The IBF is a quotient of the relative numerical value of two fundamental rights – the numerical value assigned as a result of input elements for the right to privacy divided by the numerical value assigned to the freedom of expression as a result of input elements. The input elements are internet vulnerability, degree of interference into privacy, the element of time, public interest, public figure, how the information was obtained and empathy. The Internet Balancing Formula is capable of maximising the element of transparency and minimising the element of arbitrariness in private online balancing. It is therefore a tool that brings optimised order to the online dimension of conflicting fundamental rights. The formula can claim correctness in a given time–space related context. It is a rational, mathematical and living instrument.

This chapter critically reviews the extant scholarship of state formation. It argues that the excessive attention to war and violence produces a confrontational interpretation of state–society relations and neglects the state's role in public goods provision vital to domestic governance. It outlines the main theme of the book, which is to bring state legitimation through public goods provision into the scholarship of state formation. It argues that a public interest-based discourse of state legitimation furnished a common normative platform for state and society to collaborate in various issues of domestic governance. This platform allowed state and society to complement each other's weakness in pursuit of good governance. It also provided a limited yet important space for political participation that could be accepted by the state authorities. Although this space was grounded in the conception of "passive rights" rather than "active rights" – that is, rights granted by the state rather than inalienable to the individual – it allowed for a growing degree and scale of political organization and activity and laid the basis for a rethinking of the role of such rights in state formation.

The proclaimed duty of the state to safeguard the public interest provided a space for subordinates to engage with ruling authorities. It entailed the right of the ruled to remind the state to fulfill its obligation in the case of specific welfare grievances of its subjects. Such a right was passive, as it was derived from the state's duty to protect the public interest. The patterns of state response to popular claim-making were similar across Tudor and early Stuart England, Tokugawa Japan, and Qing China. The right to petition authorities was granted to individuals; yet the state did not allow crowd petitions, which were universally treated as disrespectful to authority and as a threat to social order. However, the state across these three cases was tolerant of collective petitions caused by cross-regional or cross-sectoral conflicts of interest, and it tried to arbitrate disputes as an impartial guardian of the public interest. The increasing scale of conflicts of interest that arose with population growth and commercialization led to larger-scale and well-organized popular petitions that were still accepted by the state. Such petitioning represented a political space that had great potential to expand with socioeconomic development.

This chapter examines famine and poverty relief in Tudor and early Stuart England, Tokugawa Japan, and Qing China. Relief in subsistence crisis was the most basic obligation of the state to the public interest. The same platform of a public interest-based discourse of state legitimation led to two different directions in state–society interactions in famine relief. Tudor and early Stuart England and Tokugawa Japan had decentralized fiscal systems, and municipal and rural granaries managed by local authorities and social elites were dominant. Yet when a major subsistence crisis occurred, the royal government and shogunate as the highest political authority in each realm had to intervene to protect the welfare of wider regions or even the entire country. In contrast, the Qing state in China had a centrally managed fiscal system that played a significant role in transferring funds and grain across regions in times of major subsistence crisis. The technical difficulties in managing state granaries across the country, however, led the Qing state to encourage local elites' participation in building and managing nonofficial granaries to benefit local inhabitants and to make up for the inadequacies of the state system.

Public infrastructural facilities such as dikes, highways, bridges, and seawalls were vital to domestic welfare. Financing their building and maintenance required extensive and sustained state–society collaboration, which was grounded in the shared public interest-based discourse of state legitimation. In fiscally decentralized Tudor and early Stuart England and Tokugawa Japan to 1853, self-governed communities were active in building and managing small- and medium-scale public works. But for large-scale infrastructural facilities, the royal government and shogunate had to become involved through ad hoc financing measures to cover the otherwise insupportable costs. The reverse was true in Qing China prior to 1840. The Qing state could reply upon a centrally managed fiscal system to directly fund the building and maintenance of major public works. For small-scale public works that mainly benefited local residents, it encouraged investment and involvement by local communities and gentry. It also advanced official funds to repair important local water control projects and let the benefited communities return the funds to the state over time without interest.

This chapter introduces in detail the comparability of three early modern states: Tudor and early Stuart England between 1533 and 1640, Tokugawa Japan between 1640 and 1853, and Qing China between 1684 and 1840. Each episode examines governance during a period of relative domestic peace after the state had consolidated its power and established an administrative structure. The early modern state as an impersonal governing apparatus over delimited territory is common to these three cases. Likewise, a public interest-based discourse of state legitimation linked to concrete performance in domestic governance is found in all three states, despite their respective differences in territorial scale, political institutions, and international circumstances. Although each state had a different fiscal basis, state fiscal capacity remained highly limited. Given this constraint, state–society collaboration was key to attaining good domestic governance; and the norm of state responsibility for the public interest facilitated such collaboration to the benefit of both state and society. The chapter discusses under what conditions such state–society cooperation failed, showing the limits to the resilience of the early modern state.

The public interest-based discourse of state legitimation continued to serve as a common normative platform for state–society interactions when each state's capacity was greatly enhanced under new socioeconomic circumstances in England (1640–1780), Japan (1853–1895), and China (1840–1911). The state–society interactions over domestic public goods provision were politically similar to those in the earlier episodes, though the scale and organizational capacity of social actors became much greater. Petitions to the state to redress specific welfare grievances did not escalate into demands for political reforms. In contrast, issues of nonmaterial public good, such as "true Christianity" in England and "national honor" in Japan, as well as the ensuing tension between the international and domestic dimensions of public interest, mobilized large-scale cross-regional and cross-sectoral petitions of public grievance. These petitions demanded fundamental political reforms in England and Japan. In China before 1895, the lack of conflict between diverse dimensions of the public interest accounts for the absence of such petitions of public grievance. When that changed, China likewise saw petitions for political change prior to the collapse of the Qing in 1911.

Chapter 5 takes a deep dive into the history of US agrochemical regulation in order to show that innovative companies were a major force behind the adoption of institutions that required the precautionary reevaluation of existing products, in opposition to generic producers who stood to lose out from such institutions. Using an original dataset that tracks changes to US agrochemical regulations over a two decade period, the chapter then provides evidence that in the wake of these institutions’ implementation, regulations have become stricter on older, less profitable products over time for reasons that cannot be attributed to health, safety, or obsolescence alone. In addition, the chapter provides evidence that the mechanism behind this outcome is not the political power of producers but rather their ability to leverage their information advantages under a regulatory regime in which products are subject to precautionary reevaluations.

People who hold political power must convince the masses that they have the legitimate authority to exercise it. They use patriotism and propaganda to persuade citizens that they have a duty to their fellow citizens to obey government mandates. The elite argue that the obligation to comply with the government’s rules amounts to a social contract, even though that term is reserved for academic use. This chapter uses social contract theory to explain how the messaging of the political elite creates citizen compliance, and how the elite are able to use this to their advantage. Social contract theory depicts the social contract as a way to escape from a prisoners’ dilemma, making everyone better off. This chapter uses that framework to show how the elite benefit from propagandizing the masses to believe that they have an obligation to abide by the rules designed by the elite.

For most of human history, societies were divided into the rulers and the ruled. Citizens were subjects of their governments and were obligated to obey the orders of their rulers. Enlightenment ideas changed the way that citizens viewed their relationship to government. The view that citizens were subjects of their governments and obligated to serve their governments was reversed, so people increasingly thought that government should serve its citizens rather than the other way around. Democratic political institutions that increasingly were adopted as a result can act as a constraint on those who hold government power, but they also convey legitimacy to the exercise of that power. Democratic political institutions create the illusion that the political elite are accountable to the masses. Meanwhile, the masses, who have an incentive to be rationally ignorant about public policy measures, adopt their public policy views from those offered them by the elite.

This entry examines whether the existing transparency gap between the investment treaty arbitration and international commercial arbitration regimes should be maintained, considering three factors: (i) the nature of the public interest, (ii) the role of confidentiality, and (iii) the role of party autonomy. The author concludes that the transparency gap should - as a general matter - be maintained. Although the public interest in particular international commercial arbitration cases can be significant - most notably in cases involving state entities or statutory claims - on a systemic level the public interest in internationalcommercial arbitration contrasts sharply with investment treaty arbitration, where cases consistently involve state entities and challenges to government measures. Equally important, two cornerstones of international commercial arbitration also support the existing transparency gap: (i) the availability of discreet and dispassionate dispute resolution, made possible by confidential proceedings, and (ii) the primacy of party autonomy. But with respect to the public availability of arbitral awards, the author concludes that the transparency gap should be narrowed significantly, given larger developments regarding international commercial dispute resolution and public access to decision-making.

The need to reform international commercial arbitration has to this day timidly–if not hardly–been acknowledged. The authors argue in this contribution that such timid inquiry has in any event been initiated for the wrong reasons. International commercial arbitration should not be reformed merely in response to the ongoing legitimacy crisis of international investment arbitration. To the contrary, time is ripe for a discussion about the general need for reform of international arbitration, as it has become the quasi-exclusive forum selected for the settlement of investment but also international commercial disputes. The disputing parties’ fundamental role in consenting to arbitration cannot exonerate any type of international arbitration from an inquiry as to the greater need for transparency and consistency of the arbitral decision-making process as well as accountability of arbitrators. Acknowledging the need for reform, however, does not imply submitting all types of arbitral dispute resolution to the Procrustean ISDS reform bed. Enhancing international commercial arbitration’s legitimacy inevitably requires tailor-made reform.

In Chapter 13, Lee Drutman asks more generally whether the contemporary Congress can serve the general public interest or merely narrow, particularistic ones. The chapter examines the effects of crucial changes in the contemporary Congress vis-à-vis earlier periods, including increased efforts by incumbents to raise money through campaign donations, a growth in advocacy and lobbying by private special interests, and intense party polarization. Moreover, the chapter considers whether the recent developments invalidate earlier understandings of congressional representation and policymaking. In Drutman’s view, much remains unchanged. Taken together, however, the changes strengthen the hands of special interests and lessen the probability that Congress can rise above the preferences of organized groups to pursue policies that serve the general interests of inattentive citizens.

This chapter looks at the wide topic of public interest as a justification for breaches of investment treaty protections. It considers non-economic matters such as environmental protection, human rights and culture as well as the concept of the right to regulate which has afforded states more policy space in their interactions with foreign investors.

The equitable obligation of confidence is used to protect information from unauthorised misuse or exploitation by others. The action now has two significant aspects; it is traditionally used to protect commercially valuable information such as trade secrets, and it is increasingly used to protect personally private information. Whether the same considerations apply to these two aspects of the action is an open question. Though the obligation of confidence is one of the oldest in equitable jurisdiction, it has only recently been called upon to protect interests previously thought to be ineffectively protected. The long hiatus between the action’s origins and its current development is partly due to the unusual position confidentiality has occupied. Whereas many equitable responsibilities, such as trust or fiduciary obligations, have no direct common law counterparts, confidentiality can be regulated by regimes other than equity. Up until the mid-twentieth century most cases concerning the equitable obligation of confidence also involved a breach of an obligation of confidence not sourced in equity

The law and practice relating to the Crown (or state) lands of Australia is often a topic not well covered in a student’s journey through property law. Yet, Crown lands legislation dealing with the alienation and management of the lands of the Crown has been a feature of the legislative framework of the various Australian jurisdictions since their respective creations.Given that some such interests or rights authorised under the various legislation may rarely be granted or exist only in small numbers, this chapter focuses on some of the enduring principles of Crown lands law and practice.

This chapter discusses the key knowledge requirements or threads of Crown land law and practice that will give both student and practitioner a solid understanding of how to approach the complex legislation of the jurisdiction with its peculiar interests and rights; the public interest, modern land tenure, and Crown lands legislation; Crown lands legislation and Crown land; grants and the Crown’s general power to deal with Crown land; reservations and exceptions in Crown grants; interpreting a Crown grant; public purpose land