Huber, Marper and Others: Throwing new light on the shadows of suspicion. INEX Policy Brief No. 8, June 2010

The proliferation of large-scale databases containing personal information, and the multiple uses to which they can be put, can be highly problematic from the perspective of fundamental rights and freedoms. This paper discusses two landmark decisions that illustrate some of the risks linked to these developments and point to a better framing of such practices: the Heinz Huber v. Germany judgement, from the European Court of Justice, and the S. and Marper v. United Kingdom ruling, from the European Court of Human Rights. The paper synthesises the lessons to be learnt from such decisions. Additionally, it questions the impact of the logic of pure prevention that is being combined with other rationales in the design and management of databases. This Policy Brief is published in the context of the INEX project, which looks at converging and conflicting ethical values in the internal/external security continuum in Europe, and is funded by the Security Programme of DG Enterprise of the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Research Programme. For more information visit: www.inexproject.e

Human rights:A secular religion with legal crowbars. From Europe with hesitations

This contribution offers to steer a discussion on the constitutive stance of fundamental rights in Western legal systems. The story of the democratic constitutional state, a story of rule of law and human rights, is an already 250 year old utopia, which strangely persists despite long-standing patterns of slavery, war, torture, poverty, hunger, deportations, racism, and other unfavorable matters to human rights. This paper aims at questioning this perpetual paradox. After a historical assessment of human rights, we maintain that the traditional narrative emerges as the result of an interchangeable religious process: human rights as the gospel of a secular religion. Despite this, our perspectives on the rights apparatus can be adjusted by a more realistic vision of legal practices. Under certain conditions, human rights can function as legal crowbars in courts. With the crowbar metaphor, we adopt a constructive and pragmatic approach to human rights. Yet, what stands out is an expectation to move beyond the human rights axioms, rather than an endeavor to fix them. Ultimately, we suggest that other less toxic frameworks could replace traditional human rights narratives as constructs that may better realise our hopes

Une approche « écologique » des communs dans le droit

De nos jours, de plus en plus de groupes d’habitants s’engagent localement et déploient des pratiques de vie qui sont enracinées dans leurs milieux. Nous nommons ce genre d’agir « commoning ». Il y a commoning quand /1/ des personnes /2/ s’auto-organisent /3/ autour d’une « chose », par exemple une terre ou un cours d’eau, qui les concerne et les responsabilise collectivement, /4/ et poursuivent des activités marquées par leur générativité, plutôt que par l’extraction. À travers trois cas de figure, l’article met le droit à l’épreuve de ce genre d’agir. Ainsi, il explore d’abord le statut du patrimoine comme « transpropriation » tel qu’il fut réélaboré afin justement d’accommoder le droit au « retour des communs ». Ensuite, le regard est porté sur le statut juridique de « patrimoine collectif » où « civique », tel qu’il prend forme à travers les derniers développements législatifs et jurisprudentiels concernant les usi civici en Italie, une forme de communs héritée du passé. Enfin, il s’agira de repenser le terme « milieu » à la lumière d’une récente évolution judiciaire et législative en Nouvelle-Zélande. Ici, le milieu est l’ensemble des rapports à proprement parler « écologiques » qui forment un biotope. Au bilan, il apparaît que le droit s’ouvre marginalement à la reconnaissance de milieux en tant que réseaux d’interactions et d’interdépendances vivants, tout en amadouant localement la prédominance de sa perspective moderne dans laquelle opèrent encore un nombre d’oppositions et de grands partages entre sujet et objet, nature et culture, humain et non-humain et individu et collectif. Dans la même veine, le droit semble pouvoir faire place, certes localement aussi, à la reconnaissance du rôle de communautés d’habitants qui prennent part au maintien des conditions de régénération du territoire « dans la durée » et à la transmission intergénérationnelle de la vie et du milieu dont elle dépend, et vice versa. Compte tenu de ces constats et des possibles qu’ils ouvrent, l’article formule des propositions par rapport à une possible protection juridique du commoning, tout en espérant que ce genre d’agir durable et génératif puisse commencer à exister plus que marginalement dans le droit.Nowadays, more and more groups of inhabitants are increasingly involved in practices rooted into the local lands and territories they inhabit. We call this kind of action: “commoning”. There is commoning when /1/  people get involved into /2/ practices of self-organization /3/ around a “thing”, such as, for instance, a land or a watercourse, that concerns and makes them collectively responsible, and /4/ pursue activities marked by their generative nature, rather than by extraction. Through three case studies the article tests the suitability of the law towards this kind of action. It first explores the notion of “transpropriation” to accommodate the “return of the commons” in law, inspired by the features of the “heritage” institute. Then, the focus shifts towards the latest legislative and jurisprudential developments concerning “civic usages” in Italy (i.e. usi civici), a form of commons inherited from the past. Finally, the study addresses the notion of “milieu” in the light of judicial and legislative developments that have recently taken place in New Zealand. The sense attributed to the notion of milieu here, has to do with a whole of “ecological” relations that form a biotope. All in all, it appears that the law modestly and marginally opens itself to the recognition of the networks of interaction and interdependencies among all living beings that inhabit lands, rivers and territories and to see these as living places. In doing so, law starts to mitigate its predominant modern perspective in which a number of oppositions and major divisions still operate between subject and object, nature and culture, human and non-human and individual and collective. In the same vein, law starts to recognize that communities of inhabitants take full and proper part in the conservation, maintenance and regeneration of the conditions of life of a milieu. Following these observations and the possibilities they open up, the article makes proposals for the possible legal protection of commoning, while hoping that this kind of sustainable and generative action can begin to exist more than marginally in law

Het aardappelproces: analyse van corr. Dendermonde 15 januari 2013 en vooruitblik hervatting proces tegen elf milieuactivisten: een eerlijk proces voor de 11 van Wetteren?

Critical analysis of judgment convicting GGO-activists to imprisonment sentences. Fair trial principle and proportionality of sanctions

Privacy, Data Protection and Law Enforcement. Opacity of the Individual and Transparency of Power

SUMMARY: Introduction; 1 Principles of the democratic constitutional state; 1.1 The Recognition of Human Rights in their Double Function; 1.2 The Rule of Law; 1.3 Democracy; 2 The democratic constitutional state and the invention of two complementary legal tools of power control; 2.1 Limiting power through opacity tools; 2.2 Channelling power through transparency tools; 3 Privacy as a tool for opacity (creating zones of non-interference); 3.1 The negative role of privacy; 3.2 The positive role of privacy; 3.3 The non-absolute nature of privacy; 4 Data protection as a tool for transparency; 4.1 Introduction; 4.2 The rationale behind data protection; 4.3 Data protection as an opacity tool?; 4.4 The charter of fundamental rights of the european union; 5 The shift from opacity towards transparency in european human rights law; 5.1 European human rights law and the legality requirement; 5.2 The success of the legality requirement; 5.3 A critical comment about the strasbourg focus on the legality requirement; 5.4 The danger of proceduralisation; 5.5 A requirement fundamental to opacity: necessary in a democratic state; 6. Combining privacy and data protection 6.1 Combining the tools; 6.2 Determining the switch; 6.3 An example: camera surveillance; 6.4 A second example: passenger profiling; 6.5 Workable criteria?; Conclusion

Observations and reflexivity:responsibilising interdisciplinarity and integration

This policy report is based in Epinet WP2 and complements WP1 reporting on the EPINET Integrated Assessment Framework as a Tool for RRI . We present key findings from the empirical research we conducted and was designed to be an instrument of observation and reflexivity in reference to the interdisciplinary innovation assessment cases conducted as part of the Epinet project. In particular, we report on the procedural conditions in carrying out these cases as the basis on which our policy recommendations rest

Canvas White Paper 2 Cybersecurity and Law

This White Paper explores the legal dimensions of the European Union (EU)’s value-driven cybersecurity by investigating the notions of ‘value-driven’ and ‘cybersecurity’ from the perspective of EU law. It starts with a general overview of legal issues in current value-driven cybersecurity debates (Chapter 2), showing how values embedded within the framework of EU governing treaties have evolved during the integration process, and the important role they play in the cybersecurity regulation at EU level. Chapter 3 of the White Paper is devoted to the main critical challenges in this area: 1) the varied and sometimes unclear uses of the term ‘cybersecurity’, 2) the roles of stakeholders and the cooperation between them, and the 3) securitization of EU values and interests through cybersecurity rules. Chapter 4 points out and describes specific controversies concerning cybersecurity regulation in the EU. Ten disputed issues are given particular attention: 1) the functioning of human rights as drivers for EU regulation, 2) the regulation of risks to society through individual risk identification and proactive action, 3) the attribution of roles to different stakeholders, 4) how individuals are being awarded with more rights, 5) controllership of data, 6) copyright protection, 7) regulation of online content, 8) the use of encryption, 9) permissibility of massive and generalised surveillance of individuals and 10) counterterrorism measures. Chapter 5 summarises the main findings of the literature review. The White Paper recognises that legislative and policy measures within the cybersecurity domain challenge EU fundamental rights and principles, stemming from EU values. The White Paper concludes that with the constantly growing number of EU measures governing the cybersecurity domain, the embedment of EU values enshrined in the EU Charter within these measures take place both on an ex ante and an ex post basis