European Private Law: A Plea for a Spontaneous Legal Order

This contribution focuses on European integration through private law. After a sketch of the existing European acquis in the field of the law of contract, tort and property, the question is discussed whether there is a need for harmonisation in view of the goals the European Union set itself. Subsequently, the question of how to design a future European private law is answered. In the field of contract law, the European Commission now follows a two-track policy: it intends to draft a ‘Common Frame of Reference’ (‘CFR’) as well as furthering the debate on the possibility of an optional code. It is debated what the contents of these two instruments should be and how they should be created, but also the more fundamental question as to whether they will really contribute to the solving of the present problems with the European acquis is touched upon. Finally, the influence of ‘Europe’ on national private law is looked at from a critical perspective. The author adopts the view that uniform private law should come about in a Hayekian way of a spontaneous legal order

Preface

Neuroscience and law (in brief ‘Neurolaw’) is one of the most exciting recent developments at the intersection of law and science. It is a rapidly emerging field that reveals all kinds of details about how the human brain works. The aim of the course was to explore how this new scientific knowledge can or should affect the law. This influence is potentially important. The main reason for this is that law is full of presumptions about how and why people act. These presumptions are increasingly questioned by neuroscientists, giving rise to what some have called a ‘neuro-revolution’ in our thinking about law. However, it is far from clear what the exact impact of neuro-scientific insights has to be. The main aim of the course was to explore this impact. This led us to explore a wide range of different issues: a. a mapping exercise of the potential impact of neuroscience on law. This mapping exercise was the main activity during the first seven weeks of the project. b. an exploration of a number of more specific topics. Students selected these topics during the first seven weeks and then wrote an individual paper during the second part of the project

An AI that writes music – A guy that writes a blog

An AI that writes music is the claim that Musi-co is making. So does the result of our AI that composes, e.g. a song named Catchy Kate, carry any Intellectual Property Right

Two- versus three-dimensional connectivity testing of first-order queries to semi-algebraic sets

This paper addresses the question whether one can determine the connectivity of a semi-algebraic set in three dimensions by testing the connectivity of a finite number of two-dimensional ``samples'' of the set, where these samples are defined by first-order queries. The question is answered negatively for two classes of first-order queries: cartesian-product-free, and positive one-pass.Comment: corrected minor confusion in Proof of Theorem