Legal Categories Research Articles

Legal text classification in Korean sexual offense cases: from traditional machine learning to large language models with XAI insights

Legal text classification in Korean sexual offense cases: from traditional machine learning to large language models with XAI insights

The Right to Information as a Basis for Individual Access to the Internet

The article explores the possibility of recognizing Internet access as a distinct human right. An analysis of theoretical legal frameworks and perspectives established within Russian legal doctrine has led to the conclusion that the right to Internet access lacks independent substantive content. This is because all elements that could potentially constitute such a right are either embedded within the structure of other legal categories or represent separate, already recognized individual rights. The foundational basis for human access to the Internet resides in the right to information, as all actions within the virtual domain occur exclusively through data exchange. At the same time, an individual’s practical ability to utilize this service depends on their financial means, since the constitutionally enshrined socioeconomic framework of the state mandates that the government’s role is limited to creating conditions enabling individuals to connect to the Internet, contingent upon their active initiative.

Cemetery as archive: A critical legal geography of two chronotopes

The legal classification ‘cemetery’ denotes a space with perpetual protection that has ensured the continuity of the presence of the dead settler. Yet not all deathscapes are ‘legal’ cemeteries and preservation is a privilege. Answering the call for critical legal scholarship that examines the workings of space and time in legal phenomena, this article enters the legal archives of Ontario, Canada and showcases how legal spatio-temporalities protect deathscapes of white heritage value, and concurrently, facilitate the desecration of places that do not fit the closed vision of the cemetery. Telling a story of two legal chronotopes, ‘cemetery’ and ‘burial site’, the article details the archival forces of the law on land and reveals the powers that sustain the very history that gives settler law its legitimacy.

The RECAPACITA PROJECT: comparative study of the clinical, neuropsychological, and functional profile of people with severe mental disorder and partial and total capacity modification.

Evaluating the decision-making capacity of individuals with Severe Mental Disorder (SMD) is essential for compliance with the 2006 Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. In Spain, capacity was historically determined through judicial procedures, resulting in partial or total capacity modification (CM). The abolition of this procedure in 2021 has left a gap in addressing the needs of this population, creating challenges under the new legal framework. The RECAPACITA project studied the clinical, neuropsychological, and functional profiles of individuals with SMD and CM, focusing on differences between partial (pCM) and total (tCM) modifications. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 77 adult patients with SMD and CM (47 tCM, 30 pCM) from the Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu mental health network (Spain). Sociodemographic, clinical, functional, and neuropsychological data were collected, along with an independent assessment of mental capacity. Around 87% of sample had a schizophrenia spectrum disorder; pCM patients presented more substance-related and personality disorders as a secondary diagnosis. While no statistically significant differences were observed between groups, clinically, tCM group presents greater clinical alteration, lower insight, sustained attention, coding capacity, processing speed and resistance to interference compared to pCM group. tCM group had worse social functioning, and lower scores in reasoning and appreciation when assessing mental capacity. Individuals with tCM show greater clinical impairment and higher support needs compared to those with pCM. With the practical and legal abolition of tCM, it is essential to ensure that these individuals' persistent challenges are adequately addressed, as their needs remain significant despite the disappearance of this legal category.

Beyond Slavery and Freedom in Ancient Mesopotamia

Abstract This special issue aims to move beyond the traditional binary of slavery and freedom in the study of ancient Mesopotamian societies. Legal texts have long shaped our understanding of social status in this region, but a broader approach incorporating diverse textual genres and diachronic comparison reveals a far more nuanced social landscape. The articles collected here argue that ethnic, legal, political, religious, and socioeconomic factors continually shaped groups with ambiguous statuses who were neither clearly citizens nor enslaved individuals. Rather than locating a fixed “third” legal category of “serfs,” the contributors emphasize distinctions such as citizens versus noncitizens or emancipated versus dependent household members – both free and enslaved. The volume refines the binary legal model, reaffirming that ancient Mesopotamia recognized only two legal statuses – free and unfree – but complicates how these were lived and perceived. Six key insights emerge, including the legal and social diversity within both categories, the importance of household structures, and the precarious positions of groups like muškēnū (“those who prostrate themselves”), un -il 2 (“menials”), temple dependents, war captives, freed slaves, and detained persons. Collectively, these studies challenge static interpretations and reveal the dynamic and context-dependent nature of social identity in ancient Mesopotamia.

Multi-Head Hierarchical Attention Framework with Multi-Level Learning Optimization Strategy for Legal Text Recognition

Owing to the rapid increase in the amount of legal text data and the increasing demand for intelligent processing, multi-label legal text recognition is becoming increasingly important in practical applications such as legal information retrieval and case classification. However, traditional methods have limitations in handling the complex semantics and multi-label characteristics of legal texts, making it difficult to accurately extract feature and effective category information. Therefore, this study proposes a novel multi-head hierarchical attention framework suitable for multi-label legal text recognition tasks. This framework comprises a feature extraction module and a hierarchical module. The former extracts multi-level semantic representations of text, while the latter obtains multi-label category information. In addition, this study proposes a novel hierarchical learning optimization strategy that balances the learning needs of multi-level semantic representation and multi-label category information through data preprocessing, loss calculation, and weight updating, effectively accelerating the convergence speed of framework training. We conducted comparative experiments on the legal domain dataset CAIL2021 and the general multi-label recognition datasets AAPD and Web of Science (WOS). The results indicate that the method proposed in this study is significantly superior to mainstream methods in legal and general scenarios, demonstrating excellent performance. The study findings are expected to be widely applied in the field of intelligent processing of legal information, improving the accuracy of intelligent classification of judicial cases and further promoting the digitalization and intelligence process of the legal industry.

Genesis of the legal institute of civil liability in Ukraine

In Ukraine, there is an urgent need to revise the approaches to the institution of civil liability. The modern unification of private law and the introduction of European standards have necessitated updating the provisions of the current legislation on civil liability. In addition, modern law enforcement practice requires a well-developed and scientifically sound concept of civil liability that would allow achieving maximum efficiency in restoring and protecting violated civil rights. This should take into account the main functions of civil liability, such as compensatory (aimed at restoring the victim’s damaged interests) and preventive (providing appropriate incentives to take precautions to reduce or avoid expected liability). Liability measures are an integral part of protection, as liability is inherent in definitive ways of protecting civil rights and interests. Liability alone cannot provide such protection, as it is a static legal category. This function is realized through the application of specific liability measures, which are called sanctions in civil law. The legal position that civil liability is the imposition of legal consequences on the offender, which are manifested in the deprivation of certain rights or in the replacement of an existing right with a new one, or in the addition of an additional right to an existing one, is quite common today. The civil law literature emphasizes that the application of liability measures is always based on the principle of guilt. When a person is imposed with an obligation that already existed but was not fulfilled voluntarily, this is not a measure of liability, but a measure of protection. The list of ways to protect civil rights is wider than the liability measures provided for by law, which makes it possible to significantly expand the actual possibility of protecting violated rights and restore violated interests as efficiently as possible, as well as to encourage participants to civil relations to behave in a socially desirable manner. At the same time, the issues of general grounds of liability for damage and conditions of civil liability, as well as the application of certain sanctions, are promising for further research.

From ‘migrant’ to ‘refugee’: what changed? Working lives of Ukrainian women in the Czech Republic

ABSTRACT In this article, I analyse labour market experiences of women from Ukraine in the Czech Republic. I build on critiques of political migration categories, particularly in regards to their inability to capture the complex realities faced by people on the move. However, my focus shifts away from the disjuncture between conceptual and policy categories and the broader social, economic, and political drivers of migration. Instead, I propose that the effects of changes in political rationalities and the creation of new legal categories must be examined in light of structural forces that remain largely unaffected by shifts in political and normative frameworks. My interest lies in how political migration constructs intersect with gendered and racialised mechanisms of value extraction. I argue that these mechanisms blur the boundaries within the legal hierarchy of rights, obligations, and opportunities derived from politically defined migration categories. In this context, rights stemming from temporary protection granted to women from Ukraine may fail to offer meaningful protection from precarious employment arrangements, as the structural forces governing labour markets override shifts in migration policy and legal classifications.

The Overseas Citizens of India: Law, Lives, and Institutional Practices

The Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) is a legal category introduced by an amendment in the Citizenship Act (1955) in 2003. This article locates the category of OCI in the contemporary landscape of citizenship in India by tracing the ideological framing of citizenship in 2003 when the OCI was given legal recognition as a status with ‘differentiated rights’, and then again in 2019–2021 following the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019, when the status was hedged in with reasons of state. Migration is often seen as precipitating a ‘crisis’ in citizenship and most countries evolve different modalities for addressing it. These modalities make themselves manifest as distinct tendencies in citizenship laws, generating citizenship regimes embedded in specific ideological formations. The High-Level Committee on the Indian Diaspora, which proposed the OCI, presented it as ‘dual citizenship’. Yet, the OCI fell short of being ‘dual’ citizenship. It merely allowed Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) who were citizens of other countries to obtain an Overseas Citizen of India Card (OCIC), which brought them specific entitlements including a life-long visa to travel to India. Dual citizenship is often seen as a reflection of ‘flexibility’ and the ‘choice’ that a mobile population has in negotiating its terms of ‘affective’ and ‘effective’ belonging. It also, however, reflects graded and uneven distribution of mobility and its recognition in citizenship laws. This article traces the uneven trajectory of the OCI in India through an examination of the debate over its legal contours, the political contexts in which the OCI took form, its elaboration through the intervention of courts and evisceration through amendments in law, alongside a mapping of how questions of ‘dissent’ and ‘loss’ of OCI status as well as ‘dual belonging’ figure in these debates.

New Organs on Command: The Regulatory Prospects of 3D Bioprinting Technology in the European Union

This article examines the evolving legal landscape of bioprinting in the European Union, focusing on the regulatory challenges posed by the hybrid nature of bioprinted products. These constructs – simultaneously biological and synthetic – defy conventional legal classifications and are conceptualised here as biosthetics. The analysis explores how existing EU regulatory instruments – including the ATMP Regulation, MDR, GDPR and SoHO Regulation – apply to bioprinting technologies across research and development as well as clinical implementation. The article argues that current frameworks, while comprehensive, remain fragmented and insufficiently adaptive to address the ontological and operational complexities of biosthetics entities. Three regulatory scenarios are presented: continued reliance on mode-of-action classification, incremental amendments to existing laws and the development of a novel regulatory model tailored to bioprinting. Ultimately, the article advocates for a paradigm shift towards anticipatory, participatory and ethically grounded governance that can respond to the challenges and promises of biomedical technologies in the biosthetics age.

TYPES OF SERVITUDES IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND THEIR LEGAL NATURE

This article analyzes various types of servitudes and their legal nature. It examines the classical classification of servitudes, their division into proprietary and personal servitudes, and the legal and practical challenges in defining these categories. The legislation governing personal servitudes in Austria, Switzerland, Latvia, Ukraine, and Georgia is studied, highlighting the procedures for their application. The article also explores how explicit and implicit servitudes are prevalent in countries such as Germany and France, resulting in significant differences in their legal classification and regulatory enforcement. Furthermore, the application of permanent and temporary servitudes is analyzed from a legal-scientific perspective. In examining the purposes for which servitudes are established in Uzbekistan, the article argues that servitudes should not be classified into distinct types under national legislation, as they are implemented based on agreements between the parties involved. The research provides a comprehensive examination of the role and types of servitudes within international and national legal frameworks. Notably, the application of servitudes can sometimes lead to legal disputes. This article evaluates the legal regulation of servitudes in foreign jurisdictions and reviews academic perspectives on the subject.

Semantic Diffusion as a Semasiological, Conflictological and Legal Linguistic Category in the Digital Dimension

The article is devoted to the study of semantic ambiguity of legal texts on environmental topics using innovative digital methods. The aim of the work is to identify patterns of semantic diffusion as a semasiological, conflictological and legal linguistic category based on the analysis of federal and regional laws. Using computer programmes that provide reverse translation and check texts for similarity, semantic shifts caused by the ambiguity of the source text were identified. It was determined that an extract from a federal law is more translatable, understandable and accurate than an extract from a regional legislative act. The regional document contains wording that allows for dual interpretation, which increases its conflict potential. It was found that semantic ambiguity is created by terms that reflect the specifics of legal culture and mentality and are interpreted ambiguously by lawyers and ordinary native speakers. The results obtained indicate the need to improve the clarity, comprehensibility and unambiguity of legal terminology, develop unified definitions of federal and regional legislation in general and in the field of environmental protection in particular, as well as develop recommendations for improving the quality of legal language. Further research can be aimed at automation of semantic diffusion analysis process, creating specialized linguistic tools for conducting legal expertise.

THE PUBLIC’S ROLE IN DEVELOPING STATE CUSTOMS POLICY: ECONOMIC AND LEGAL ASPECTS

This research topic examines the role of the public in shaping national customs policy in economic and legal terms. The research aims to analyse the framework of categories and concepts, to study the state of legal regulation and an economic component, and to identify the public role in shaping national customs policy. The methodology employed in this study encompassed a range of approaches to scientific knowledge, including systems analysis, dialectical methods, formal-logical methods, and structural-functional methods. Results. This paper sets out to analyse normative and theoretical approaches to defining the legal category of "state customs policy", and to render the content features of that category. The paper puts forward the argument that the economic component of domestic customs policy should be considered as a set of measures aimed at ensuring the state's economic security, stimulating foreign economic activity, replenishing the state budget, and developing the national economy through the regulation of customs relations. The fundamental components of the economic component of state customs policy are identified, namely: 1) customs regulation; 2) application of non-tariff regulation; 3) customs payments; 4) customs control; 5) promotion of foreign economic activity; 6) protection of the domestic market; 7) economic security. It is important to acknowledge that the public is defined as an active, legitimate, interested, and organised group of individuals and legal entities participating in public life to protect their interests and contribute to the development of society. The author delineates the general features of the legal category "public" as follows: 1) subjectivity (formed from individuals and/or legal entities, their associations, organisations, or groups); 2) legitimacy (activities meet the current legislation of Ukraine); 3) public position and interest in public issues (manifestation of interest and active stance in specific areas of public life, the achievement of specific interests and goals); 4) representation (can be represented by authorised persons acting on its behalf); 5) legal form of organisation (in particular, in the form of public organisations, trade unions, and self-organisation bodies). The economic component of domestic customs policy is predicated on the creation of favourable conditions for foreign economic activity, the protection of national interests, and the replenishment of the state budget. It has been substantiated that the economic component of state customs policy constitutes an important tool for the country's economic development and security. The following forms of public participation in the formation of state customs policy are systematised: public hearings, the functioning of the public council, public consultations, public expertise, citizens' appeals, co-operation with non-governmental organisations, involvement of the latter in monitoring activities of customs authorities, and engagement of public representatives in the work of commissions vested with the formulation and implementation of customs policy. A review of good practices is conducted, with a particular emphasis on the necessity of reinstating the operation of the institution of advisers under the Office of the Head of the State Customs Service of Ukraine and heads of customs.

Theoretical Aspects of the Basic Conditions for Liability: Restorative and Punitive Approaches under Russian Law

The concept of liability is a key one in jurisprudence. Its universal significance in civil law lies in the ability to monetize negative property results and impose financial consequences on the party involved. In criminal law, it is used to punish the offender. This paper analyzes fault as the most important element of the said legal institution and discusses the role of cause-and-effect relationship. The aim of this publication is to draw a sectoral comparison between important conditions of liability. The developing economic turnover in the Russian Federation requires to ensure the reproduction and multiplication of monetary values. The effectiveness of legal techniques, particularly in establishing fault, constitutes an initial condition for civil liability and cause-and-effect relationship between misconduct and an offence still determines the use of the full range of opportunities provided by law. In criminal law, the fault is a necessary basis for any criminal sanction, including a fine. The paper elucidates the concepts of fault and cause- and-effect relationship as a separate, stand-alone issues important for imposing criminal punishment, and showing the significant difference between these legal categories in civil and criminal law.

The legal parallelism in the case of money laundering and illicit enrichment crimes

This article analyzes the legal parallelism of offenses provided by Article 243 paragraph (1) letter c) and Article 3302 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Moldova. In this regard, the problematic qualification of these categories of offenses has been highlighted. Thus, in practice, when these offenses cannot be distinguished, a concurrence of offenses between money laundering and illicit enrichment is applied, which generates a violation of the principle of non bis in idem, established by Article 7 paragraph (2) of the Criminal Code. Furthermore, the legal classification of the act determines under which incrimination or offense the person accused of committing the act in question will be judged, constituting an essential condition of the right to a fair trial, guaranteed by Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Problems of the Conceptual-Categorical Apparatus of the Sphere of Digital Money Circulation

Introduction. Digital technologies have stormed into modern society. They have given it both unprecedented opportunities for further modernization and unprecedented risks and challenges. The sphere of monetary circulation was no exception. New processes and trends require scientific reflection, reflecting the knowledge gained in the relevant financial and legal categories and concepts. Theoretical Basis. Methods. The theoretical basis of the present study was provided by doctrinal sources on various aspects of the organization of monetary circulation from a legal and economic perspective. The purpose of the work – to develop new scientific knowledge, allowing to create a coherent system of conceptual and categorical apparatus of the sphere of monetary circulation. In order to achieve this goal, various methods of knowledge of legal reality were used, namely: dialectical-materialistic, logical, systemic, formal-legal, comparative-legal, methods of analysis and synthesis, interpretation of law. With their help, the article studies the approaches used by modern states to the legal regulation of public and private money, identifies problems of formation of conceptual and categorical system of financial law in the era of digitalization. Results. The digitalization of money circulation has intensified the competition of public and private money and has required a state-organized society to develop new approaches to the organization of money circulation. The emergence of a digital national currency in many countries was a response to technological challenges. This growing trend has all the prerequisites for turning into one of the regularities of modern state building. In this connection, the understanding of the digital ruble as a new form of the official currency of the Russian Federation is postulated. Discussion and Conclusion. Comparative analysis of the concepts of “digital ruble”, “di­gital currency”, “cryptocurrency” has allowed to justify the necessity of making changes in the Russian legal acts. Recognition of the digital ruble as a kind of digital currency, cryptocurrency as a type of private money gives the opportunity to create a slender, logically consistent conceptual and categorical apparatus of the money circulation sphere.

Conceptualization of public order in the system of legal categories

The article examines the institution of public order as a complex legal phenomenon in the civil law system of Ukraine. Based on the analysis of scientific sources and legislation, the essence and content of the category of public order, its features and significance for the legal system are revealed. Special attention is paid to the study of public order in the context of the invalidity of transactions and private international law. The problem of determining the content of public order in judicial practice and doctrine, its correlation with the norms of civil law are analyzed. Theoretical and practical problems of applying the category of public order as a basis for the invalidity of transactions are considered. The historical development of the concept of public order from Roman law to the present day is studied, its transformation in the Soviet period and the peculiarities of understanding in the conditions of a market economy. Special attention is paid to the analysis of public order as a mechanism for restricting the application of foreign law in private international law. Approaches to the definition of public order in the legislation and judicial practice of Ukraine are analyzed, in particular, certain positions of the Supreme Court of Ukraine on the interpretation of this category. The problem of the relationship between public and private law in the context of public order, as well as the features of its application in different legal systems, is studied. The specifics of the application of the category of public order in international commercial arbitration and in the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments are considered. Based on the conducted research, the need for a clear legislative definition of the category of public order and the improvement of the mechanisms for its application in judicial practice is substantiated. The conclusion is made about the dual nature of public order in civil law and its importance for protecting the fundamental interests of society and the state. Ways of improving the legal regulation of public order are proposed, taking into account international experience and modern trends in the development of law.

TYPES OF TAX BEHAVIOR AND THEIR DISTINCTIVE FEATURES AS A CRITERION FOR THE ADMISSIBILITY OF THE APPLICATION OF THE MUTUAL AGREEMENT PROCEDURE IN THE FRAMEWORK OF TAX CONVENTIONS

In the article the author examines the types of tax behavior and their peculiarities as the main criterion of admissibility of application of international legal mechanisms of settlement of international tax disputes, in particular, the Mutual Agreement Procedure. The Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP) is a key inter-agency administrative procedure provided for in all tax treaties (conventions) on the avoidance of double taxation (DTA). Before initiating a MAP or applying other provisions of a DTA, the competent authorities must determine what type of tax behavior has occurred in a particular legal situation. Based on the analysis of international and national tax legislation, as well as practices regulating issues related to lawful and unlawful behavior of a taxpayer in the implementation of tax planning of its financial and economic activities, the author analyzed the legal categories denoting types of acceptable and unacceptable tax behavior of taxpayers ("tax evasion", "tax avoidance", "tax mitigation", "tax planning"), highlighted the peculiarities of each type of tax behavior and identified their similarities and differences. In the course of the study, the author has identified the absence in international and national tax law of unified criteria for understanding acceptable and unacceptable tax behavior. Furthermore, the author has substantiated the expediency of fixing in the DTA and in the tax legislation of states the relevant unified criteria for understanding the types of tax behavior in terms of admissibility of application of MAP or other provisions of the DTA to them. This will facilitate the resolution of the issue of legal uncertainty in the determination of the types of tax behavior and markedly enhance the efficacy of the tax collection mechanism.

Geneva conventions and modern warfare technologies: issues of effective legal application

The article addresses the challenges of effectively applying the Geneva Conventions in the context of modern military technologies and contemporary armed conflicts. The aim of the study is to analyze the shortcomings of existing norms of international humanitarian law in the context of the Russia- Ukraine war and propose updates to the Geneva Conventions to regulate war crimes, protect civilians and prisoners of war, criminalize ecocide, and establish accountability for the use of advanced military technologies and hybrid warfare methods. The research employs general scientific methods of cognition, including analysis, synthesis, comparison, systematization, and generalization of legal norms and international practices. The findings indicate that while the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols form the foundation of international humanitarian law, contemporary armed conflicts have exposed their limitations. One of the key issues identified is the lack of an effective enforcement mechanism, leading to impunity for war crimes. Additionally, existing provisions fail to ensure adequate protection for prisoners of war, women, and children, who frequently become victims of violence and repression. Gaps have been identified in the regulation of private military companies and the use of emerging technologies, such as cyber weapons and artificial intelligence, which pose new threats to civilian security. The study also examines the issue of environmental crimes, which lack clear legal classification within international humanitarian law, complicating the prosecution of ecocide. The research substantiates the necessity of establishing mandatory international tribunals for investigating war crimes, independent of state political will. The study concludes that enhancing the effectiveness of international humanitarian law requires updating the Geneva Conventions to address modern challenges, automating legal enforcement processes, expanding the jurisdiction of international judicial bodies, strengthening accountability for violations of humanitarian law, and implementing effective oversight over the use of advanced military technologies. The practical significance of the study lies in developing recommendations for improving the Geneva Conventions to effectively address contemporary threats in the field of international humanitarian law.

Divine Law vs. Human Construct: The Unbridgeable Divide Between Sharia Law and Roman Law

This paper examines the profound ideological divide between Sharia law and Roman law, exploring the irreconcilable differences between a divine law and a human construct. The historical context of Sharia's expansion highlights its integration into all aspects of life, transcending the rigidity of Roman law, which was secular and fragmented. The central problematic addresses whether a legal system rooted in divine authority could ever be shaped by a framework founded on human ingenuity and political pragmatism. The research methodology is analytical, dissecting the foundational principles, sources, and legal classifications of both systems. The paper is structured into three sections: (1) the concept of rights, contrasting Sharia’s fusion of legal and spiritual duties with Roman law’s secular approach; (2) the sources of law, comparing Sharia’s divine origins with Roman law’s reliance on custom and codification; and (3) the classification of legal rules, focusing on Sharia’s holistic integration of moral, legal, and spiritual obligations, as opposed to Roman law’s compartmentalization of public and private spheres. Findings reveal that the foundational roots of these legal systems are inherently distinct, with Sharia emerging from divine will and Roman law from human production. The analysis dismantles any superficial claims of influence between the two, emphasizing that Sharia’s divine origin and comprehensive ethical framework set it apart as a visionary legal system, alien to Roman law’s human-centered pragmatism. This exploration reaffirms the originality and ethical depth of Sharia law, asserting its unbridgeable divide from Roman legal traditions.