Law and technology through the lens of autopoiesis:An analytical framework for dealing with regulatory disconnection illustrated through the case of the GDPR

English: This dissertation is about the gap between law and technology – the idea that technology develops at a faster pace than law is able to adapt. New technologies (sometimes) bring the current regulatory regime under pressure, or may even lead to a mismatch whereby the regulatory regime might need to be adapted. Such mismatches between assumptions embedded in the law and the new (sociotechnical) context are referred to in literature as regulatory disconnection, and the consequences thereof affect how the regulatory regime is supposed to work. A holistic and systematic approach to identifying regulatory disconnection is currently lacking. While a few approaches can be identified for addressing regulatory disconnection, there is currently little guidance on how to select the most suitable one in a given situation. Such guidance is important because adopting one manner of re-connection when another would have been necessary, might leave things in an even worse state. The aim of this project is to make a next step in the direction of developing a general theory of law and technology, by addressing the following research question: How can the theory of autopoiesis further our understanding of the interaction between law and technology, and what would a new, autopoiesis-inspired analytical framework for dealing with regulatory disconnection contribute to this understanding?This project brings together insights from the field of law and technology, regulation theory, and legal theory, combining elements of methodologies such as critical literature review, doctrinal method and discourse analysis. It draws inspiration from the theory of autopoiesis in law and develops a ‘ready-to-use’ analytical framework for the identification and addressing regulatory disconnection. Essentially, the theory of autopoiesis proposes that the world is composed of different (self-producing) systems. These systems can only view the world through their internal mechanisms that function as a filter. Because of this, each system develops its own world-view, or its model of reality of what other systems look like. The concept of model of reality becomes central to the three-phase analytical framework, in which the user is supported by guiding questions. Because it is developed as ‘ready-to-use’, actors such as regulators, judges and Advocate Generals, academics, lawyers, or NGOs that play a role in identifying and addressing regulatory disconnection can use the framework without a thorough understanding of the theory underlying it. The framework provides tools that support the users in conducting a systematic analysis of mismatches between law and the sociotechnical landscape, hence informing decisions regarding the right manner of re-connection. To illustrate its usefulness, the developed analytical framework is applied to the illustrative case of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), more specifically on the concept of ‘controller’, and finds a regulatory disconnection within this legislative instrument. The extent of the disconnection is in such a manner that addressing it through interpretation would not be suitable, and regulatory effort should be dedicated towards re-connection.This research concludes that that the theory of autopoiesis provides a different, yet compatible perspective to the interaction between law and technology, thereby adding an additional explanatory layer to the state of the art in literature. The autopoiesis-inspired analytical framework provides a ‘ready-to-use’ integrated and systematic approach for identifying and addressing regulatory disconnection from a substantive perspective, which strengthens the current approaches of dealing with the difference in pace between law and technology. In addition, the analytical framework also has the potential to facilitate interdisciplinary research, whose implementation is currently both a desire as well as a challenge in (legal) academia. Furthermore, the tools developed could also be used in other contexts, such as drawing inspiration from one legal domain to address issues in another. The full potential of this framework should be further investigated and tested. Dutch:Dit proefschrift gaat over de kloof tussen recht en technologie - de idee dat technologie zich sneller ontwikkelt dan het recht zich kan aanpassen. Nieuwe technologieën zetten het bestaande wettelijk regime (soms) onder druk, of kunnen zelfs leiden tot een mismatch waardoor de wet moet worden aangepast. Dergelijke mismatches tussen aannames die in de wet verankerd zijn en de nieuwe (sociotechnische) context worden in de wetenschappelijke literatuur regulatory disconnection genoemd, en de gevolgen daarvan hebben invloed op de manier waarop het wettelijke regime verondersteld wordt te werken. Op dit moment ontbreekt een holistische en systematische aanpak voor het identificeren van regulatory disconnection. Hoewel er enkele wetenschappelijke benaderingen voor de aanpak van de problematiek kunnen worden geïdentificeerd, ontbreekt het momenteel aan voldoende houvast om de meest geschikte benadering in een specifieke situatie te selecteren. Een voldoende houvast is belangrijk omdat de specifieke aanpak voor het adresseren van een regulatory disconnection veelal nauw komt en de keuze voor een sub-optimale aanpak de problematiek kan verergeren. Het doel van dit onderzoek is het zetten van een volgende stap in de ontwikkeling van een algemene theorie voor recht en technologie. Dat doet het onderzoek meer concreet via het beantwoorden van de volgende onderzoeksvraag: Hoe kan de theorie van autopoëse ons begrip van de interactie tussen recht en technologie bevorderen, en welke bijdrage kan een nieuw, op autopoëse geïnspireerd analytisch kader voor de omgang met regulatory disconnection, leveren aan dit begrip?Dit project brengt inzichten samen op het gebied van recht en technologie, theorie van regulering en rechtstheorie, en combineert elementen van methodologieën zoals kritisch literatuuronderzoek, doctrinair onderzoek en discoursanalyse. Het onderzoek ontleent inspiratie uit de theorie van autopoëse in het recht en ontwikkelt een 'gebruiksklaar' analytisch kader voor de identificatie en aanpak van regulatory disconnection. In de kern is de theorie van autopoëse gebaseerd op de aanname dat de wereld is samengesteld uit verschillende (zelfproducerende) systemen. Deze systemen kunnen de wereld alleen waarnemen door hun interne mechanismen die als een filter fungeren. Hierdoor ontwikkelt elk systeem zijn eigen wereldbeeld, oftewel een model van de werkelijkheid en daarmee hoe andere systemen eruit zien. De benadering via dergelijke modellen van de werkelijkheid staat centraal in een analytisch kader dat bestaat uit drie stappen waarbij de gebruiker deze stappen doorloopt aan de hand van een aantal leidende vragen. Omdat het kader als het ware 'gebruiksklaar' is ontwikkeld, kunnen actoren wiens taak het is een mismatch tussen recht en technologie te identificeren en aan te pakken, waaronder de wetgever, rechters en advocaten-generaal, academici, advocaten of NGO's, het raamwerk gebruiken zonder een grondig begrip te moeten hebben van de theorie die eraan ten grondslag ligt. Het kader biedt met andere woorden een hulpmiddel dat gebruikers ondersteunt bij het uitvoeren van een systematische analyse van mismatches tussen aannames in het recht enerzijds en de nieuwe (sociotechnische) context anderzijds, waardoor beslissingen over de juiste manier voor het adresseren van de mismatch onderbouwd kunnen worden. Om de bruikbaarheid ervan te illustreren, wordt het ontwikkelde analytische kader toegepast op het wettelijk kader van de Algemene Verordening Gegevensbescherming (AVG), meer specifiek op het concept 'verwerkingsverantwoordelijke'. Het betreft hier bij uitstek een voorbeeld waarin de mismatch niet aangepakt kan worden middels interpretatie van bestaande bepalingen maar de inspanningen gericht moeten zijn op het vinden van een hernieuwde aansluiting tussen recht en de (sociotechnische) context.Dit onderzoek concludeert dat de theorie van autopoëse een ander, maar compatibel perspectief biedt op de interactie tussen recht en technologie, en daarmee een aanvullend verklarend mechanisme oplevert binnen het bestaande wetenschappelijke debat. Het op autopoëse geïnspireerde analytisch kader biedt een 'gebruiksklare', geïntegreerde en systematische benadering voor het identificeren en aanpakken van de mismatch tussen recht en technologie. Het doet dit uit een inhoudelijk perspectief en verrijkt daarmee de huidige benaderingen voor de omgang met verschillen in tempo van ontwikkeling tussen recht en technologie. Daarnaast heeft het ontwikkelde analytisch kader ook de potentie om interdisciplinair onderzoek te faciliteren, waarvan de implementatie momenteel zowel een wens als een uitdaging is in de (juridische) academische wereld. Bovendien kunnen de inzichten mogelijk ook hun waarde tonen buiten het terrein van recht en technologie door de toepassing ook in andere contexten uit te testen. Het volledige potentieel van dit kader zal kortom voorwerp van verder onderzoek moeten zijn

Commercial Law Intersections

Commercial law is not a single, monolithic entity. It has grown into a dense thicket of subject-specific branches that govern a broad range of transactions and corporate actions. When one of such dealings or activities falls concurrently within the purview of two or more of these commercial law branches—such as corporate law, intellectual property law, secured transactions law, conduct and prudential regulation—an overlap materializes. We refer to this legal phenomenon as a commercial law intersection (CLI). CLIs are ubiquitous. Notable examples include traditional commercial transactions, such as bank loans secured by shares, supply chain financing, or patent cross-licensing agreements, as well as nascent FinTech arrangements, such as blockchain-based initial coin offerings and other dealings in digital tokens. CLIs present a multi-faceted challenge. The unharmonious convergence of commercial law branches generates failures in coordination that both increase transaction costs and distort incentives for market participants. Crucially, in the most severe cases, this affliction deters business actors from entering into the affected transactions altogether. The cries of scholars, judges, and practitioners lamenting these issues have grown ever louder; yet methodical, comprehensive solutions remain elusive. This Article endeavors to fill this void. First, it provides a comprehensive analysis of CLIs and the dynamics that give rise to coordination failures. Drawing from systems theory and jurisprudence, it then identifies the deficiencies of the most common approaches used to reconcile tensions between commercial law branches, before advancing the concepts of “legal coherence” and “unity of purpose” as the key to addressing such shortcomings. Finally, leveraging these insights, it formulates a normative blueprint, comprising a two-step method which aims to assist lawmakers, regulators, and courts in untangling the Gordian knot created by CLI coordination failures

The Failure of the Surveillance State: Observation, Narrative and Identity in American Literature and Culture Since the Cold War

This dissertation examines an aporia in Michel Foucault\u27s analysis of ideological panopticism. Foucault would likely suggest that the contemporary widespread use and acceptance of second-generation surveillance technologies exemplifies the discursive circulation of panoptic ideology. To the contrary, there is a great deal of evidence that suggests that such technology can be used for, to borrow Steve Mann\u27s phrase, sousveillance (or, literally, to watch from below ). By drawing from Niklas Luhmann\u27s and Gregory Bateson\u27s examinations of the inherent blind spots of observation systems (both literal and metaphorical), this dissertation suggests that sousveillance posits a challenge to the theoretically neat (according to Foucault) ideological function of surveillance. Moreover, this dissertation draws from Chilean biologists and systems theorists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela\u27s concept of autopoiesis, or self-creation, in order to examine how the second-generation surveillance camera facilitates opportunities to discursively express and forge identities that are not so neatly explained by the limited possibilities of ideological interpellation.;This project approaches these issues by examining a triangulated, discursive relationship between surveillance, narrative, and subjectivity as it manifests in contemporary American culture, and it locates examples of this triangulated relationship in both the form and content of various postmodern, cultural products such as Don DeLillo\u27s novel Cosmopolis, Anna Deavere Smith\u27s stage play Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Hasan Elahi\u27s digital art installation Tracking Transience, and David Simon\u27s HBO series The Wire. The Failure of the Surveillance State ultimately posits that panoptic power does not function as neatly as Foucault proposed and that the failures and blind spots of contemporary surveillance systems provide significant possibilities for reconsidering and reconstructing theoretical models of subjectivity, agency, and narrative. It concludes by asserting that these failures have become embedded in emerging narrative frameworks that have moved away from the authority of a singular narrator to a practice that mirrors an infinite regress of secondary observers in multiple points-of-view narrative frameworks (as in the case of Jennifer Egan\u27s novel A Visit from the Goon Squad)

The Cogs and Wheels of Reflexive Law - Business Disclosure under the Modern Slavery Act

In response to the novel challenges posed by labour exploitation in the contemporary business context, recent years have witnessed an increasing adoption of reflexive law in the form of slavery disclosure, s. 54 of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA) being the latest attempt in this regard. Given that the pragmatic usages and effects of reflexive law have been explored far less to date than its conceptual and jurisprudential implications, this article seeks to put matters right by critically examining the use of this regulatory mode in the context of s.54. It also aims to contribute to the broader appraisal of regulatory methods by comparing reflexive laws to the traditional regulatory dichotomy which has long dominated debates on globalised business and human rights

Mortal Computation: A Foundation for Biomimetic Intelligence

This review motivates and synthesizes research efforts in neuroscience-inspired artificial intelligence and biomimetic computing in terms of mortal computation. Specifically, we characterize the notion of mortality by recasting ideas in biophysics, cybernetics, and cognitive science in terms of a theoretical foundation for sentient behavior. We frame the mortal computation thesis through the Markov blanket formalism and the circular causality entailed by inference, learning, and selection. The ensuing framework -- underwritten by the free energy principle -- could prove useful for guiding the construction of unconventional connectionist computational systems, neuromorphic intelligence, and chimeric agents, including sentient organoids, which stand to revolutionize the long-term future of embodied, enactive artificial intelligence and cognition research.Comment: Several revisions applied, corrected error in Jarzynski equality equation (w/ new citaion); references and citations now correctly aligne

The Quixotism of a Relationally Constituted Contract Law

Relational contract theory is often seen as a rival to classical contract. Despite its inception in the early 1970s, the full theory does not seem to have made much headway into the substantive law of contract within England and Wales outside of doctrinal rhetoric in good faith. Part of this stagnation is due to the convolution that surrounds relational contract theory, both in its descriptive and normative claims. This thesis will attempt to rectify the situation and elucidate relational contract theory as the neutral analytic tool that it was designed to be. It will be shown that relational theory is not inherently opposed to the continuation of the classical law and that a change to a relationally constituted law of contract would be damaging. While the classical law is founded on false premises, the effect is not as dire as academics posit, and in a world that is better off with this flawed doctrine relational theory will encounter the awkward question of its utility. The fact that the theory would not do well in substantive law does not make its norms and narrative any less accurate, and this thesis maintains it still has a place. In determining an adequate place the thesis will reference an obscure jurisprudential theory developed by Niklas Luhmann known as Autopoietic Systems Theory. With reference to this, the thesis determines that relational contract theory is a description of the interplay between psychic and social systems. The theory is both separate and distinct from the legal subsystem of society, which observes the theory's noises and generates its own internal communications. On this abstract theoretical level, the thesis will deduce that further distortion of the theory by the legal system is highly likely, and therefore integration is unlikely to find any real success

The EU's Schizophrenic Constitutional Debate: Vertical and Horizontal Decentralism in European Governance

Normative discourses on the European institutional set-up have paid attention to both vertical and horizontal decentralism. Decentralism refers to the respect of the autonomy of lower or smaller decision-making levels, the procedures privileging these decision-making levels (subsidiarity), and the involvement of these decision-making units in the case that policy-making is (partially) defined (and implemented) at a more central level. Vertical decentralism indicates these processes with regard to territorial decision-making levels and actors. Horizontal decentralism consists in these processes with regard to functional levels and actors, in particular civil society organisations and private organisations.This paper argues that the vertical and horizontal dimension of decentralism have always been dealt with separately within the European constitutional debate. For long, the debate has focused on issues of territorial representation, and as far as it has paid attention to decentralism this has been interpreted in vertical terms. It is only by the end of the 1990s that the normative discourse on the European construction starts also to pay attention to horizontal decentralism. However, normative arguments on vertical decentralism meet hardly ever with those on horizontal decentralism, as can still be illustrated by the current constitutional debate, with the Convention-Constitutional Treaty debate on the one hand, and the (follow-up to the) White Paper on European Governance on the other hand. Institutional interests may explain this separation of discourses. However, in practice European governance is characterised by interactions between public and private actors at multiple territorial levels. Therefore, the vertical and the horizontal dimensions of decentralism are intertwined. As a consequence, the normative debate on the future of the European polity should not deal with these issues in complete isolation from one another.governance; constitution building; decentralisation

Agency and Organisation: The Dialectics of Nature and Life

In recent decades, there have been major theoretical changes within evolutionary biology. In this dissertation, I critically reconstruct these developments through philosophy to assess how it may inform these debates. The overall aim is to show the mutual relevance between current trends in biology and the dialectical approach to nature. I argue that the repetition of the neglected tradition of organicism is anticipated both by a dialectical tradition within science and by Hegel’s philosophy – and that these theories may together inform the ongoing shift within evolutionary biology called the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES). I stage the discussion by outlining the tenets and history of the modern synthesis (MS) and the alternative: the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES). It takes us into topics such as autonomy, organisation, reduction, and autopoiesis. Based on these discussions, I make the case that the most promising alternative to the MS is the so-called organisational approach formulated within theoretical biology and apply dialectics to strengthen this claim. In my view, they share a fundamental premise: Biology must surpass the physical worldview and adopt a more complex model to comprehend life as an ongoing regeneration of organisation and an expression of self-determination. To bring out the philosophical stakes of this shift, I take on Hegel’s writings on nature, life, and purposiveness and relate them to contemporary thinkers. The main contribution of this work lies not in a particularly novel reading of any of the theories I examine but in bringing them together – both within philosophy and biology and between them – and systematically mapping how philosophy and the humanities should deal with the natural sciences. The new kind of naturalism suggested here, which places life at its core, also calls for another scientific ideal which strives for unification without subsumption or eradication of differences