This chapter evaluates anti-money laundering (AML) regulation of crypto-assets in the UK with a focus on the UK implementation of the EU’s 5th Money Laundering Directive. The UK implementation had a broader scope than that required under the Directive; however, there was a lack of specific requirements and guidance on certain potentially higher-risk areas including privacy coins, mixers, and decentralised finance (DeFi). This chapter suggests that specific AML requirements and guidance on these potentially higher risk areas may help ensure the associated risks are effectively mitigated.

In the light of the growing interest in crypto-assets and the quest for their institutionalisation, we examine the role that they can play as investable assets useful in standard portfolio problems when asset returns are predictable. In particular, we study whether a mix of macroeconomic factors and crypto-specific predictors can be combined to produce accurate and economically valuable pooled forecasts. With reference to Bitcoin data, we uncover that crypto returns are predictable out-of-sample. Moreover, when this crypto-asset is made available to a mean-variance optimising investor, it generates large risk-adjusted realised performance gains irrespective of the assumed risk aversion. The results on the predictability of cryptocurrencies are robust to a generalisation to Litecoin and Ripple, although on a shorter 2015–2020 sample. However, results turn mixed and come to depend on the assumed risk aversion, when we investigate the power of forecast combinations to generate economic value from the entire pool of cryptocurrencies.

There has been progress made in the adoption of digital assets by institutional investors. Large institutions including Fidelity, BlackRock, and several investment banks have started providing products and services to satisfy the needs of their clients. Hedge funds and venture capital funds are also investing in digital assets. Global exchanges have introduced investable products based on cryptocurrency derivatives. The number of ways one can invest in digital assets is expected to grow with the introduction of new products. Digital assets are still very new and carry considerable risk. It is prudent of regulators to cautiously approach regulation. At the same time, the markets are looking for clarity from financial regulators. If and when there is more regulatory clarity, the pace of adoption is likely to pick up.

This chapter aims to understand the entrepreneurial perspective on legal innovation. How do those who create legal innovation make the services and products that improve the way law is used? The conversation centres on topics such as passion for innovation, identifying needs for new products and services, dealing with failure, keys to success in the market, innovation networks, regulatory approaches to innovation and innovation in the financial services industry. The chapter also considers aspects of innovation that are particular to legal services. Among them are the creation and availability of legal datasets for the application of artificial intelligence and the transferability of legal innovation to other jurisdictions with different laws.

Conlusion: Summary of findings

Chapter 2 considers the historical context from which today’s station hustle has emerged as a distinct economic logic and mode of production. It relates the station’s contemporary workings to the history of local economic practices and the wider political and economic changes that have shaped commercial road transport since the early days of motorisation in the early twentieth century, emphasising the role that bus stations have played in these developments. It shows how local transport operators have long harnessed the logics of risk, competition, and shrewd resourcefulness as the principal properties of economic organisation and action, features that have allowed them to both capitalise on and compensate for the weakness of the services provided by the state. The ways in which they have accommodated the effects of state regulatory intervention are consistent with these logics: in most cases, state intervention has been considered just another element of market volatility.

Like information disseminated through online platforms, infectious diseases can cross international borders as they track the movement of people (and sometimes animals and goods) and spread globally. Hence, their control and management have major implications for international relations, and international law. Drawing on this analogy, this chapter looks to global health governance to formulate suggestions for the governance of online platforms. Successes in global health governance suggest that the principle of tackling low-hanging fruit first to build trust and momentum towards more challenging goals may extend to online platform governance. Progress beyond the low-hanging fruit appears more challenging: For one, disagreement on the issue of resource allocation in the online platform setting may lead to “outbreaks” of disinformation being relegated to regions of the world that may not be at the top of online platforms’ market priorities lists. Secondly, while there may be wide consensus on the harms of infectious disease outbreaks, the harms from the spread of disinformation are more contested. Relying on national definitions of disinformation would hardly yield coherent international cooperation. Global health governance would thus suggest that an internationally negotiated agreement on standards as it relates to disinformation may be necessary.

In order to manage the issue of diversity of regulatory vision, States may, to some extent, harmonize substantive regulation—eliminating diversity. This is less likely than States determining unilaterally or multilaterally to develop manageable rules of jurisdiction, so that their regulation applies only in limited circumstances. The fullest realization of this “choice of law” solution would involve geoblocking or other technology that divides up regulatory authority according to a specified, and a perhaps agreed, principle. Geoblocking may be costly and ultimately porous, but it would allow different communities to effectuate their different visions of the good in the platform context. To the extent that the principles of jurisdiction are agreed, and are structured to be exclusive, platforms would have the certainty of knowing the requirements under which they must operate in each market. Of course, different communities may remain territorial states, but given the a-territorial nature of the internet, it may be possible for other divisions of authority and responsibility to develop. Cultural affinity, or political perspective, may be more compelling as an organizational principle to some than territorial co-location.

While the social media and digital platforms started with an objective to enhance social connectivity and information sharing, they also present a significant challenge in content moderation resulting in spreading disinformation. Disinformation Paradox is a phenomenon where an attempt to regulate harmful content online can inadvertently amplifies it. The social media platforms often serve as breeding grounds for disinformation. This chapter discusses the inherent difficulties in moderating content at a large scale, different responses of these platforms and potential solutions.

This chapter reviews the regulation of disinformation from an African human rights’ law perspective, focusing on the right to freedom of expression and the right to vote. It provides an overview of the African regional law framework, specifically the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights of 1981 (the African Charter) and corresponding jurisprudence. The chapter also analyses the way in which freedom of expression and disinformation laws have been applied in African countries, the aim being to contextualize and illustrate how African regional law plays out at the domestic level, but with an emphasis on the position in South Africa.

A broad consensus has emerged in recent years that although rumours, conspiracy theories and fabricated information are far from new, in the changed structure and operating mechanisms of the public sphere today we are faced with something much more challenging than anything to date, and the massive scale of this disinformation can even pose a threat to the foundations of democracy. However, the consensus extends only to this statement, and opinions differ considerably about the causes of the increased threat of disinformation, whom to blame for it, and the most effective means to counter it. From the perspective of freedom of speech, the picture is not uniform either, and there has been much debate about the most appropriate remedies. It is commonly argued, for example, that the free speech doctrine of the United States does not allow for effective legal action against disinformation, while in Europe there is much more room for manoeuvre at the disposal of the legislator.

This chapter investigates the logic of regulation that animates the AKP’s new securitisation technologies. The chapter begins by examining the new laws on security vetting and archival background checks. Reviewing the conduct of the OHAL Commission tasked to decide on applications by purged citizens for reversal of their refusal or civic death status, the chapter reveals how ambiguities in the new law allow for the extensive use of informal rule of law based on extra-legal practices. By focusing on several denunciation cases, the chapter’s theoretical and empirical strands come together in an analysis of the impact this new securitisation logic of regulation has both on those targeted and on society as a whole. I argue that the new regulatory technologies of citizen-informants and the perfusion of distrust throughout society an ‘atmosfear of terror’, inducing the population as a whole to self-regulate, perform, and participate in their own securitisation.

In the digital age, the landscape of information dissemination has undergone a profound transformation. The traditional boundaries between information and news have become increasingly blurred as technology allows anyone to create and share content online. The once-exclusive realm of authoritative media outlets and professional journalists has given way to a decentralized public square, where individuals can voice their opinions and reach vast audiences regardless of mainstream coverage. The evolution of the digital age has dismantled the conventional notions of journalism and reshaped how news is obtained and interpreted. This shift has paved the way for the proliferation of fake news and online disinformation. The ease with which false information can be fabricated, packaged convincingly and rapidly disseminated to a wide audience has contributed to the rise of fake news. This phenomenon gained global attention during the 2016 US presidential election, prompting nations worldwide to seek strategies for tackling this issue.

This book examines how new AKP authoritarian securitisation practices shape and reshape the daily lives of people purged by emergency decree. The Introduction defines key concepts such as authoritarianism, securitisation, and civic death, as well as describes the methodology. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach that combines empirical ethnographic and historical research with theoretical and philosophical perspectives on the political, the book highlights the new forms of citizenship deprivation, security, and punishment that have emerged under the AKP. It argues that new methods of securitisation are designed to reduce those targeted for civic death, a type of disposable citizen who is denied the opportunity to reclaim their social, economic, and political rights even after they have been acquitted or the state of emergency has been lifted.

Today is a time of retrogression in sustaining rights-protecting democracies, and of high levels of distrust in institutions. Of particular concern are threats to the institutions, including universities and the press, that help provide the information base for successful democracies. Attacks on universities, and university faculties, are rising. In Poland over the last four years, a world-renowned constitutional law theorist, Wojciech Sadurski, has been subject to civil and criminal prosecutions for defamation of the governing party. In Hungary, the Central European University (CEU) was ejected by the government, and had to partly relocate to Vienna, and other attacks on academic freedom followed. Faculty members in a number of countries have needed to relocate to other countries for their own safety.

The issue of mass disinformation on the Internet is a long-standing concern for policymakers, legislators, academics and the wider public. Disinformation is believed to have had a significant impact on the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election. Concern about the threat of foreign – mainly Russian – interference in the democratic process is also growing. The COVID-19 pandemic, which reached global proportions in 2020, gave new impetus to the spread of disinformation, which even put lives at risk. The problem is real and serious enough to force all parties concerned to reassess the previous European understanding of the proper regulation of freedom of expression.

In April 2023, the Government of India amended a set of regulations called the Information Technology Rules, which primarily dealt with issues around online intermediary liability and safe harbour. Until 2023, these rules required online intermediaries to take all reasonable efforts to ensure that ‘fake, false or misleading’ information was not published on their platforms. Previous iterations of these rules had already been challenged before the Indian courts for imposing a disproportionate burden on intermediaries, and having the effect of chilling online speech. Now, the 2023 Amendment went even further: it introduced an entity called a ‘Fact Check Unit’, to be created by the government. This government-created unit would flag information that – in its view – was ‘fake, false or misleading’ with respect to ‘the business of the central government’.

Chile’s regulation of fake news dates back nearly a century. The initial instance occurred in 1925 during a constitutional crisis that resulted in the drafting of a new constitution. At that time, a de facto government issued a decree making it illegal to publish and distribute fake news. The second regulatory milestone occurred during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet with the inclusion of provisions related to defamation in the 1980 constitution. Defamation involved spreading false information through mass media to unjustly tarnish someone’s reputation. Upon the restoration of democracy in Chile in 1990, these stipulations were permanently abolished from the legal system. Since 2001, the judicial pursuit of disinformation in Chile has been limited to exceptional means such as the State Security Law or, indirectly, through the right to rectification.