This article engages in a comparison of the regulation of PR in the Netherlands and the UK (specifically England and Wales). The latter is a good comparator as it operates a similar regulatory approach to the Netherlands, that of conditional acceptance of PR, the condition being (prior) consent. Furthermore, the UK boasts a more detailed and mature legal framework that continues to be tested through caselaw, and thus offers insight into how a regulatory approach conditional upon the (prior) consent of the deceased can fare.
I begin with a brief exposition of the new Dutch guidelines and the current legislative position in the Netherlands vis-à-vis posthumous reproduction (part II). Likewise, I summarize the relevant UK guidelines and legislative position (part III). I draw out the similarities and differences between the two regimes, as well as engaging in a critical analysis of the regulations themselves. I then look at how the UK regime has been challenged in recent years through caselaw in anticipation of the issues that might confront the Netherlands in future (part IV). I conclude (part V) that the key lesson to be drawn from the UK experience is that clarity and consistency is crucial in navigating this ethically, emotionally, and time sensitive area. Further, that both the UK and the Netherlands can expect demand for more detailed and precise regulatory guidance as requests for the procedure increase, and within evermore novel circumstances

De grote toestroom van migranten en asielzoekers in de EU houdt vandaag nog steeds verschillende regelgevers wakker. Niet alleen de nationale overheden, maar ook de EU-regelgevers zoeken naarstig naar oplossingen voor de problematiek. Daartoe trachten de EU-regelgevers het Gemeenschappelijk Europees Asielstelsel (GEAS) bij te werken.
Binnen de groep migranten en asielzoekers bestaat een specifiek kwetsbaar individu: de niet-begeleide minderjarige vreemdeling (NBMV). Hij is zowel vreemdeling als kind en kreeg reeds ruime aandacht binnen de rechtsleer. Nochtans werd deze aandacht niet altijd weerspiegeld in de EU-wetgeving. Het lijkt alsof hij door de regelgevers af en toe uit het oog verloren werd.
Uit het onderzoek blijkt dat de EU-regelgevers nog een zekere weg te gaan hebben. In de eerste plaats bestaat er wat betreft het geheel aan regels met betrekking tot de NBMV weinig coherentie. De EU-regelgevers zouden bijvoorbeeld meer duidelijkheid kunnen scheppen door een uniforme methode vast te leggen voor de bepaling van de leeftijd van de NBMV. Hetzelfde geldt voor een verduidelijking van de notie ‘het belang van het kind’ binnen asiel en migratie. Verder blijken de Dublinoverdrachten en de vrijheidsontneming van de NBMV nog steeds gevoelige pijnpunten. Hier en daar moet aan de hervorming van het asielstelsel nog wat gesleuteld worden, zodat de rechten van de NBMV optimaal beschermd kunnen worden.
---
Today, the large influx of migrants and asylum seekers into the European Union (EU) keeps several regulators awake. Not only national authorities, but EU regulators too are diligently searching for solutions to the problems. To this end, EU regulators are seeking to update the Common European Asylum System (CEAS).
There is however a particularly vulnerable individual within the group of migrants and asylum seekers: the unaccompanied alien minor (UAM). These minors already received a great deal of attention within legal doctrine. However, this attention was not always reflected in EU legislation. It seems as if UAM are occasionally lost from sight by the regulators.
This article shows that the EU regulators still have a certain way to go. First, there is little coherence in the set of rules relating to the UAM. The EU regulators could, for example, create more clarity by laying down a uniform method for determining the age of the UAM. The same applies to a clarification of the notion of 'best interests of the child' within the context of asylum and migration. Second, the proposal for a new Dublin Regulation and the proposal for a new Reception Conditions Directive still appear to be sensitive. Here and there, the reform of the asylum system still needs adjustments, so that the rights of UAM can be optimally protected."

The article adopts a public law perspective in order to focus on Gender-Fair Language (GFL) policies and drafting, by considering both language neutralization and language differentiation in some legal systems characterized by different languages.
The article argues that the real problem is whether it is possible to coerce legislative and administrative language as a tool for policies. In fact, coercion of language produces administrative costs and side effects on freedoms (such as freedom of speech and freedom to teach); controls and sanctions are needed for enforcement; but, overall, language (as an institution) is not a proper object of regulation.

Gender specificity in legislation started being questioned in the late 20th century, and the need to reform the way in which laws have been written for more than one-hundred years has been particularly evident in English-language jurisdictions. In the 1990s and 2000s, the adoption of a plain English style forced legislative drafters to avoid sentences of undue length, superfluous definitions, repeated words and gender specificity with the aim of achieving clarity and minimizing ambiguity.
Experts in the legal field have suggested reorganizing sentences, avoiding male pronouns, repeating the noun in place of the pronoun, replacing a nominalization with a verb form, resorting to ‘the singular they’. This article gives a linguistic insight into the use of ‘singular they’ in English, beginning with a historical background and going on to assess the impact of its use in the primary legislation issued in a selection of English-language jurisdictions (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, the US) in the last decade (2008-2018). Given the environment of legislative drafting techniques, where considerable reliance on precedent is inevitable, proposals to change legislative language may produce interesting results in different jurisdictions.

The gender classification of words in English is different from that in many other languages, including Welsh. The approach in Welsh is more closely aligned to that in languages such as French, Spanish or Italian, but there are also differences. The differences include the manner in which possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives are employed. These differences pose difficulties for bilingual drafting in English and Welsh.
This article will consider some of those difficulties, their root causes and some possible solutions as well as look at issues that may or may not complicate matters further in the future.

Language is a reflection of culture, and at the same time it helps to build that culture. In the same way, it can be used to transform it. Language serves for describing a culture, to show what we see, but at the same time, it strengthens the relationships of power that exist on the basis of male power. In this way, we can use language to build other kinds of relationships based on equality.
The Spanish Constitution is written in the masculine. Although it is based on equality, masculine language shows that the power relations lean towards men, and this hides women’s participation. When a text or a legal message uses structures or words that hide or discriminate against one gender, it can be said that linguistic sexism exists, and this violates the principle of equality. This is a reflection about what is happening in our society because language describes cultural values. This exclusion of women in the constitutional text is in itself a denial of them as subjects of rights and as citizens. This is not only a denial of the part of power that corresponds to them, but also the consolidation of a collective story of female subordination.
Therefore this article aims to focus on the need to carry out a revision of the Spanish Constitution in female and inclusive language that, in parallel to the recognition and guarantee of parity democracy, makes women visible as autonomous subjects. In addition, it also breaks with the male universality of the language and the monopoly of male language to define the sources of the law, as well as rights, powers, institutions, values and policies.

In the English-speaking world the issue of gender-neutral drafting in legislation has been a much discussed topic for many years, and there are few legislative drafting manuals in the English-speaking world that do not address the issue.
The EU and its institutions also attach great importance to gender issues, as is shown by the solemn commitments in EU texts to gender equality, by the establishment at the EU level of bodies or committees to focus on those issues, and by the EU actions and policies that seek to address them. But the issue of gender-neutral drafting in legislation is not even mentioned in the guidance drawn up by the legislative drafting experts of the EU institutions.
This contribution, therefore, looks at how gender issues are dealt with in practice in the EU Treaties and in EU legislation. It finds signs of a traditional approach that is beginning to evolve but only slowly and somewhat unevenly.
The contribution considers some of the reasons behind the approach taken by the EU institutions to gender neutrality in drafting and the impact of the important EU principles of multilingualism and multiculturalism before seeking to draw some conclusions.

Increasingly often, it is stated that the universal values underpinning Western liberal democracies are a product of a ‘Judeo-Christian’ tradition. This article explores the legitimacy of this claim from the perspective of liberal-democratic theory. It argues that state-endorsed claims about the historical roots of liberal-democratic values are problematic (1) if they are promoted as though they are above democratic scrutiny and (2) if they insinuate that citizens who belong to a particular (majority) culture remain the ‘cultural owners’ of the core values underpinning the state. More pragmatically, the paper suggests that the claim carries the risk of failing to facilitate all citizens becoming or remaining committed to nurturing fundamental rights and a shared society based on norms of democratic equality.

In countries like Belgium and The Netherlands, there seems to be overwhelming public acceptance of transplantation and organ donation. Yet, paradoxically, part of the public refuses post-mortal donation of their own organs or of those of family members. It is customary within the transplantation context to accept the refusal of organ donation by family members “in order to accommodate their feelings”. I argue that this attitude does not take seriously what is really behind the refusal of donation by (at least some) family members. My hypothesis is that even in very secularized societies, this refusal is determined by cultural-symbolic attitudes vis-à-vis the (dead) human body (and some of its parts). The blind spot for this reality, both in the practice of and discussions around organ donation, prevents understanding of what is producing the paradox mentioned.

Socio-political concepts are not singularities. They are, instead, complex and evolving contextures. An awareness of the latter and of what we need to do when we handle concepts opens up space for the resolution of political disagreements and multiplies opportunities for constructive dialogue and understanding. In this article, I argue that the concepts-as-contextures perspective can unravel conceptual connectivity and interweaving, and I substantiate this by examining the ‘contexture’ of liberty. I show that the different, and seemingly contested, definitions of liberty are the product of mixed articulations and the development of associative discursive links within a contexture.

Ever since it was published in 2015, the judgment of the The Hague court in the so-called Urgenda-case, and the subsequent decisions of the appellate and cassation courts confirming it, have been met with repeated and vivid critiques. By recognizing the necessity of the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and furthermore imposing a certain reduction level on the Dutch state, the judgments in the cases at hand gave rise to many questions concerning the position of the judiciary in the matter, and in Dutch society as a whole. This article attempts in the first place to situate the positions of the different actors intervening in the Urgenda-case within a legal-theoretical framework. The contribution subsequently explores the strategic possibilities that an alternative understanding of law could offer to the judges, focusing specifically on the use of legal instruments stemming from international law, brought into the reasoning of the national judge.

This conference paper submitted on the occasion of the 8th International Conference on Information Law and Ethics (University of Antwerp, December 13-14, 2018) that focused on modern intellectual property governance and openness in Europe elaborates upon the Text and Data Mining (TDM) issue in the field of scientific research, which is still-by the time of composition of this paper-in the process of discussion and forthcoming voting before the European Parliament in the form of provision(s) included in a new Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. TDM is included in the proposal for a Directive of the European parliament and of the Council on copyright in the Digital Single Market-Proposal COM(2016)593 final 2016/0280(COD) that was submitted to the European Parliament.

To address the potential of public policy on the governance of OARs it is necessary to define what is meant by public policy and the importance of public policy in designing an efficient governance framework. Critical components are the subject matter of public policy and its objectives. Hence, it is useful to consider declarations, policies and statements in relation to open access practice and examine the efficiency of these arrangements towards the improvement of stakeholders’ engagement in governance of OARs. Secondly, policies relating to dissemination of scientific information via OARs should be examined. In this regard, it is relevant to consider the public policy basis for Intellectual Property (IP) laws that concerning the utility of OARs. Therefore, economic theories relevant with the role of IP laws should be examined. Such examination depicts to what extend these laws facilitate the utility of OARs. In order to specify justifications for the desirability of OARs the objectives of social theories should be also considered. Thus, there is consternation that without legal protection against copying the incentive to create intellectual property will be undermined. As scholarly communication infrastructure evolves, it is necessary to recognize the efforts of the relationship between Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and communication technologies in the context of public policy and after engagement with it. After employing such multilevel approach, the paper argues about a socio-economic framework to enhance the governance of OARs through public policy.

Similar to pharmaceutical products, medical devices play an increasingly important role in healthcare worldwide by contributing substantially to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases. From the patent law perspective both, pharmaceutical products and a medical apparatus, product or device can be patented if they meet the patentability requirements, which are novelty, inventiveness and entail industrial applicability. However, regulatory issues also impact on the whole cycle of the innovation. At a European level, enhancing competitiveness while ensuring public health and safety is one of the key objectives of the European Commission. This article undertakes literature review of the current and incoming regulatory framework governing medical devices with the aim of highlighting how these major changes would affect the industry at issue. The analysis is made in the framework of an on-going research work aimed to determine whether SPCs are needed for promoting innovation in the medical devices industry. A thorough analysis the aforementioned factors affecting medical device’s industry will allow the policymakers to understand the root cause of any optimal patent term and find appropriate solutions.

Data driven innovation holds the potential in transforming current business and knowledge discovery models. For this reason, data sharing has become one of the central points of interest for the European Commission towards the creation of a Digital Single Market. The value of automatically generated data, which are collected by Internet-connected objects (IoT), is increasing: from smart houses to wearables, machine-generated data hold significant potential for growth, learning, and problem solving. Facilitating researchers in order to provide access to these types of data implies not only the articulation of existing legal obstacles and of proposed legal solutions but also the understanding of the incentives that motivate the sharing of the data in question. What are the legal tools that researchers can use to gain access and reuse rights in the context of their research?