Legal Ambiguity Research Articles

Citizenship in the shadow of law: identifying the origins, effects, and operation of legal ambiguity in Jordan

Citizenship in the shadow of law: identifying the origins, effects, and operation of legal ambiguity in Jordan

FEATURES OF THE DETERMINING THE STATE POLICY OF UKRAINE IN THE AREA OF DE-OCCUPATION

This article aims to explore the peculiarities of defining the concept of "state policy" in Ukraine in the context of de-occupation. The relevance of this research is grounded in the ongoing territorial challenges that Ukraine faces due to military aggression and the occupation of its territories. The need for a coherent and strategically sound approach to regaining control over these regions makes the issue highly pertinent. The study adopts an analytical research methodology, focusing on the theoretical foundations of state policy in the sphere of de-occupation. The research also utilizes comparative analysis, examining the different models of de-occupation that have been applied historically and internationally, including military, political-diplomatic, institutional, and economic models. The findings indicate that the concept of “state policy” in de-occupation processes is multi-faceted and requires a comprehensive approach, combining various strategies. Key components of the theoretical basis for state policy in de-occupation are identified, including the political and legal foundation, socio-economic integration, national reconciliation and cultural integration, security measures, and international support. Each of these elements plays a crucial role in the successful recovery of occupied territories and the re-establishment of state sovereignty. The study highlights the importance of synchronizing these components to ensure long-term stability and development in post-conflict regions. The practical value of the article lies in its potential to serve as a guideline for policymakers and government officials in Ukraine, offering a structured understanding of how these key components can be effectively integrated into the country's de-occupation strategy. By focusing on both theoretical and practical dimensions, the article provides a framework that can contribute to the formulation of effective policies aimed at the reintegration of occupied territories, addressing challenges such as legal ambiguity, socio-economic disparities, and security risks. This research contributes to the ongoing discourse on de-occupation by offering insights into how Ukraine can enhance its efforts in restoring territorial integrity in the face of current geopolitical challenges.

Attitudes Toward Prostitution in Norway, Spain, and Germany: Association With the Legal Context and Susceptibility to Persuasion.

The social and legal treatment of prostitution varies between countries. We examined attitudes toward prostitution (ATP) and their susceptibility to persuasion in three countries: Norway, where prostitution is illegal; Spain, where prostitution is not explicitly regulated in the law; and Germany, where prostitution is legal. Participants (total N = 579) read arguments in favor of either legalization or abolition of prostitution or no arguments. Then they reported their ATP, judged the consequences of abolishing prostitution and completed measures of feminism, political orientation and sociosexuality. Results showed that, as hypothesized, ATP scores (1) reflected the countries' legislation, being most positive in Germany and least positive in Norway; (2) were affected by arguments only in Spain, where the legal situation is ambiguous; and (3) were meaningfully correlated with other attitudes across countries. These findings highlight the association of legal frameworks with attitudes, suggesting that national legislation can shape social norms and perceptions of prostitution. Additionally, the varying susceptibility to persuasive messages across different legal contexts underscores the role of legal ambiguity in shaping openness to attitudinal change.

Perceived Stress and Outness: Examining the Coping Mediation Framework Among Chinese LGBTQ+ Community

Despite global progress in LGBTQ+ rights, sexual minorities in China face significant societal pressures and legal ambiguities, which remain poorly understood. This study explores the potential mediating role of proactive and preventive coping strategies in the relationship between perceived stress and outness levels among Chinese LGBTQ+ individuals. Survey data from 267 Chinese LGBTQ+ individuals aged 16–42 revealed high levels of perceived stress within this community. Both proactive and preventive coping strategies significantly mediated the negative impact of perceived stress on outness levels. These findings contribute to the understanding of LGBTQ+ community’s perceived stress and outness status in China, highlighting the need for inclusive policies and support systems to improve their mental health and social well-being.

Obscenity and the Legal Ambiguity in India: A Critical Analysis.

Obscenity and the Legal Ambiguity in India: A Critical Analysis.

Stigmatised as ‘promoting’ with a duty to report: public healthcare workers providing services to criminalised ‘key populations for HIV’ under Uganda’s 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act

This paper analyses the experiences of public healthcare workers in Uganda under the Anti Homosexuality Act (AHA) 2023, who specialise in the provision of HIV prevention and treatment services to criminalised ‘key populations’ for HIV, including men who have sex with men, transgender women, and female sex workers. Utilising in-depth semi-structured interviews with 17 public healthcare workers and participant observation with LGBTQ+ and HIV activists, public health officials, and development workers, this ethnographic study explored the legal, social and ethical challenges that public healthcare providers faced. Public healthcare workers have experienced various types of stigma from their work, including socio-legal stigma from the criminalisation of ‘promoting homosexuality’, stigma by association with key populations, concealment stigma, and denial. Legal ambiguities stemming from the AHA 2023 have led to security incidents for some public healthcare workers. The study highlights the ethical dilemmas that have arisen from the ‘duty to report’ clause, which conflicts with professional healthcare ethics of confidentiality, and the role the Ministry of Health played in passing the AHA 2023, instilling confusion about its enforcement, and minimising and denying the risks the legislation has had on Uganda’s HIV epidemic.

THE ROLE OF ISLAMIC LAW IN THE EQUITABLE DIVISION OF JOINT ASSETS POST-DIVORCE WITHIN URBAN SOCIETY: A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF ITS APPLICATION IN BANDUNG HIGH RELIGIOUS COURT

This research examines the legal certainty of joint property, defined as assets jointly acquired by spouses during marriage, particularly within the context of urban Muslim society. Using a descriptive-analytical method, it explores the relevance of joint property in the lives of married couples and its division post-divorce. The study highlights the legal ambiguities in Indonesia's current framework, particularly in Law No. 1 of 1974 on Marriage and the Compilation of Islamic Law (KHI). These regulations often fail to address modern family dynamics, such as when the wife is the primary breadwinner. This gap has resulted in inconsistent rulings in religious courts, particularly in urban areas where economic roles and gender dynamics are rapidly evolving. Focusing on the Bandung High Religious Court, the research emphasizes the importance of equitable asset division that reflects fairness, justice, and the lived realities of urban Muslim families. Findings suggest that while courts generally provide justice and legal certainty, there is a growing need for updated legal interpretations that accommodate changes in societal roles and expectations.

Decentralization of land development approval and economic impacts: A study on China's urban construction land reform

This paper explores how China's reform of the urban construction land approval system, which decentralized authority to provincial governments, affects enterprise total factor productivity (TFP) using a quasi-natural experiment approach. The reform streamlined processes, reduced legal ambiguities, and enhanced resource efficiency. Our findings indicate significant TFP gains primarily due to lower administrative costs and improved legal frameworks, emphasizing the pivotal role of regional governance and legal enforcement in economic outcomes. Additionally, the analysis highlights substantial TFP enhancements from reduced inefficient investments and financing constraints, with notable regional and enterprise-specific variations in the impact of legal reform.

THERAPEUTIC POTENTIAL OF BHANGA IN KASHTARTAVA: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Kashtartava (Dysmenorrhea) is a prevalent co-morbidity in women. The name "Kashtartava" might be inferred as the condition in which Artava sheds pain, which can be associated with Dysmenorrhea. Around the world, 50-90% of women in their reproductive years report having painful periods, a disorder known as Dysmenorrhea. In this review article, we delved into the traditional uses, pharmacological properties and challenges associated with using Bhanga (Cannabis sativa Linn) for managing Kashtartava and its related effects. Research expedition sheds light on the potential therapeutic benefits, mainly focusing on its active component, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which exhibits analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antiemetic, and neuroprotective properties. This review highlights the challenges in conducting rigorous research on using the herb during menstruation and pregnancy, owing to study design limitations and confounding variables. This legal ambiguity underscores the importance of understanding and addressing the cultural and legal context surrounding its use in contemporary healthcare prac-tices. Moreover, the psychoactive nature of THC raises concerns regarding its impact on mood and cognition, warranting cautious consideration in clinical applications.

Maritime Disputes from a Global Perspective and Solutions under International Law

This study explores the utilization and challenges of international laws in resolving global maritime disputes through a detailed analysis of representative cases from South America, Africa, and Asia. It highlights the crucial role of international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), in providing a legal framework and dispute resolution mechanisms. However, the study also identifies significant challenges, including political interference, legal ambiguity, and enforcement issues. By comparing regional dispute settlement mechanisms, the study demonstrates the effectiveness of multilateral negotiations in South America, regional legal frameworks in Africa, and a combination of multilateral and unilateral actions in Asia. Based on these insights, the study proposes several recommendations to enhance the international legal framework, promote regional cooperation, and innovate dispute resolution mechanisms. These measures aim to ensure fair and effective resolution of maritime disputes, maintain maritime peace and stability, and promote the healthy development of global ocean governance.

The Effectiveness of Indonesia's Anti-Corruption Law on Legal Reform and Implementation

This study examines the efficacy of Indonesia's anti-corruption legislation in the wider framework of legislative restructuring and its execution. The paper investigates the legal frameworks and regulatory measures implemented to combat corruption, using a normative juridical analysis. The primary objective is to examine the impact of these laws on legal reform, evaluate their enforcement, and highlight the problems encountered in their practical implementation. The results demonstrate substantial advancements in legislative actions, but also underscore enduring barriers in execution, such as legal ambiguities, administrative stagnation, and corruption within law enforcement entities. This study highlights the importance of implementing comprehensive legal reforms and strong policies to improve the effectiveness of anti-corruption measures in Indonesia. Guidelines are given to promote future anti-corruption efforts by improving the legislative framework, increasing institutional capability, and cultivating political backing.

Liminal legality and the construction of belonging: aspirations of Eritrean and Ethiopian migrants in Khartoum

ABSTRACT In this paper, I analyse forms of belonging and un-belonging created in a situation of permanent liminal legality in one’s place of residence. The concept of liminal legality zooms in on spaces of social existence in everyday lives in a context of legal ambiguity. The focus of the paper is Eritrean and Ethiopian migrant communities who resided in the Sudanese capital Khartoum in 2021. The majority had lived in Khartoum for decades, or were even born there, but remain without any hope for full legal status or citizenship in Khartoum. Based on 30 in-depth interviews with Eritrean and Ethiopian migrants, I analyse the complex and ambiguous forms of belonging and un-belonging this liminal legality produces, and how aspirations are created and shaped by it. I argue that in certain aspects of everyday life, liminal legality does not hinder a social existence as quasi-citizens of Khartoum. At the same time, important aspirations are being curtailed by liminal legality. This creates forms of un-belonging that undermine social existence. I conclude that migrants are subject to the enduring power of the nation-state in defining who belongs and who is excluded.

Death and the artificial placenta.

Artificial Amnion and Placenta Technology (AAPT)-sometimes referred to as 'Artificial Womb Technology'-could provide an extracorporeal alternative to bodily gestations, allowing a fetus delivered prematurely from the human uterus to continue development while maintaining fetal physiology. As AAPT moves nearer to being used in humans, important ethical and legal questions remain unanswered. In this paper, we explore how the death of the entity sustained by AAPT would be characterized in law. This question matters, as legal ambiguity in this area has the potential to compound uncertainty and the suffering of newly bereaved parent(s). We first identify the existing criteria used to delineate the legal characterization of death, which occurs before birth or during the immediate neonatal period in England and Wales. We then demonstrate that attempting to apply these in the context of AAPT gives rise to a number of challenges, which make it impossible to reach a definitive conclusion as to the nature of death in AAPT using the current legal framework. In doing so, we demonstrate that the current legal framework in England and Wales may be unable to adequately capture the situation of an entity being sustained by AAPT.

The Legality of the Defensive Measures Taken by the USA and the UK in Response to the Houthi Attacks

The article delves into the legality of defensive actions taken by the USA and the UK in response to the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Despite assertions that such actions are justified under the right to self-defence, legal ambiguities persist in international law. The authors argue that while attacks on merchant vessels by non-state actors may constitute armed aggression, clarity is lacking on whether they meet the criteria for self-defence. The USA and UK stress that attacks on their warships validate their defensive measures, framing them as necessary responses to significant threats. However, the authors contend that the principle of proportionality may have been disregarded, urging restraint in the use of force to safeguard ships while respecting Yemen’s sovereignty. The article underscores the need for a nuanced approach to assessing the legality and necessity of military actions in complex conflict scenarios.

Challenges and Strategies in the Return of Land Bailout Funds for Toll Road Construction: A Detailed Analysis of PT Hutama Karya's Approach

This study explores the factors that cause the delay in the process of returning the Land Bailout Fund (LBF) and examines potential problems related to the inability of the Government of Indonesia to return LBF to PT Hutama Karya (HK) in the context of the Trans Sumatra Toll Road project. Using a qualitative case study methodology in the framework of empirical law, this study integrates Gustav Radbruch’s theory of legal objectives to analyze the current legal regulations. Primary data were collected through interviews with key informants and secondary data on the realization of LBF at PT HK. The findings show that the main cause of the delay is the length of time it takes for the Commitment Making Officer (CMO) to prepare the LBF return submission documents, coupled with the slow verification process at the State Asset Management Agency (SAMI). In addition, problems related to the Land Bailout Fund that cannot be returned arise when the land acquisition is outside the specified area or when the business use right permit is not extended. The current laws and regulations, including the regulations of the Minister of Public Works and Public Housing and the Minister of Finance, are unable to overcome this gap, resulting in the failure to achieve legal goals in terms of justice and legal certainty. This study shows that this legal ambiguity inhibits the effectiveness of the LBF mechanism and recommends legislative changes to address this gap. By refining the legal provisions, the study supports increased fairness and certainty, ultimately benefiting the government and entities such as PT HK.

Was R2P Doomed to Fail?

This paper explores the origins of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle within the contemporary history of armed humanitarian intervention. By reviewing legal and political scholarship surrounding the concept of R2P and its application, this paper uses a constructivist lens to argue that R2P failed to be adopted as a principle of customary international law due to its normative and legal ambiguity. This paper concludes with a critical examination of R2P's first, and likely final, invocation during the Libyan crisis of 2011.

Harmonizing Rights and Rewards: Music NFTs as a Paradigm for Equitable Compensation in the Digital Era

This paper provides a critical examination of Music Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) within the context of the digital transformation of the music industry, focusing on the implications for equitable artist compensation. As digitalization reshapes consumption and revenue models, the advent of Music NFTs, predicated on blockchain technology, presents a nuanced paradigm for artist-fan interactions and compensation structures. Through an interdisciplinary methodology that integrates literature review and expert interviews, this study scrutinizes the operational mechanisms of Music NFTs, their potential to reconfigure the economics of music production, and the attendant legal and technical challenges. While Music NFTs proffer an innovative approach to direct artist revenue and engagement, this inquiry reveals a complex landscape fraught with legal ambiguities, technological hurdles, and market volatility. The findings underscore the dialectical relationship between the potential benefits of Music NFTs for artists and the prevailing challenges that circumscribe their efficacy.

Imposed Mobility, Legal Ambiguity, Institutionalized Abandonment: Exploring the Sex Work Crimscape in Contemporary Poland

When conceptually framed as a crimscape, the contemporary landscape of sex work criminalization can be understood as a complex array of policies relating to sex work, migration, trafficking, fiscality, and labor. Rather than working in isolation, these measures intertwine to shape the working conditions and lived realities of migrant sex workers. Through ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with Ukrainian sex workers in Poland, I demonstrate how this policy assemblage contributes to the vulnerabilization and precarization of migrant sex workers, marking their everyday existence with uncertainty and precarity, surveillance and policing, and the withholding of state protections, recognition, and rights. Analyzing the Polish sex work crimscape as a mode of sex work governance reveals how this policy assemblage translates into three interconnected conditions for migrant sex workers: imposed mobility, legal ambiguity, and institutionalized abandonment.

Some issues of compulsory vaccination of adults.

Legal regulation, whether we want it or not, plays a role in protecting and promoting individual and public health. This also applies to legislation involving vaccination, especially compulsory vaccination. It is appropriate that legislation should not create barriers to the provision of health care. Where there is legal ambiguity, problems can arise that make the provision of health care more difficult, as we have seen, for example, in the context of the COVID pandemic. Furthermore, in the case of compulsory vaccination, there is a conflict between fundamental rights and freedoms. On the one hand, the right to the protection of personal freedom and bodily integrity, and on the other, the right to life and health. Most compulsory vaccinations concern children. As far as adult vaccination is concerned, this mainly includes compulsory vaccination of medical and social staff caring for patients and operating at biological risk, as well as patient groups also at risk of serious infectious disease. For these reasons, it is essential that the legislation is such that it does not impose a burden where it is not necessary and, on the contrary, allows for optimal protection of persons at biological risk.

Authorship in artificial intelligence‐generated works: Exploring originality in text prompts and artificial intelligence outputs through philosophical foundations of copyright and collage protection

AbstractThe advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and its generative capabilities have propelled innovation across various industries, yet they have also sparked intricate legal debates, particularly in the realm of copyright law. Generative AI systems, capable of producing original content based on user‐provided input or prompts, have introduced novel challenges regarding ownership and authorship of AI‐generated works. One crucial aspect of this discussion revolves around text prompts, which serve as instructions for AI systems to generate specific content types, be it text, images, or music. Despite the transformative potential of AI‐generated works, the legal landscape remains fragmented, with disparate jurisdictional interpretations and a lack of uniform approaches. This disparity has led to legal uncertainty and ambiguity, necessitating a nuanced exploration of originality, creativity, and legal principles in the context of text prompts and resulting outputs. This article seeks to contribute to the ongoing debate by delving into the complexities surrounding AI‐generated works, focusing specifically on the originality of text prompts and their correlation with resulting outputs. While previous literature has extensively examined copyright issues related to AI, the originality of text prompts remains largely unexplored, representing a significant gap in the existing discourse. By analysing the originality of text prompts, this article aims to uncover new insights into the creative process underlying AI‐generated works and its implications for copyright law. Drawing parallels from traditional creative works, such as collages, the article will assess how legal principles apply to AI‐generated content, considering philosophical foundations as well as copyright principles, such as the idea‐expression dichotomy. Furthermore, the article will explore the divergent approaches taken by different jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, United States, and European Union, in determining originality in the context of copyright law. While refraining from providing definitive answers, the article aims to stimulate critical thinking and dialogue among stakeholders. By offering fresh perspectives and insights, it seeks to enrich the discourse surrounding the copyrightability of AI‐generated works and pave the way for informed policy decisions and legal interpretations. The article aims to contribute valuable perspectives to the ongoing debate on copyright and AI, shaping the future trajectory of intellectual property law in the era of artificial intelligence.