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 article analyzes the operationalisation of platform accountability and co-regulation in influencer marketing through a Spanish case study. It proposes a framework of tri-responsibility (platforms, advertisers and influencers) and tri-control (judicial, administrative and self-regulatory). The empirical study examines the Spanish enforcement architecture (2023–2025) through a systematic review of EU instruments (UCPD, AVMSD, DSA and MiCA), national legislation and soft law, and content analysis of 77 Autocontrol resolutions; administrative decisions by CNMC, CNMV and AEPD; and landmark court cases. Findings show self-regulation as the main enforcement layer for transparency issues, with administrative and judicial interventions remaining selective and fragmented, especially in crypto assets and health-related products. The article identifies tensions in the allocation of responsibility and protection gaps in high-risk domains, offering lessons for designing effective and accountable co-regulatory systems in European media and platform law.

ABSTRACT Given the rising global prevalence of cyberattacks, cyber operations are being deployed with greater frequency in military settings. Despite rapid technological developments and associated threats, there is currently no binding international regulatory framework or agreement in place. It is frequently questioned whether the mechanisms of classic arms control (AC) can be adapted to the realities of cyberspace. In the field of AC, the regulation of chemical weapons represents a highly successful AC regime, effectively addressing various challenges. This paper employs an exploratory approach to address the challenges of AC for chemical and cyber weapons, highlighting both similarities and differences, drawing on expert interviews (n = 14), which are discussed in an interdisciplinary manner from the perspectives of political science and computer science. This study examines how prospective cyber-AC could potentially benefit from insights gained from past experiences. Our findings lay explorative conceptual groundwork, suggesting that AC in cyberspace could be achieved by adopting a broad definition of cyber weapons, shifting the focus from regulating technology to regulating contexts of use. Regarding soft law approaches, more attention could be paid to domain-specific mechanisms, such as an attribution mechanism. Furthermore, any prospective regulation must consider current standards, political will and diverse technical approaches.

Space is increasingly a theater for States’ and private companies’ activities. Space as a normative environment faces multiple challenges. Some of these are innate to space law proper, such as the limited applicability of the Moon Agreement. Others emanate from the general erosion of international law and arms control, technological developments and innovation. The limits of accepted space behaviors need urgent clarification. Absence of clear rules is likely to contribute to further unilateralism, at the cost of existing multilateral rules like the UN Charter, and to increased risk of conflict. A clear normative environment in space provides an environment with predictability, clarity and risk-minimization for states and private actors alike. To achieve this, states and private actors may want to look for progressive soft law steps, starting by agreeing on gaps, on useful measures to promote, like the ENMOD Convention, and on priorities such as the clarification of the law of self-defense and its limits.

Legal definitions shape rights, obligations, and protections in international, regional and domestic law. However, there is no universally accepted legal definition for individuals forced across borders by the impacts of climate change. This legal uncertainty creates protection gaps, leaving climate-displaced persons in limbo. The African Guiding Principles on the Human Rights of All Migrants, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers (2023) seeks to address this by explicitly defining "climate refugees" and "climate migrants". These definitions clarify state obligations and provide a framework for protecting climate-displaced persons, though as a soft law instrument its legal force depends on state domestication. This article examines the implications of these definitions within African regional law. It first explores the role of legal definitions in shaping and enforcing rights. It then evaluates pre-existing international and regional frameworks, highlighting the legal gaps in addressing climate displacement and mobility. The article critically analyses how the African Guiding Principles strengthen the protection of persons displaced by the impacts of climate change by confirming that they may qualify as refugees under the OAU Refugee Convention and introducing "climate migrant" as a distinct legal category. Finally, it assesses the challenges and opportunities in domesticating these definitions within African Union member states. The African Guiding Principles set a global precedent for legal responses to climate-induced displacement by formally recognising climate-displaced persons. This article argues that the domestic adoption of these definitions is essential to closing the gaps in protection and ensuring that the rights of African climate-displaced persons are respected, protected and fulfilled.

ABSTRACT The rapid expansion of platform-based gig work in ASEAN member states has exposed persistent regulatory gaps, including worker misclassification and fragmented labour protection. While the EU Platform Work Directive introduces a presumption of employment and enhanced algorithmic transparency, most ASEAN platform workers continue to be classified as independent contractors with limited social and labour safeguards. Drawing on regulatory governance theory, this study proposes a non-binding soft law framework, the ‘ASEAN Platform Gig Work Directive,’ based on doctrinal and comparative analysis of the EU approach. Rather than treating the EU Directive as a ready-made benchmark, the study conceptualises it as a contested regulatory experiment and adapts its lessons to ASEAN’s institutional diversity. It argues that soft law can function as an intermediate regulatory instrument to reduce fragmentation, enhance policy coordination, and support minimum labour protections in ASEAN’s evolving digital labour environment.

Near-Earth orbit, a limited resource of pivotal importance to the world economy and contemporary society, is under growing threat from the proliferation of space debris. This paper offers a critical legal study contending that the current international legal regime, a product of the Cold War era, is essentially deficient in responding to this 21st-century problem. A doctrinal analysis of the Outer Space Treaty and its offspring reveals profound lacunae: vague principles such as "due regard," a unworkable fault-based liability regime for on-orbit collisions, and excessive reliance on non-binding "soft law" mitigation guidelines. In addition, the article raises an alarm on the insurmountable legal obstacles in Active Debris Removal (ADR), a required environmental remediation method, mainly the perpetual state ownership and jurisdiction over space objects doctrine. It advocates for a shift in paradigm, recasting space debris as long-term pollution to be regulated by the tenets of international environmental law, such as the precautionary principle and the polluter pays principle. Finally, the paper builds a strong argument for the immediate negotiation of a new, all-encompassing and binding international treaty. It argues that such a treaty requiring verifiable standards of mitigation, creating new liability and insurance regimes, and providing a clear legal framework for ADR is not an obstacle to space activities, but the necessary condition for their long-term sustainability and for the safekeeping of the orbital commons for future generations. Keywords: Space Debris, Outer Space Treaty, International Space Law, Orbital Pollution, Liability Regime, Active Debris Removal (ADR), Precautionary Principle, Polluter Pays Principle

The causal linkage between climate change, natural disasters and displacement has been strongly evidenced by data published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, International Organisation on Migration and the UNHCR. Climate change, while often not the direct driver of displacement and migration, can worsen existing vulnerabilities, in turn exacerbating the issue. It is precisely this facet that makes it difficult to identify such cases, especially given the lack of focused studies in this regard in South Asia. The authors in this piece explore the governance of such climate change–induced and natural disaster–induced displacement in South Asia. The region consists of some of the most vulnerable areas to climate change, with deltaic regions and shorelines already witnessing reduced land area, driving displacement, both internal and cross-border. In spite of that, in South Asia, there exists a legal and policy gap in regard to addressing the protective concerns of such a vulnerable population. Most of the countries in the region have adopted ad hoc administrative approaches to deal with the issue, which has been criticized for the lack of uniformity in application or disregard for international norms and soft law frameworks that govern this sector. On the other hand, a promising new regional cooperation has emerged in the form of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), and addressing climate change has featured heavily on its agenda already. Leaning on state-led regional initiatives like the Nansen Initiative, BIMSTEC could potentially develop a home-grown collaborative venture geared towards consultative processes and incorporating soft law normative obligations, significantly contributing to protection measures in this regard. The authors argue that, in light of such unstructured approaches by South Asian states, leveraging BIMSTEC to yield such approaches may contribute heavily to collaboratively curating climate change and disaster displacement governance regimes.

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.

Despite the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) across multiple sectors, its deployment generates significant risks for human rights, exacerbates structural inequality, and produces outcomes of limited predictability. These dynamics make the development of robust ethical and legal governance frameworks both urgent and complex. Uzbekistan adopted Ethical Rules for the development, deployment, and use of AI-based solutions in 2026, marking an important step in national regulatory development. Yet questions of implementation, understood here as the formal incorporation of normative principles into binding legal instruments and the establishment of institutional enforcement mechanisms, remain largely unresolved. This paper employs a comparative legal analysis method, grounded in soft law theory and legal transplant theory, to examine how Uzbekistan's emerging AI governance framework aligns with international standards, including UNESCO's 2021 Recommendations, the OECD Principles on AI, and the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act. The analysis identifies six structural gaps in Uzbekistan's current framework and proposes a pathway from declaratory principles toward enforceable, institutionally supported standards. The paper contributes to the emerging literature on AI governance in transitional legal systems and to broader debates on the conditions under which soft law instruments can effectively constrain technological risk.

The authors of the study investigate institution of independent directors in BRICS state members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) as a transplanted element of Anglo-American corporate governance. A goal of exploration is to test the widespread assumption that increasing a number of “independent” directors automatically improves corporate oversight in jurisdictions with concentrated ownership and strong state participation. Methodologically the research relies on comparative doctrinal analysis of legislation, stock exchange rules and soft law codes, complemented by a critical review of empirical studies and statistics on corporate board composition and liability trends. The argument develops in three main parts. First, the legal framework section maps how independence requirements are formulated and enforced in BRICS, highlighting differences in the level, form and strictness of regulation. Second, the “fundamental issues” section links the independent director to contested corporate governance goals (shareholder value versus stakeholder welfare) and to the agency problem under capital concentration, showing why the classic U.S rationale does not straightforwardly apply here. Third, “contemporary challenges” section examines a gap between formal and real independence, specific tensions of independent directors in state-owned or state-influenced companies, incentive structures shaped by reputation, remuneration and liability insurance, and Russia’s anti-sanctions regime as an experimental suspension of board level independence. The authors conclude formal independence criteria and numerical quotas are neither sufficient nor context neutral. In the field of BRICS members the performance of independent directors depends on clarifying whose interests they are meant to protect and on aligning incentives so that genuinely autonomous judgment is possible despite concentrated ownership, state influence and rising personal liability risks.

Marine imaginaries—cultural and political ways of imagining order at sea—shape both fictional representations of piracy and contemporary efforts to govern it, reflecting enduring fascination with the ocean as a space of both disorder and morality. As part of this broader imaginary, Pirates of the Caribbean dramatises a tension between lawlessness and legality at sea through the Code of the Brethren. Although this fictional code of conduct is frequently invoked by the franchise’s protagonists as the cornerstone of pirate culture, the rules set out in the Code are regularly bent or ignored to serve individual or collective self‐interest. Notably, the Code is perceived as “guidelines” rather than actual rules, yet exerts clear normative influence. This article compares this fictional rule of law among pirates in the Disney franchise with contemporary regional regimes governing piracy, reflecting on the tension between formal rules and the operational adaptability of maritime governance in both settings. Similar to the Code in Pirates of the Caribbean, not all anti‐piracy agreements are legally binding. Drawing on interviews with decision‐makers, the article explores the binding nature of regional agreements and draws parallels to the informality of rules in the films. Discussing the practical benefits of soft law for effective anti‐piracy cooperation, the article adds to the growing literature on “blue legalities,” exploring oceanic issues from a combined humanities and law perspective.

ABSTRACT AI comprises a set of interdependent technologies embedded within a broader digital ecosystem of computing, data, networks and models. This paper asks how non-binding (‘soft law’) instruments, such as standards, frameworks and assurance processes, govern this ecosystem and what institutional variations make them effective. We address this question through a comparative analysis of the US and Israel, showing that each represents a distinct variant of soft law: a market-led regime driven by procurement, voluntary frameworks and deference to private governance in the US and a coordinated regime anchored in national strategy and inter-ministerial alignment in Israel. Both sustain innovation while managing risk, yet they differ systematically in accountability (assurance intensity and oversight mechanisms) and diffusion (the speed and scope of adoption). The analysis demonstrates that there is not a single ‘soft law’ regime and outlines policy options for strengthening adaptive, trust-based governance across digital ecosystems.

This study examines the implementation of halal tourism policies in Indonesia in the contemporary era, which has developed amid regulatory fragmentation and regional-level differences in interpretation, due to the absence of a comprehensive national legal umbrella. Halal tourism is not placed solely as an economic and branding instrument, but as a public legal policy issue related to legal certainty, normative authority, and the achievement of benefits. This research employs normative legal methods, including legislative and conceptual approaches. The analysis was carried out qualitatively through doctrinal interpretation and critical legal reasoning of laws and regulations, regional policies, DSN-MUI fatwas, and relevant academic literature. The results of the study show that the absence of national regulations has given rise to a plurality of halal tourism policy models, ranging from the binding formalisation of Sharia in Aceh, a pragmatic market-based approach in West Nusa Tenggara, to the rejection of halal terminology in Bali, based on the protection of cultural identity. In this context, the DSN-MUI fatwa functions as a normative and ethical authority that is a soft law without juridical binding, so it has not been able to guarantee the consistency of halal tourism governance nationally. An evaluation based on maqasid shari'ah, especially the protection of religion, intellect, and property, shows that halal tourism policies across regions still tend to be symbolic and pragmatic and have not fully realized the benefits or increased the utility of tourists in worldly and ukhrawi (falah) ways. This study concludes that a national policy framework for halal tourism is needed, based on adaptive, inclusive minimum national standards that ensure legal certainty while respecting the plurality of regional cultures. The academic contribution of this research lies in the formulation of a halal tourism legal framework based on maqasid shari'ah that integrates Islamic normative values with the principles of decentralisation and pluralism of Indonesian law.

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 article examines the ethical and normative framework governing the use of generative artificial intelligence systems in scientific research, with particular emphasis on soft law mechanisms emerging within the academic community. It proceeds from an understanding of science as a social practice aimed at producing true and justified knowledge, in which responsibility for the content of research outcomes necessarily rests with the human researcher. The article concludes that a balanced regulatory model should combine the rejection of absolute prohibitions on the use of AI with requirements of transparency, verification, and the preservation of individual authorial responsibility.

ABSTRACT With the expansion of artificial intelligence worldwide, countries have started adopting the sandbox regime commonly used in the financial sector to examine AI applications in various domains and contexts. The European Union has gone even further, with its new Artificial Intelligence Act obliging EU Member States to establish AI sandboxes. This article proposes an optimal model for regulatory cooperation in AI sandboxes at the national level. Drawing on the experience of Fintech sandboxes, including the Digital Securities Sandbox in the United Kingdom, the article examines various potential models for operating regulatory sandboxes in the field of AI: jointly administered cross-sector sandboxes, separate sandboxes with a single-entry mechanism, and separate sandboxes with independent entry points. Additionally, the article evaluates the mechanism of a joint regulatory committee, whether as a statutory body with decision-making power or as a coordinating committee based on soft law instruments such as memoranda of understanding.

The construction of the Human Right to Food Security is a constant evolution. While human rights manifest themselves as self-integrative dimensions and in constant construction, these rights derive their validity from the dignity that every person bears on their individual level as they are being conquered through historical struggles symbolizing the achievement of people against oppression. The World Food Summit, organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization, held in Rome in 1996, definitively associated the fundamental role of the Human Right to Adequate Food with the guarantee of Food and Nutritional Security which includes the right to clean air; a safe and stable climate; access to safe water and adequate sanitation; healthy and sustainably produced food. The IPCC last report states that there are widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have already occurred implying that approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change. The general adaptation clause is presented in the UNFCCC Paris Agreement on the article 7.1 and establish the global goal on adaptation of enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability on a perspective of intergenerational equity. Mainstreaming is to integrate this adaptation policy within other policies, coordinating the efforts on systemic, organizational, and individual level, establishing not only a general and apart approach of the article 7.1 of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement, but a full integrated adaptation policy in food security. The bottom-up characteristic of this soft law presents a form of multilateral and multilevel governance approach that presents the possible solution from a global to local perspective. This article is based on bibliographic and document analysis, and it’s based on the hypothesis that general policy is better achieved through its integration with a specific one that approaches a specific subject. Briefly the main goal of the adaptation policy is to be mainstreamed with/in food security policy to achieve both objectives thus realizing the aspirations of the international climate change regime and realizing the human right to adequate food.

This article aims to explain the most representative type of legal norm in the context of globalization. In this sense, soft law is initially understood as a manifestation of diverse instruments. For this purpose, it also highlights the importance of the Legal Sociology perspective, starting from the hypothesis that, with citizens largely excluded from decision-making that affects them with a high level of vulnerability, a socio-legal fiction is created. The applied methodology discusses economic, political, and legal globalization, and then delve into an analysis of soft law itself, revealing deductively its most characteristic features. Finally, it is concluded that another means must be found to replace or complement soft law in order to protect the vulnerable groups, given the problems surrounding the fiction of a production of rules disconnected from citizens that claim to be guarantors of justice.