationships, with a focus on the prescription choice between generic versus branded medications. In 2012, Italian legislators introduced two laws targeting general practitioners prescription behaviour, a soft (recommendations) law followed by a hard (mandatory) law to promote generic medication. We implement a regression discontinuity in time framework and an event study to quarterly administrative data for individuals with chronic kidney disease linked to data from their general practitioners in Emilia-Romagna, Italy. The results indicate that the policies were effective, but had modest effects on increasing the prescription of generic medications. Hard laws seem to have played a key role in driving this change. Heterogeneity checks provide evidence that less competition among GPs and interaction with specialists increased generic medication prescriptions.

The concept of international criminal law has developed rapidly. The emergence of relevant institutions-from the ad hoc tribunals of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC)-has enhanced governance measures to address transnational atrocities, but it has also led to fragmentation characterized by normative conflicts, functional overlaps and enforcement gaps. With globalization, the disintegration of the international criminal law undermines the global governance. This paper examines particular expressions of fragmentation at rule, institutional, jurisdiction, and implementation levelsand evaluates the adverse effects of fragmentation on enforcement effectiveness, coordinated governance and international fairness. In this paper, the comparative research approach is adopted to prove such issues as treatsy-based discrepancies in crime definitions, judicial inconsistencies due to inconsistent enforcement of soft and hard law, selective prosecution due to jurisdictional conflicts and accountability gaps in new fields of cybercrime and AI-driven offenses. To control these concerns, the proposals comprise developing the bodies of authority to interpret the soft law, quickening the process of the soft law being converted to hard law by instituting regional pilot programs, the adoption of the tiered jurisdiction system, homogenizing evidence, and introducing the global level of training. The goals of these strategies are to overcome interpretative disagreements, increase cooperation internationally, revitalize judicial fairness and promote equity of international criminal law.

This article examines the phenomenon of soft law as a distinctive source of tax regulation in the contemporary context of globalization. It analyzes theoretical approaches to defining soft law and outlines its essential characteristics, core features, and legal nature. Particular attention is given to the ongoing debate on the concept of relative normativity and the extent to which soft law instruments can be integrated into the system of legal sources. The study demonstrates that, despite the absence of formal binding force, soft law possesses significant regulatory potential, largely due to the authority of the bodies that formulate it and the repeated practice of its application. The article further explores the historical development of soft law and the factors that have facilitated its growing role in international tax regulation. It underscores the interconnection between soft law and the processes of globalization and legal harmonization, which have contributed to its increasing incorporation into national legal systems. The analysis also highlights the importance of distinguishing soft law from customary law, despite certain similarities in their structure and function. Two primary functions of soft law within tax law are examined in detail: the normative (or standard-setting) function and the interpretative function. The normative role is evident in the influence of OECD standards on domestic legislation, particularly through the implementation of the BEPS Action Plan and the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines. The discussion addresses both the theoretical underpinnings and practical aspects of this influence. The interpretative function of soft law is analyzed through its application in judicial practice, illustrated by case law from Ukraine. This section also evaluates the broader implications of this phenomenon and its likely future trajectory. The article concludes that soft law has become an integral element of modern legal regulation, increasingly approaching “hard law” in terms of its practical impact on legal relations, despite retaining its recommendatory nature. Recognizing the role of soft law does not undermine legal certainty; rather, it enhances the flexibility of legal systems and their capacity to adapt to evolving economic realities. At the same time, the study identifies key challenges and risks associated with soft law, including the lack of clear criteria for legal enforceability, the potential for selective implementation, and the influence of political and economic factors on the content of these instruments.

Here Comes the Sun: The Formal Transposition and Political Impact of the European Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages in the EU

Artificial Intelligence in China's Banking Sector: Promises, Perils, and Regulation

Abstract Plural values of nature are gradually being acknowledged and promoted through international and domestic law. Value pluralism emphasises diversity and the recognition of difference, acknowledging intrinsic and relational values of nature alongside instrumental values. This article demonstrates how changes toward embracing plural values of nature in law, including under the Kunming‐Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), could be important for burgeoning nature‐related financial disclosure regimes stimulated by the GBF and the recommendations of the Taskforce on Nature‐related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). Specifically, how nature is valued is relevant to the consideration of nature‐related transition risks required as part of nature‐related financial disclosures. Regulatory, policy and legal changes to enshrine plural values of nature into international and domestic law have the potential to give rise to transition risks for organisations, which have acted in reliance on the mainstream and instrumentalist value of nature. Whilst there is momentum for change toward plural values of nature at the international law level, the soft law status of the GBF means that the extent of its normative influence is reflected through analysis and evaluation of hard law obligations and domestic legislation that are designed to give effect to it. This article suggests that, based on the experience of Australia, legal changes that promote plural values of nature are emerging. While Australia retains a highly instrumentalised value of nature, legal and policy changes aimed at implementing commitments under the GBF demonstrate a growing commitment to plural values of nature within the national context. Even though Australia continues to primarily value nature for its utility and provision of ecosystem services, efforts to embrace plural values rely on the acknowledgment and inclusion of First Nations culture, philosophy and worldviews. Further regulatory changes that advance plural values of nature could give rise to transition risks for organisations to consider when making nature‐related financial disclosures.

In the rapidly evolving digital economy, the legal qualification and regulation of digital goods remain ambiguous and fragmented. Despite their growing economic and societal relevance, digital goods are often governed not by binding legal norms (hard law), but by non-binding guidelines, private contracts, and platform-specific terms of service - the so-called soft law. This article explores the legal vacuum surrounding digital goods, analysing the challenges posed by the absence of uniform definitions, the reliance on private ordering, and the inconsistent application of existing legal categories across jurisdictions. Through a comparative and interdisciplinary lens, the study examines how current legal systems struggle to keep pace with technological innovation, resulting in legal uncertainty regarding ownership rights, consumer protection, taxation, and the cross-border transfer of digital goods. The paper argues for the development of a coherent national and European Union regulatory framework that transcends soft law approaches and provides clear, enforceable, and future-proof norms for the classification, use, and transfer of digital goods in a globalised environment.

The Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is purposed at ensuring business activities are responsible to society, alongside making a profit in businesses. CSR has been marked as a soft law obligation of businesses towards society. However, in recent years, the environmental challenges being faced by the world, particularly the developing world, including Pakistan, require consideration of a transition from a soft law approach to a hard law one. This article sheds light on challenges to the soft law approach while dealing with environmental problems in Pakistan. Although the environment is an international issue and requires to be dealt with internationally, it is argued in this article that consideration of a hard law approach in this regard may bring forth some of the solutions to this menace in Pakistan.

The article examines the qualification of cyberattacks as armed conflicts under international legal norms (the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, the Tallinn Manuals, and others). As is known, the main goal of international legal regulation is to ensure international peace and security, as stipulated in the UN Charter. The digitalization of modern society and the lack of clarity of the boundaries of cyberspace raise completely new issues in the implementation of this goal. Thus, any cyberattack committed in cyberspace can cause various economic, political and other damages not only to one state, but even to several states at the same time. Today, “paralyzing” the activities of any state with a cyberattack aimed at the critical information infrastructure of that state has become a very easy and easily controlled illegal activity. At present, these threats are further increasing. The main goal of the presented article is to propose a solution to the difficulties faced by international law during cyberattacks. For this purpose, the concept and main characteristics of cyberattacks and cyberattackers were examined, and the possibility of assessing a cyberattack as an armed conflict based on international documents was studied. At the same time, a comparative analysis is undertaken of the provisions of a number of important international instruments and the positions of international organizations (hard law and soft law norms). At the end of the study, it was concluded that cyberattacks themselves are hostile behavior, and it was argued that they are as dangerous as armed conflicts and that states have the right to self-defense against such attacks. Keywords: cyberspace, cyberattack, armed conflict, armed attack, the right of self-defence, cyberoperation, cyberespionage, cyberactivism, UN Charter, Tallinn Manual.

Abstract Experts advocating for restorative justice focused their attention on the possibility of strengthening everyone’s right to access restorative programmes in the amendment to Directive 2012/29/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council. Although this right was ultimately not enforced, this does not mean that it is impossible to effectively implement the content of the Council of Europe’s legal documents, particularly the Council of Europe Recommendation concerning restorative justice in criminal matters cm /Rec (2018)8 and the subsequently adopted Venice Declaration, into practice and thus contribute to promoting the right to a restorative programme in a different way. Through a case study of the Czech Republic, we illustrate the possibilities of implementing these documents into national policies whilst strongly utilising the fundamental restorative principle of participation. The text demonstrates that soft law can influence national criminal policies, legislation and practices, and in many respects can be more effective than hard law.

In Vietnam, recent discussions in official and academic forums have highlighted the positive role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the healthcare sector. Like other countries, Vietnam expects that through the fourth industrial revolution, particularly AI, its current healthcare system will undergo significant improvements. In policy and practical application, Vietnam has demonstrated that AI is indispensable in developing a healthcare system that faces numerous challenges in human resources. In light of recent global developments, it is clear that AI not only brings significant benefits, such as improving efficiency and reducing costs, but it is also predicted to pose numerous risks to society in both ethical and legal aspects. To minimize and eliminate hazards, the current legal framework can respond to the new context. To address these questions, this paper examines the current state of AI applications in Vietnam and reviews the existing legal frameworks in the country. The research results indicate that Vietnam's current legal frameworks are insufficient to ensure the rights and interests of patients against potential risks posed by AI. Finally, the paper proposes that in addition to soft laws, such as the principle of responsible AI for general subjects, hard laws are needed to achieve the goals of AI in the healthcare sector. This includes regimes on health data to ensure privacy, prevent bias and injustice, and regulations on approval processes for AI medical devices to ensure patient safety.

The paper addresses several current issues regarding the use of AI in civil justice. It starts from theoretical foundations and addresses the question of how we can define AI, what is the role of AI in today's civil justice system, and what challenges must be overcome when creating legal regulations. The starting point is the need for a clear regulatory framework for the use of Artificial Intelligence systems in civil justice. It presents several legislative techniques (rules granting and/or governing rights; rules establishing prohibitions; rules setting out conditions, requirements and/or obligations.) and the types of legal sources or forms of regulation that can be used in the process of legislation (self-regulation and codes of conduct; soft law; hard law). It also includes a comparative legal perspective (with Spanish and English examples).

As a specialized intergovernmental legal organization for resolving international disputes, the International Organization for Mediation (IOMed) is characterized by a treaty-based hard law nature. It adjudicates various types of disputes, incorporates flexible procedures embedded with Chinese harmony wisdom, and forges a distinctive dispute settlement model. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM) is currently confronted with multiple predicaments, including the suspension of the Appellate Body, excessive judicialization and inefficiency in adjudication procedures, dysfunctional alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms, and reform outcomes falling short of expectations. Certain distinctive arrangements in the DSM of the IOMed can provide insights for the optimization of the WTO DSM: (1) Through a confidential mediation mechanism, parties are provided with an opportunity to back down with dignity, and the panel is encouraged to guide the two sides to reach a consensus on the basis of ascertainment of facts. (2) Establish a “Mediation and ADR Center” within the WTO Secretariat, ensure the establishment of a strict information isolation system between this Center and the Legal Affairs Division serving the panels, and promulgate a detailed protocol on mediation procedures. (3) Stipulate a mandatory pre-mediation clause, and allow the panel to disclose its preliminary views on the core issues to both parties prior to issuing its report, so as to encourage them to reach a settlement. (4) When appointing panel members or arbitrators of Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement, greater consideration should be given to candidates’ cross-cultural understanding capacity; it is recommended that parties to specific types of disputes utilize the platform of the IOMed, and promote the WTO-recognized right to trade retaliation to serve as a safeguard for the enforcement of mediation agreements.

This article explores the real-world impact of Directive (EU) 2021/2101 on Public Country-by-Country (CbC) Reporting, with particular attention to how external stakeholders engage with and interpret the published data. It argues that multinational enterprises (MNEs) must not only comply with the disclosure obligations but also actively manage the narrative and reputational implications that arise in an environment of heightened tax transparency. The analysis identifies three principal risks for MNEs resulting from the Directive’s application and demonstrates that these risks stem from its legislative design. In light of this, the article stresses the importance of precise regulatory drafting to ensure legal certainty and a balance between transparency and MNEs’ fundamental rights – such as the freedom to conduct a business and property rights. Five structural shortcomings in the Directive are examined in detail, and recommendations are put forward to address them. These suggestions rely on a combination of hard law reforms and soft law guidance at EU level to mitigate the identified risks and enhance the Directive’s effectiveness.

CSR depended voluntary soft law in a long period, but the frequent damage of human rights and environmental issues made CSR transform to hard law of enforceability in the worldwide supply chains, leading the HRDD become a core tool. This study explores that this transformation how to rebuild the boundary of CSR. Taking the CSDDD as a core, this study will analyze its core requirements and taking the French "Duty of Vigilance Law" as a forward-looking case. Compared with it, America places extra emphasis on regulations of specific industries and did not establish a law of HRDD including all of industries, otherwise China guide CSR for enterprises through policies and did not establish any laws of HRDD. This study points out that transformation could bring some serious problems such as the increased cost of enterprises, the dim boundary of responsibility and potential trade barrier, provide some adapted suggestions such as integration between audit and CSDDD for Chinese enterprises exporting to Europe. The conclusion holds that the transformation from CSR to HRDD landmarks a canonical change from soft law to hard law in the management of worldwide enterprises.

The opening for signature of the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law (hereinafter “the Convention”) in 2024 marks a symbolic event in the field of AI governance. The Convention sets a good example for the international community to prevent and govern risks to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law encountered in the process of AI governance. By analyzing the Convention's regulatory objects, basic positions, implementation methods, and approaches, this paper points out that the Convention itself does not create new types of human rights or obligations of human right; yet instead it relies on the existing human rights treaty framework to stipulate the basic principles that a series of AI activities shall abide by. The Convention has a set framework and inherent ambiguity. Compared to the “soft law” model of other related international documents, the Convention adopts a “hard law” model, yet its specific implementation still counts on domestic legislative, law enforcement, and judicial activities. Although its implementation effects remain to be seen, its “human-centred” regulatory approach, which covers a broad scope of protection for individual rights and interests and emphasizes the rights of specific groups, is worthy of reference.

Corporate social responsibility has historically been a voluntary practice. However, in recent years, a clear shift has taken place, particularly in the national legislation of some European States: corporate responsibility as a tool for mitigating environmental and human rights impacts has progressively transitioned from the realm of voluntary commitments to legally enforceable obligations. This transformation did not occur overnight, but is the result of a long regulatory evolution, culminating in the adoption of the European Union (“EU”) Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (hereinafter “CS3D” or “Directive”)—a subject of intense debate within the EU in recent years. The impact of this Directive extends beyond European borders. Like previous EU legal instruments, the CS3D will have extraterritorial effects, making it essential for companies outside the EU to understand its requirements; under certain conditions, indeed, non-EU companies operating within the European market will be subject to compliance obligations.This Article examines the potential implications of the transition from soft law to hard law, with a particular focus on sustainability clauses in commercial contracts and the drafting of codes of conduct. It explores how—and to what extent—the CS3D reshapes contractual governance in supply chains; the challenges associated with its implementation, particularly for small- and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”); and the possible unintended consequences of regulatory overreach.Section I of this Article traces the historical evolution of corporate social responsibility from voluntary initiatives to a mandatory regulatory legal framework. Section II outlines the core obligations imposed by the new CS3D. Section III examines the state of sustainability clauses and codes of conduct before the Directive’s adoption, while Section IV analyzes how they may evolve once the Directive’s mandatory provisions become applicable. Finally, Section V discusses the specific challenges faced by SMEs before concluding with a critical assessment of the Directive’s potential impact.