The primary concern of the present paper is the cost of acquiring information by judges and legislators in the process of regulating new technologies. The paper distinguishes between risky and uncertain applications of technology. A risky technology poses an obvious risk, and the problem before the regulator is one of comparing cost and benefit. We argue that the judiciary, which acquires information gratis from litigants, is better suited to the regulation of risky technologies. Uncertain technologies, on the other hand, can be harmful in ways which cannot be foreseen at the time of the technological innovation. Cost and benefit are incalculable; regulation must instead be based on subjective preferences about the degree of uncertainty that society should tolerate. Legislative law-making is designed with a view to aggregating subjective preferences. Accordingly, uncertain technologies should be regulated through statute.

This article contributes to the discussion about proper product safety in the wake of disruptive digital technologies. By picking the example of 3D printing we analyse why incumbent product liability law does not incentivise optimal deterrence of harmful 3D printed products. We identify the new business models associated with 3D printing as the main trigger for the non-applicability of incumbent liability law. The new business models are characterised by making no strong reference to economies of scale. As a result, the informational content of specific producers and their products is scarce and the identification of tortfeasors becomes a challenge for the legal system. While there is yet no easy solution to the problem, we provide at the end of the article an inventory of institutions that may take the lead in finding new proper liability rules and safety regulations.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a part of our daily lives at a fast pace, offering myriad benefits for society. At the same time, there is concern about the unpredictability and uncontrollability of AI. In response, legislators and scholars call for more transparency and explainability of AI. This article considers what it would mean to require transparency of AI. It advocates looking beyond the opaque concept of AI, focusing on the concrete risks and biases of its underlying technology: machine-learning algorithms. The article discusses the biases that algorithms may produce through the input data, the testing of the algorithm and the decision model. Any transparency requirement for algorithms should result in explanations of these biases that are both understandable for the prospective recipients, and technically feasible for producers. Before asking how much transparency the law should require from algorithms, we should therefore consider if the explanation that programmers could offer is useful in specific legal contexts.

New business models, such as that of Airbnb, have led to a rise in the use of residential properties as short-term lets. In this paper, the writer considers the social efficiency of the use of the public town planning system and alternative private law systems, to regulate the activity. Specifically, the paper considers the use of these in order to tackle spill-over amenity effects upon neighbouring properties. The writer applies the general framework of Ellickson (1973) in performing a comparative economic analysis of the systems. This includes an analysis of the “90-nights” rule of UK planning law, which applies to London. The writer argues that in the specific case of short-term lets, the private law systems disclose relatively low transaction costs. This, in conjunction with their allocative efficiencies, makes them preferred to town planning. Taking into account the problem of nonconvexities, it is concluded that the “90-nights” rule, and the requirement for planning permission for short-term lets, should be repealed. This conclusion encloses an understanding that the amenity effects considered here involve little uncertainty. The courts, if equipped with private information from litigants and public information from development plans, are well placed to regulate this activity.

EU and UK animal protection laws are underpinned by arguments based on the perceived desirability of reducing animal suffering. Technological innovations, however, give rise to ethically problematic situations in which suffering is not present or where it is not necessarily the only issue. Moreover, these developments further expose non-suffering related problems that were already present in existing areas of animal use. The existing animal protection laws are not capable of adequately addressing these problems. The concept of dignity might be a promising alternative. It is capable of covering situations other than those in which welfare is an issue, and using it might make the law more internally consistent.

This article investigates the rise of algorithmic disease surveillance systems as novel technologies of risk analysis utilised to regulate pandemic outbreaks in an era of big data. Critically, the article demonstrates how intensified efforts towards harnessing big data and the application of algorithmic processing techniques to enhance the real-time surveillance and regulation infectious disease outbreaks significantly transform practices of global infectious disease surveillance; observed through the advent of novel risk rationalities which underpin the deployment of intensifying algorithmic practices to increasingly colonise and patrol emergent topographies of data in order to identify and govern the emergence of exceptional pathogenic risks. Conceptually, this article asserts further howthe rise of these novel risk regulating technologies within a context of big data transforms the government and forecasting of epidemics and pandemics: illustrated by the rise of emergent algorithmic governmentalties of risk within contemporary contexts of big data, disease surveillance and the regulation of pandemic.

Since 2007, a surge of new gambling opportunities, often referred to as social casino gaming, has emerged on social media platforms and mobile apps. At the present time, the social casino gaming industry is unregulated and challenges our conventional understanding of gambling and risk. Currently, the minimum age requirement to create a profile on Facebook and engage in social casino games is 13 years of age. The emergence of this new gambling frontier, and its low barrier to entry, inevitably adds a new layer of risk and raises several ethical considerations for public health and risk regulation professionals, particularly to developers’ use of game mechanics and advanced data analytics. Using findings from a virtual ethnographic case study focusing on Zynga Poker (ZP), this article will call attention to potential ethical and risk concerns about game mechanics and the use of big data to personalise players’ gameplay to optimise player engagement and monetisation.

This article examines the convergence of myriad forms of information on people who come to be targets of state and public control due to the perceived risk they present through having been alleged to have not disclosed their HIV-positive status to sex partners. Attending to the material, violent impacts of criminalisation – violence, both legal and extralegal – this article outlines how punishment is enhanced and amplified through the flow of information. Focusing on the material impacts of flows of information about the daily lives of people who face criminalisation moves analysis beyond solely a theoretical object of inquiry and helps to frame an understand that the effects of big data operate not just “within” big data surveillance, but also “beyond” big data surveillance.

This article compares the regulatory liability of German banks for aiding tax evasion under the German Act on Regulatory Offences with the UK corporate offences of failure to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion under the Criminal Finances Act (CFA) 2017. The study demonstrates that the approaches share some similarities; however, major differences are also evident. Unlike the German approach, the CFA provisions are designed as strict liability provisions, whereas the German regulatory offence requires an intentional or negligent omission to take the supervisory measures required to prevent contraventions of the law. Moreover, the scope of the offences under UK law is wider than the scope of their German equivalent. In addition, the CFA provisions do not place financial limits on the fines that can be imposed. Because of these differences, the CFA is likely to be more effective in preventing banks from aiding tax evasion than its German counterpart. Consideration should therefore be given to reforming German law to make it more like its UK equivalent, especially in the post-Panama Papers world.

In July 2018 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that organisms obtained from most New Plant Breeding Technologies (NPBT) fulfil the requirements of the GMO definition of Directive 2001/18. Practically, organisms created with NPBT have since been legally treated as GMOs. While we do not seek to contest the judgment in itself, in the present contribution we draw attention to the effects of such a categorisation from the perspective of communication science. Extrapolating from communication research conducted in adjacent technology domains, we will argue that by putting organisms obtained from NPBT semantically in the same basket as GMOs may carry a serious risk – transferring analogous communication problems that GMOs encountered in the past, to organisms obtained from NPBT, while they may not address similar risks. Possible consequences such as these can hardly be considered at the stage of legal interpretation (such as with the CJEU). Rather, as discussion now unfolds whether and how to change the legal definition, insights from communication science and risk perception research on the effect of such a definition should be taken into account.

This article reports on and discusses the findings of the first systematic study on Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) reforms in developing and transition economies. The macro part of the study reveals that between 2001 and 2016 60 such reforms were launched in total, with 20 of them leading to functional RIA systems two years or more after they were initiated. Appropriate and complete reform design, analysed by measuring compliance with six internationally recognised “good practices”, is found to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for early success. To develop a better understanding of challenging factors for RIA reforms’ success the micro part of the investigation analyses four case studies (Botswana, Cambodia, Kenya and Uganda). Findings point to the importance of donor flexibility and patience and the need for building reform constituencies inside and outside government. The traditional orthodoxy of regulatory impact assessment reforms as an extension of red tape reduction is challenged. The article finally presents several possible policy implications of the findings.

On 14 November 2018, Poland’s Ministry for Agriculture and Rural Development notified the European Commission (hereinafter, Commission) of its intention to introduce mandatory country of origin labelling (hereinafter, COOL) for potatoes on the basis of a Draft Regulation of the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development amending the Regulation on the labelling of certain foodstuffs (hereinafter, Draft Regulation).1 Poland’s notification is the most recent example of the continuously increasing number of EU Member States’ measures on COOL for foodstuffs. While the EU already provides COOL requirements for fruits and vegetables in Regulation (EU) No 543/2011 of 7 June 2011 laying down detailed rules for the application of Council Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 in respect of the fruit and vegetables and processed fruit and vegetables sectors2 (hereinafter, Regulation (EU) No 543/2011), they do not apply to fresh potatoes.