Various of our academic board analysed employment law cases from last year.

This study explores the spread of disinformation relating to the Covid-19 pandemic on the internet, dubbed by some as the pandemic’s accompanying “infodemic”, and the societal reactions to this development across different countries and platforms. The study’s focus is on the role of states and platforms in combatting online disinformation.
Through synthesizing answers to questions submitted by more than 40 researchers from 20 countries within the GDHR Network, this exploratory study provides a first overview of how states and platforms have dealt with Corona-related disinformation. This can also provide incentives for further rigorous studies of disinformation governance standards and their impact across different socio-cultural environments.
Regarding the platforms’ willingness and efficacy in removing (presumed) disinformation, a majority of submissions identifies a shift towards more intervention in pandemic times. Most submitters assess that this shift is widely welcomed in their respective countries and more often considered as taking place too slowly (rather than being perceived as entailing dangers for unjustified restrictions of freedom of expression). The picture is less clear when it comes to enforcing non-speech related infection prevention measures.
While the dominant platforms have been able to defend, or even solidify, their position during the pandemic, communicative practices on those platforms are changing. For officials, this includes an increasing reliance on platforms, especially social networks, for communicating infection prevention rules and recommendations. For civil society, the pandemic has brought an increasing readiness – and perceived need – to intervene against disinformation, especially through fact-checking initiatives.
National and local contexts show great variance at whether platform-driven disinformation is conceived as a societal problem. In countries where official sources are distrusted and/or seen as disseminating disinformation criticism against private information governance by platforms remains muted. In countries where official sources are trusted disinformation present on platforms is seen more negatively.
While Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram play important roles in the pandemic communication environment, some replies point towards an increasing importance of messaging apps for the circulation of Covid-19-related disinformation. These apps, like Telegram or WhatsApp, tend to fall under the radar of researchers, because visibility of content is limited and scraping is difficult, and because they are not covered by Network Enforcement Act-type laws that usually exclude one-to-one communication platforms (even if they offer one-to-many channels).
Vis-à-vis widespread calls for a (re)territorialization of their content governance standards and processes amid the pandemic, platform companies have maintained, by and large, global standards. Standardized, featured sections for national (health) authorities to distribute official information via platforms are exceptions thereto.

Terms-of-service based actions against political and state actors as both key subjects and objects of political opinion formation have become a focal point of the ongoing debates over who should set and enforce the rules for speech on online platforms.
With minor differences depending on national contexts, state regulation of platforms creating obligations to disseminate such actors’ information is considered dangerous for the free and unhindered discursive process that leads to the formation of public opinions.
Reactions to the suspension of Trump as not the first, but the most widely discussed action of platform companies against a politician (and incumbent president) provide a glimpse on the state of platform governance debates across participating countries.
Across the countries surveyed politicians tend to see the exercise of content moderation policies of large platform companies very critically
The majority of politicians in European countries seem to be critical of the deplatforming of Trump, emphasizing fundamental rights and calling for such decisions to be made by states, not private companies
These political standpoints stand in an unresolved conflict with the constitutional realities of participating countries, where incumbents usually cannot invoke fundamental rights when acting in their official capacities and where laws with “must carry” requirements for official information do not exist for social media and would likely only be constitutional for narrowly defined, special circumstances such as disaster prevention.
Facebooks’ referral of the Trump-decision to its Oversight Board sparked a larger debate about institutional structures for improving content governance. The majority of participating countries has experience with self- or co-regulatory press-, media- or broadcasting councils to which comparisons can be drawn, foreshadowing the possible (co-regulatory) future of governing online speech.
Media commentators in participating countries interpreted the deplatforming of Trump as a signal that far-right parties and politicians around the world may face increasing scrutiny, while conservative politicians and governments in multiple participating countries instrumentalized the actions against Trump as supposed proof of platform’s bias against conservative opinions.
Even without specific legal requirements on content moderation, submissions from several countries refer to a general – often: constitutional – privileging of speech of politicians and office holders. This could potentially support or even compel the decisions of platforms to leave content of political actors up even if it violates their terms of service.

In this article, the authors assert that the United Nations Convention for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) can contribute to tackling gaps in statutory legislation and defective business conduct that have been associated with unsustainable trade in Global Supply Chains (GSCs). The authors provide evidence that the CISG contains rules enabling a general legal framework for establishing uniform sustainable standards for goods concerning suppliers, sellers and buyers located in different countries. For instance, the CISG provisions on contract formation ease the incorporation of joint codes of conduct for sustainable trade in GSCs. In addition, the contracting parties’ circumstances and current trade usages are now more relevant to determine what constitutes conformity of the goods under the contract and the default warranties in Article 35 CISG. On the level of remedies, the authors show that best-efforts provisions, possibly included in a code of conduct or inferred from standards applicable to the goods, may redefine the notion of impediment in Article 79 CISG, which could lead to exoneration of liability for the seller. They also demonstrate why fundamental breach and the calculation of damages are at the centre of the discussion regarding the remedies for breach of an obligation to deliver sustainable goods.

Litigation funding has become synonymous with class action litigation in Australia with third-party funders being a key source of financing. This article addresses the rise and regulation of litigation funding in Australia through three pathways: judicial oversight of litigation funding, government regulation of litigation funding and competition from lawyers. Initially, litigation funding was subject to minimal regulation in an effort to promote access to justice. However, concerns about the size of profits made by funders which in turn impacted Australian businesses and reduced the compensation available for group members saw the adoption of a more detailed and restrictive regulatory approach. Further regulation has been proposed and criticised for hampering funding of class actions. This article concludes with a middle or compromise position that recommends a base level of regulation and empowers the courts to act as a check on excessive fees.

The spectre of foreign secondary sanctions is looming large again in the European Union after the reinstatement in 2018 of US sanctions with extraterritorial effects on Iran. However, in a context of increasing global polarization and geopolitical tensions, the challenge of secondary sanctions goes beyond US sanctions against Iran. The EU 1996 blocking statute is aimed at countering the negative effects that these sanctions have in the European Union, but there is a general consensus that it has failed to preserve the Union’s interests. This article analyses the challenges that secondary sanctions pose in the European Union and the current response provided by the blocking statute. It suggests that an amended statute may play an important role within the broader European policy against secondary sanctions, although it is not by itself a sufficient mechanism. It concludes by suggesting how the statute could be amended to better achieve its objectives.

The phenomenon of evaluative mediation has invited much debate among both scholars and mediators. At the heart of that debate is the question of a definition of mediation. Considering all prevailing schools of mediation, the conclusion was that doctrine will not be able to prevent that mediation will continue to occur in all kinds of shapes and forms.

The terms forgiveness and reconciliation are not the most frequently used words at the corporate mediation table. However, having been a conflict advisor and mediator for the last 17 years in both corporate and criminal cases, I know that the phenomena of forgiveness and reconciliation exist in all domains. Forgiveness can be found in everyday life, in small gestures and words. While researching this article, I spoke to three corporate mediators to find out what forgiveness and reconciliation look like in their fields of work, and it turns out that they might indeed be more present than one might think.

This article describes the legal framework on corporate mediation in Italy with a particular focus on the effects of the mediation clauses included in company by-laws. The available data on the use of corporate mediation indicate that such clauses are not commonly used. There is still resistance among the parties in a dispute to engage in dialogue through mediation, not only where corporate disputes are concerned. The author suggests that one way to expand the use of mediation would be to promote the introduction of mediation clauses in the articles of association of companies. She also suggests that recent trends in company law, notably the emergence of sustainability issues, related to the impact of business activity on the environment and society, and more broadly on human rights, may create new opportunities for the use of mediation to prevent and solve corporate-related disputes.

For the past 20 years, NCTDR has hosted a series of ODR Forums in locations around the world. For 2021, the Forum was held virtually, with live presentation over a web video platform, and recorded presentations available to participants. A full recording of the sessions can be found through http://odr.info/2021-virtual-odr-forum-now-live/. The following items are narrative notes from some of the presentations:

• David Allen Larson – ODR Accessibility

• Noam Ebner – Human Touch

• Jan Martinez & Amy Schmitz – ODR and Innovation

• Frank Fowlie – Online Sport Dispute Resolution

• Larry Bridgesmith – AI Introductory Notes

• Julie Sobowale – AI and Systemic Bias

• Clare Fowler – DEODRISE

• Michael Wolf – ODR 2.0 System Design

• Chris Draper – Algorithmic ODR

• Zbynek Loebl – Open ODR

This article addresses three issues related to online dispute resolution (ODR) that offer promise, and may carry risks for those who develop, provide, and use technology to address disputes and confects. The authors offer some principles to guide the use of technology, and some predictions about the future of ODR.

Indigenous people may suffer harm when the environment, sacred places and sacred objects are destroyed or damaged. Restorative justice conferencing, a facilitated face-to-face dialogue involving victims, offenders, and pertinent stakeholders has the potential to repair that harm. This article explores the use of conferencing in this context with case law examples from New Zealand and New South Wales, Australia. As will be discussed, the lack of legislative support for conferencing in the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales means it is doubtful that such conferencing will develop past its current embryonic state. As well as using restorative justice conferencing to repair harm from past criminality, this article suggests that further research should explore the use of restorative justice to resolve present conflict, and prevent future conflict, where there is a disconnect between non-Indigenous use of the environment and Indigenous culture embedded in the environment.

Arising from the notions of green criminology and green victimology, green restorative justice can be defined as a restorative justice focused on environmental harm. Harm in this case is understood as criminalised and non-criminalised, and as individual and collective behaviours damaging the ecosystems and the existence of human and non-human beings. Impacts of environmental harm affect health, economic, social and cultural dimensions, and will be experienced in the short, medium and long term. Within this framework, after linking restorative justice to green criminology and green victimology, I will argue that the current weight of the cultural and social movement of transhumanism constitutes an obstacle to the development of restorative justice in this field. The reason is that it fosters individual narcissism, together with the idea of an absence of limits in what is considered technological progress. This progress is seen as inevitable and good per se, and promotes the perception of a lack of social and moral accountability. This reasoning will lead to some final reflections on how restorative justice has to constantly reinvent itself in order to keep creating a critical and inclusive justice of ‘otherness’. By doing so, restorative justice must join the current interdisciplinary conversation on biopolitics and bioethics.

The challenges of developing meaningful environmental regulation to protect communities and the environment have never been greater. Environmental regulators are regularly criticised for failing to act hard and consistently, in turn leading to demands for harsher punishments and more rigorous enforcement. Whilst acknowledging the need for strong enforcement to address wantonly destructive practices threatening communities and ecosystems, we argue that restorative approaches have an important role. This article explores a future agenda for environmental restorative justice through (1) situating it within existing scholarly and practice-based environmental regulation traditions; (2) identifying key elements and (3) raising particular theoretical and practical challenges. Overall, our vision for environmental restorative justice is that its practices can permeate the entire regulatory spectrum, going far beyond restorative justice conferences within enforcement proceedings. We see it as a shared and inclusive vision that seeks to integrate, hybridise and build broader ownership for environmental restorative justice throughout existing regulatory practices and institutions, rather than creating parallel structures or paradigms.