Ambient Intelligence, Criminal Liability and Democracy

In this contribution we will explore some of the implications of the vision of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) for law and legal philosophy. AmI creates an environment that monitors and anticipates human behaviour with the aim of customised adaptation of the environment to a person’s inferred preferences. Such an environment depends on distributed human and non-human intelligence that raises a host of unsettling questions around causality, subjectivity, agency and (criminal) liability. After discussing the vision of AmI we will present relevant research in the field of philosophy of technology, inspired by the post-phenomenological position taken by Don Ihde and the constructivist realism of Bruno Latour. We will posit the need to conceptualise technological normativity in comparison with legal normativity, claiming that this is necessary to develop democratic accountability for the implications of emerging technologies like AmI. Lastly we will investigate to what extent technological devices and infrastructures can and should be used to achieve compliance with the criminal law, and we will discuss some of the implications of non-human distributed intelligence for criminal liability.

The influence of public programs on inter-firm R&D collaboration strategies: project-level evidence from EU FP5 and FP6

Inter-firms R&D collaborations are often seen as an effective mean to access new resources, to innovate and/or to enter new markets in a turbulent environment characterized by fierce competition. However, all R&D partnerships do not have the same strategic importance. We analyze the strategic features of two types of partnerships that are seldom compared in the academic literature on R&D alliances: EU-sponsored inter-firms collaborations on the one hand, and non-sponsored, spontaneous inter-firm collaborations on the other. We compare their incentives and coordination mechanisms, and derive theoretical propositions that we test empirically. Our econometric analysis uses original data on (sponsored and non-sponsored) projects conducted by participants in the 5th and 6th European R&D Framework Programs. Our empirical findings support our main propositions. EU-funded collaborations are more exploratory and more focused on peripheral competences than spontaneous R&D collaborations. They are also less flexible, due to rigid monitoring rules which are nevertheless crucial to the projects?? success. However, there is no major difference between the different types of EU-sponsored collaborations, which pleads for a simplification of these policy instruments.     

Difficulties in the criminal prosecution of insider trading—A clinical study of the Bekaert case

If the enforcement of insider trading prohibition is of crucial importance to ensure the integrity of financial markets, then the current criminal prosecution in Europe fails in reaching this goal. This article illustrates several difficulties in prohibiting and prosecuting insider trading by using a clinical study of the Belgian industrial company Bekaert, NV. It is shown that courts currently seem to lack knowledge of the functioning of financial markets to assess an insider trading case. Therefore their decisions give little guidance to future litigants. Using, a law and economics framework, this clinical study is clarifying in several aspects compared to a traditional legal analysis. The analysis focuses on two aspects of an insider trading case. First, the price-sensitive character of the information is examined. Second, the standard of proof is examined. JEL classification G14 · K22 · K42     

Prevalence and predictors of dating violence among adolescent female victims of child sexual abuse

The purpose of this study was to advance knowledge of dating violence behaviors among adolescent victims of child sexual abuse (CSA), first, by determining the prevalence of psychological and physical dating violence and the reciprocity of violence, and second, by investigating the influence of certain CSA characteristics to dating violence. Respondents included 126 females ages 13 to 17 years. More than 45% reported experiencing some sort of physical violence in their dating relationships. Psychological violence was reciprocal in more than 90% of the cases. Multiple regression analysis revealed a significant contribution of CSA characteristics. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the duration of the sexual abuse and the presence of violence or completed intercourse during the abuse could significantly contribute to dating violence above and beyond other known risk factors. Discussion underscores the need to gain a better understanding of CSA and other risk factors that might influence violent dating behaviors.     

Data protection by design and technology neutral law

This article argues that to achieve a technology neutral law, technology specific law is sometimes required. To explain this we discriminate between three objectives, often implied in the literature on technological neutrality of law. The first we call the compensation objective, which refers to the need to have technology specific law in place whenever specific technological designs threated the substance of human rights. The second we call the innovation objective, referring to the need to prevent legal rules from privileging or discriminating specific technological designs in ways that would stifle innovation. The third we call the sustainability objective, which refers to the need to enact legislation at the right level of abstraction, to prevent the law from becoming out of date all too soon. The argument that technology neutral law requires compensation in the form of technology specific law is built on a relational conception of technology, and we explain that though technology in itself is neither good nor bad, it is never neutral. We illustrate the relevance of the three objectives with a discussion of the EU cookie Directive of 2009. Finally we explain the salience of the legal obligation of Data Protection by Design in the proposed General Data Protection Regulation and test this against the compensation, innovation and sustainability objectives.     

The family strategies concept: An evaluation of four empirical case studies

In this article, the preceding case studies are evaluated from the perspective of the family strategies concept. The studies have yielded new insights in the relationship between the family and the labor market and in the labor allocation within families. In addition, they have shown the tensions between individual life plans and collective needs. It has been difficult, however, to reach firm conclusions about which strategies were deployed by families. One of the problems is that the motives of the family members remain hidden. In addition, our databases need to be more finely tuned to the strategies concept. In particular, we know too little on the range of (strategic) options of families in the past.     

Introduction: Structure or strategy? Essays on family,demography, and labor from the Dutch N.W. Posthumus Institute

The concept of ‘family strategies’ has yielded much valuable research when used in the classic ‘quantitative’ and ‘anthropological’ approaches to the history of family life. Its continued use as a research concept requires, however, that significantly more attention be paid to the relationships between families as social units and their individual members, to the great variety of families and households, and to the different motives that guided families in charging strategies. These questions are brought to the forefront when the history of the family is investigated cross-culturally and comparatively, as the articles of this Special Issue, written by researchers of the Dutch N. W. Posthumus Institute, seek to do.     

The fertility decline in the Dutch province of Limburg, 1880–1960: On understanding historical actors in a constrained environment

The Dutch province of Limburg is mentioned in the European Fertility Project studies because of the fact that its fertility was remarkably high well into the twentieth century and declined only gradually. This article explores the structural background of changes in reproductive behavior in Limburg. The province is economically differentiated in industrial areas and traditional agricultural regions. Also, there is a clear cultural heterogeneity. Using data at the community level, the article analyzes of the economic motivation as well as of the mental acceptation of the introduction of neoMalthusian behavior. The results show that we are better able to explain the variance in behavior as the twentieth century proceeds, and that the factor “economy” appears to be the best predictor, although the effects of a cultural filter become evident.