Ending the War with Al Qaeda

As long as we conceive of the fight with al Qaeda as a war, the fight will remain unwinnable and the goal of effective destruction will remain beyond our reach, according to the author. Historically speaking, modern wars require negotiated conclusions or the complete eradication of present and future threats. The former is politically impossible and the latter is historically unachievable.     

The state of the art in privacy impact assessment

There is growing interest in Europe in privacy impact assessment (PIA). The UK introduced the first PIA methodology in Europe in 2007, and Ireland followed in 2010. PIAs provide a way to detect potential privacy problems, take precautions and build tailored safeguards before, not after, the organisation makes heavy investments in the development of a new technology, service or product. This paper presents some findings from the Privacy Impact Assessment Framework (PIAF) project and, in particular, the project's first deliverable, which analyses the similarities and differences between PIA methodologies in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, with a view to picking out the best elements which could be used in constructing an optimised PIA methodology for Europe. The project, which began in January 2011, is being undertaken for the European Commission's Directorate General Justice. The first deliverable was completed in September. The paper provides some background on privacy impact assessment, identifies some of its benefits and discusses elements that can be used in construction of a state-of-the-art PIA methodology.     

Duff on the Legitimacy of Punishment of Socially Deprived Offenders

Duff offered an argument for the conclusion that just or legitimate punishment of socially deprived offenders in our unjust society is impossible. One of the claims in his argument is that our courts have the standing to blame an offender only if our polity has the right to do so since our courts are acting as the representatives of, or to use the exact phrases by Duff, “in the name of”, or “on behalf of”, the whole polity. In this paper I will challenge that claim. I will argue that the courts can be seen as acting, not on behalf of the whole polity, but only on behalf of a subset of its citizens, namely, the just citizens (i.e. the citizens who cannot be seen to have wronged the deprived offenders).     

"Das sind meine Prinzipien. Ich habe auch andere."

Bei Rechtsgutachten von Universitätsangehörigen stellen sich - insbesondere hinsichtlich der Offenlegung von AuftraggeberInnen - wissenschaftsethische Fragen, die in Selbstregulierungsinstrumenten der akademischen Gemeinschaft adressiert werden sollten.