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

The Supreme Court has decided that the summary dismissal of an employee for violating a Covid-19 quarantine order by appearing at work is effective and justified.

This article provides a computer-assisted morality framing analysis of Vlaams Belang’s 2019 manifesto. The VB is regarded in the literature as a prototypical example of the Populist Radical Right (PRR). We first concisely review what PRR politics is and what it consists of, tentatively distinguishing four elements that we hypothesise will materialise in corresponding subframes running throughout the manifesto. We point to a mismatch between the omnipresent role of morality in all PRR subframes and the little attention devoted to the concept in the PRR literature. We introduce a useful theory from social psychology into framing literature to create a novel methodological approach to frame analysis that builds a bridge between a qualitative content and a quantitative context approach. The results support our hypothesis that populism, nationalism, nativism and authoritarianism can be distinguished from one another. Additionally, we detect a fifth PRR subframe, crimmigration, by its unique role of morality.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced courts around the world to embrace technology and other innovative measures in order to continue functioning. This article explores how Australian courts have approached this challenge. We show how adaptations in response to the pandemic have sometimes been in tension with principles of open justice, procedural fairness and access to justice, and consider how courts have attempted to resolve that tension.

What benefits do AI technologies introduce to the law and how can lawyers integrate AI tools into their everyday practice and dispute resolution? Can we teach robot mediators to understand human empathy and values to conduct a successful mediation? While the future of AI in the legal profession remains somewhat unknown, it is evident that it introduces valuable tools that enhance legal practice and support lawyers to better serve their clients. This paper discusses the practical ways in which AI is used in the legal profession, while exploring some of the major concerns and hesitation over value alignment, morality and legal formalism.

Some of the existential threats we currently face are global in the sense that they affect us all, and thus matter of global concern and trigger duties of moral global solidarity. But some of these global threats, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, are global in a second, additional, sense: discharging them requires joint, coordinated global action. For that reason, these twofold global threats trigger political – not merely moral – duties of global solidarity. This article explores the contrast between these two types of global threats with the purpose of clarifying the distinction between moral and political duties of global solidarity. And, in the absence of a fully developed global democratic institutional system, the article also explores some promising ways to fulfill our global political duties, especially those based on mechanisms of collective intelligence such as CrowdLaw, which might provide effective solutions to these global threats while enhancing the democratic legitimacy of public decision-making.

This contribution explores the meaning and scope of solidarity with the emergence of the coronavirus discourse as formulated by politicians in order to make sense of the virus. It offers a poststructuralist account drawing on discourse theory together with insights from Levinas and Derrida. This leads to a critical reflection on the prevailing view of solidarity as secondary and derivative to corona policies, because solidarity is often subjugated to hegemonic meanings of efficiency. Instead, the argument is made that solidarity refers to the unique responsibility to which the other as wholly other commands me. This appeal for responsibility, that is presented in the face of the other, is to be assumed in the distance between the rules and the singularity of the situation. Accordingly, solidarity is described as a paradox of dependence (calculability) and independence (beyond calculation), that appears in a moment of undecidability, for it can never be overcome.

In times of crisis, we witness exceptional expressions of solidarity. Why does solidarity spring in times of crisis when it wanes in normal times? An inquiry into what may explain the differences between the expression of solidarity in crisis vs. normalcy provides, as I will argue in this article, important insights into the conditions and nature of solidarity. Solidarity requires, I will contend, an egalitarian ethos and state action within and beyond the state. It is neither a momentary political ideal, nor an exclusionary one, which depends for its sustainment on formal, legal, structures. Transient, sectarian, and informal conceptions of solidarity unduly curtail the demands of solidarity by restricting its reach to times of crisis, to in-group recipients, and to the social rather than the legal sphere. The article concludes by discussing some aspects of the dynamics of solidarity and its inherent risks that the analysis of the exceptionality of solidarity helps bring into focus.

What is at stake in invoking solidarity in legal-political contexts? The guiding hypothesis of this article is that solidarity is always and necessarily linked to the concept of community. A plea for solidarity will, in other words, directly lead one to the question: solidarity with whom? On the one hand, solidarity may be understood as extending only to those who belong to the same community as us. In this reading, solidarity builds upon an already existing community and applies to members only. On the other hand, invoked by those who aim to question the status quo, solidarity also plays a key role in practices of contestation. In these contexts, it focuses on collective action and the reimagination of political community. The article ends by articulating how this second interpretation of solidarity might prove helpful in making sense of our current predicament of a global pandemic.

The article uses three prominent examples from the Dutch context to problematize the relationship between contractual and social solidarity during the coronavirus crisis. The social science ideal types of ‘mechanical’ and ‘organic’ solidarity, and their typified correspondence with legal modes of punishment and compensation, are used to illuminate the way in which solidarity language in private relationships can convey and normalize assumptions about the public interest and economic order.

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.

This study uses a novel approach to understand the experience and meaning of unsafety and the contribution of penal protection orders to victim empowerment in cases of intimate partner violence (IPV). In ten in-depth interviews, IPV survivors reflect on their relationship with their ex-partner and the previous years in which the order against their ex-partner was issued, including its role within the wider process of coming to terms with IPV victimisation and moving on. Depending on expectations of protection orders (POs) enforcement and deterrence, POs enhance one’s safety-related self-efficacy and result in a sense of empowerment. Its meaning can be understood in terms of one’s power from the ex-partner, power to act, status vis-à-vis the offender and the wider community, care/help of the CJS, and unity/togetherness with the wider community. Several implications for theoretical and empirical research and practice are discussed.

This analysis examines the relationship between legal tradition and constitutional human rights. It experiments with a quantitative comparative methodology to compare economic rights, social and family rights, and civil and political rights between countries with common law, civil law and mixed law legal traditions. The results show that developing countries with a civil law legal tradition provide more constitutional human rights than their counterparts with a common law legal tradition. Although preliminary and imperfect, the results challenge the notion of superiority of the common law legal tradition and human rights. The quantitative comparative framework used offers a new methodological frontier for comparative constitutional law researchers to examine relationships between legal traditions.

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.

Scaremongering criminalized as a limitation to freedom of speech in Hungarian law. In lack of relevant case-law, free speech commentators rarely discussed the provision until the Government took action to step up the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ensuing amendment of the Criminal Code in Spring 2020 brought the subject back to the forefront of public debate. The article analyses the constitutional issues related to the criminalization of scaremongering, taking the two available Constitutional Court decisions rendered in this subject as guideline. Though the newly introduced legislation attracted widespread criticism in Hungary and elsewhere in Europe, a thorough examination of the new statutory elements makes it clear that public debate and critical opinions may not be stifled by prosecuting individuals for scaremongering. Although the applicable standard cannot yet be determined with full accuracy, the Constitutional Court’s decisions and relevant academic analysis resolve the main issues in order to protect freedom of expression, while the clarification of further details remains a matter for the case-law.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic had an immediate and profound impact on mobility and, more specifically, on air passenger transport: airlines were quickly stranded, and the Member States granted aid to air carriers subject to specific eligibility criteria. The Commission reacted swiftly to challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and adopted its Temporary Framework under which vast amounts could be disbursed to market operators. The most controversial eligibility condition set by the Member States is the holding of a national license. This article’s research questions are, first, to explore the conditions under which Member States can grant large amounts of state aid to airlines, and second, to assess whether the requirement to hold a national license is compatible with EU law. By addressing these issues, this article seeks to improve our understanding of EU law’s capacity to tackle distortions of competition.

COVID-19 caused serious turbulence in the economy worldwide, severely damaging certain industries, while generating extra revenues for others. In order to be able to continue business as usual following the current crises there is a need to provide state aid to sectors and companies which could not have been imaginable previously. The EU has reacted extremely speedily. Under the Temporary Framework issued by the European Commission at the beginning of the pandemic a significant number of state aids has been approved. Although the Temporary Framework was adapted very quickly, the transitional rules ensure that state aids do not interfere with the functioning of the internal market except to the extent a necessary and proportionate. The present article highlights the various legal bases which can be invoked in the present COVID-19 pandemic situation for providing state aid, includes a comprehensive summary of every single state aid notified to the European Commission with respect to the effects of COVID-19 pandemic and presents numerous examples from the practice.

COVID-19 poses a huge challenge for families and children; their exposure to economic, social and mental hardship is considerable and is confirmed by several studies. The pandemic pushes governments to allocate resources to the economy, but it is equally important to invest in the future by supporting families and children. The article outlines general tendencies in the EU and reflects on Hungarian measures in this field. During the first, second and third waves of COVID-19, a wide range of measures were introduced in Hungary. By extending the eligibility periods of family benefits for families with small children (both social insurance contribution-based and universal benefits) approximately 40,000 families (households) were covered. During the first and second COVID-19 waves, not only did the government extend benefit eligibility, but it also announced several new or renewed measures related to cash benefits and housing for families with at least one economically active parent. During the third wave eligibility periods of family benefits have again been extended. On the other hand, the unemployment benefit system remained intact, labor market pitfalls were addressed by providing wage subsidies.