Crowdfunding Civil Justice

The Article provides a systematic law and economics analysis of civil litigation crowdfunding. It first distinguishes between investment-based and non-investment-based crowdfunding models. Investment-based litigation crowdfunding is generally a welcome phenomenon, because it enables parties to pursue meritorious claims and defenses without generating a significant risk of frivolous litigation. Thus, it should be minimally regulated by securing disclosure of relevant information to potential investors. Non-investment-based crowdfunding of process costs should be subject to professional vetting, which will inhibit frivolous claims and defenses that waste scarce administrative resources and do not further the underlying goals of civil law. Non-investment-based crowdfunding of outcome costs should be prohibited when it undermines the primary objectives of substantive law

Accountability through Transparency and the Role of the Court of Justice

This paper assesses transparency, an integral part of accountability, through the access to documents rules. Transparency is viewed here as an ongoing process capable of securing, through a set of binding rules, open performance in the decision-making process. Seen from this perspective, access to documents is considered to be an essential accountability component, since without information on what basis decisions are being taken, and by whom, it is impossible for the various accountability forums to hold the actors to account. The paper reviews transparency and freedom of information in the European Union (EU) by taking a holistic approach to the past 20 years. The aim is to explore transparency by means of access to “government” information and to investigate a twofold question: How open can the Union’s decision-making be and is it possible for citizens to participate in the decision-making process of institutions, bodies, offices and agencies? This paper concludes that accountability deficits in the field of access to documents have been filled, to a certain extent, by the EU Courts’ imposition of boundaries on some of the broad derogations to the right. Nevertheless, this has come at the cost of introducing a set of general presumptions against access which effectively change the default position from the widest access to non-disclosure

Negotiated disclosure : an examination of strategic information management by the police at custodial interrogation

This thesis considers the impact of substantially attenuating a suspect's right to silence on the relative positions of the police and defence in custodial interviews. The main hypothesis argues that these provisions have had a significant, unforeseen impact on the working dynamic between police officers and legal advisers. Interview strategies have developed, which seek to reinforce advantages to the police associated with control of pre-interview evidential disclosure. A second hypothesis postulates that introduction of the inference provisions has influenced suspect behaviour during custodial interrogation, leading to a reduced reliance upon the exercise of silence. The study drew upon data collected from in-depth, tape-recorded interviews with police officers involved at various stages of the investigative process, representing a wide variety of roles and experience. Full transcripts of the interviews were prepared and then subjected to a close-grained, qualitative analysis in which various themes were identified. The findings reveal, inter alia, that pre-interview disclosure has assumed increased significance, and can be instrumental to the interrogation outcome. Police officers are accorded considerable discretion in the management of police-suspect relations, which is evident in the emergence of control strategies for case-related information. Greater openness has flowed from the development of better-trained lawyers, and was manifest in the increased emphasis by police officers on truth-seeking during interview. Evidence emerged of controlled disclosure being used as a mechanism for securing or negotiating the co-operation of an interviewee. The extent of disclosure varied according to a number of factors, although, in serious or complex cases, non-disclosure formed the basis for the strategy. The incremental release of information has been shown to have an unsettling effect on interviewees and can undermine the legal adviser's presence. The police claim fewer no-comment interviews and improved content from the use of these tactics - findings that are echoed in recent studies by the Home Office and in Northern Ireland. The research therefore indicates that there is evidence to support both hypotheses

Delivering Better Housing and Employment Outcomes for Offenders on Probation

The report ‘Delivering better housing and employment outcomes for offenders on probation’ presents the findings of qualitative research which included fieldwork in six probation areas with professionals involved in the delivery of housing, employment, training and education

Beyond Training Prosecutors about their Disclosure Obligations: Can Prosecutors\u27 Offices Learn from their Lawyers\u27 Mistakes Symposium: New Perspectives on Brady and Other Disclosure Obligations: What Really Works

Prosecutors, criminal defense lawyers, judges, and legal academics from around the country recently met at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York to discuss prosecutors\u27 compliance with their disclosure obligations. The overarching question was how prosecutors\u27 offices could do a better job. To assist representatives of the legal profession in approaching this question from new directions, the Symposium organizers invited speakers from outside the legal profession to talk about the causes of error and methods used to reduce error in other contexts. One of the themes was that, outside the practice of law, individuals and institutions learn from their mistakes. This Article considers whether prosecutors\u27 offices can identify and learn from their lawyers\u27 disclosure mistakes

Securing the Internet of Things Infrastructure - Standards and Techniques

The Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure is a conglomerate of electronic devices interconnected through the Internet, with the purpose of providing prompt and effective service to end-users. Applications running on an IoT infrastructure generally handle sensitive information such as a patient’s healthcare record, the position of a logistic vehicle, or the temperature readings obtained through wireless sensor nodes deployed in a bushland. The protection of such information from unlawful disclosure, tampering or modification, as well as the unscathed presence of IoT devices, in adversarial environments, is of prime concern. In this paper, a descriptive analysis of the security of standards and technologies for protecting the IoT communication channel from adversarial threats is provided. In addition, two paradigms for securing the IoT infrastructure, namely, common key based and paired key based, are proposed

How does intellectual capital align with cyber security?

Purpose – To position the preservation and protection of intellectual capital as a cyber security concern. We outline the security requirements of intellectual capital to help Boards of Directors and executive management teams to understand their responsibilities and accountabilities in this respect.Design/Methodology/Approach – The research methodology is desk research. In other words, we gathered facts and existing research publications that helped us to define key terms, to formulate arguments to convince BoDs of the need to secure their intellectual capital, and to outline actions to be taken by BoDs to do so.Findings – Intellectual capital, as a valuable business resource, is related to information, knowledge and cyber security. Hence, preservation thereof is also related to cyber security governance, and merits attention from boards of directors.Implications – This paper clarifies boards of directors’ intellectual capital governance responsibilities, which encompass information, knowledge and cyber security governance.Social Implications – If boards of directors know how to embrace their intellectual capital governance responsibilities, this will help to ensure that such intellectual capital is preserved and secured.Practical Implications – We hope that boards of directors will benefit from our clarifications, and especially from the positioning of intellectual capital in cyber space.Originality/Value – This paper extends a previous paper published by Von Solms and Von Solms (2018), which clarified the key terms of information and cyber security, and the governance thereof. The originality and value is the focus on the securing of intellectual capital, a topic that has not yet received a great deal of attention from cyber security researchers

Negotiated disclosure : an examination of strategic information management by the police at custodial interrogation

This thesis considers the impact of substantially attenuating a suspect's right to silence on the relative positions of the police and defence in custodial interviews. The main hypothesis argues that these provisions have had a significant, unforeseen impact on the working dynamic between police officers and legal advisers. Interview strategies have developed, which seek to reinforce advantages to the police associated with control of pre-interview evidential disclosure. A second hypothesis postulates that introduction of the inference provisions has influenced suspect behaviour during custodial interrogation, leading to a reduced reliance upon the exercise of silence. The study drew upon data collected from in-depth, tape-recorded interviews with police officers involved at various stages of the investigative process, representing a wide variety of roles and experience. Full transcripts of the interviews were prepared and then subjected to a close-grained, qualitative analysis in which various themes were identified. The findings reveal, inter alia, that pre-interview disclosure has assumed increased significance, and can be instrumental to the interrogation outcome. Police officers are accorded considerable discretion in the management of police-suspect relations, which is evident in the emergence of control strategies for case-related information. Greater openness has flowed from the development of better-trained lawyers, and was manifest in the increased emphasis by police officers on truth-seeking during interview. Evidence emerged of controlled disclosure being used as a mechanism for securing or negotiating the co-operation of an interviewee. The extent of disclosure varied according to a number of factors, although, in serious or complex cases, non-disclosure formed the basis for the strategy. The incremental release of information has been shown to have an unsettling effect on interviewees and can undermine the legal adviser's presence. The police claim fewer no-comment interviews and improved content from the use of these tactics - findings that are echoed in recent studies by the Home Office and in Northern Ireland. The research therefore indicates that there is evidence to support both hypotheses

Future consumer mobile phone security: a case study using the data centric security model

In the interconnected world that we live in, traditional security barriers are\ud broken down. Developments such as outsourcing, increased usage of mobile\ud devices and wireless networks each cause new security problems.\ud To address the new security threats, a number of solutions have been suggested,\ud mostly aiming at securing data rather than whole systems or networks.\ud However, these visions (such as proposed by the Jericho Forum [9] and IBM\ud [4]) are mostly concerned with large (inter-) enterprise systems. Until now, it is\ud unclear what data-centric security could mean for other systems and environments.\ud One particular category of systems that has been neglected is that of\ud consumer mobile phones. Currently, data security is usually limited to a PIN\ud number on startup and the option to disable wireless connections. The lack of\ud protection does not seem justified, as these devices have steadily increased in\ud capabilities and capacity; they can connect wirelessly to the Internet and have\ud a high risk of being lost or stolen [8]. This not only puts end users at risk, but\ud also their contacts, as phones can contain privacy sensitive data of many others.\ud For example, if birth dates and addresses are kept with the contact records, in\ud many cases a thief will have enough information to impersonate a contact and\ud steal his identity.\ud Could consumer mobile phones benefit from data-centric security? How\ud useful is data-centric security in this context? These are the core questions we\ud will try to address here