This book offers an in-depth analysis of the WTO security exceptions and relevant rulings by WTO dispute settlement panels. The WTO security exceptions are commonly regarded as the "box of Pandora" of the WTO system, since WTO Member States can invoke them in order to justify trade restrictions violating WTO law which they consider necessary for their essential security interests. The Members of the WTO and the GATT 1947 have hesitated for decades to rely on these security exceptions. In recent years, however, these clauses have been invoked for the first time in high-profile disputes...

From the perspective of institutionalism and theories of clusters, this book provides a concept of organized crime as an institutional cluster in contrast to the concept of multiple offences, associated with organized criminal groups or/and criminal organizations. 

The book offers shifts in the methodology of organized crime analysis and extrapolates the tools of cluster modelling – successfully approbated in the social and economic sciences as a method for the organization of spatially localized systems – to the criminological field. Such an approach gives a fresh view of...

This book describes how statements made by non-state actors affect the scope of an individual's criminal responsibility and how they should be taken into account by domestic criminal courts. Sentencing is only possible on the basis and within the limits of the law. In the 21st century, this law increasingly means regulations formulated by various non-state actors: international organisations, human rights tribunals or statutory bodies. The content of these regulations does not only refer to states, but often has a direct impact on the legal situation of individuals. Two worlds collide...

The book starts with an analysis of what is new in the Digital Services Act. The aim is to see whether this new Regulation is appropriate both for not halting technological innovation and for addressing the risks that technological innovation poses to society and to the people who use digital services. The focal point is the risk of discrimination as people are often helpless in the face of the potential discriminations in the digital services sector. In particular, the book analyses how the Digital Services Act can make a concrete contribution to the protection against discrimination. To...

Does the Sexual Offences Act (SOA) 2003 provide for consent to be vitiated in all the circumstances we think it should? Can, and should, section 76(2)(b) (the impersonation provision) be read to include a different class of identity deceptions? How should the concept of personal identity be understood in this context?

While the concept has had some airing in the courts, and the distinction between identity and attributes of the person softened, the law on rape still fails to give proper effect to identity deception and leaves many questions unanswered. This book offers a novel take...

This book critically addresses one of the most complex issues in procedural law: the objective limits of res judicata. Particularly relevant in civil law countries such as Italy and Germany-and especially in Portugal-this topic has generated intense doctrinal debate. In an effort to circumvent the constraints imposed by the traditional model of the plea of res judicata and the triple identity test, Portuguese legal scholarship developed the concept of the authority of res judicata. However, the vague contours of this concept have led to doctrinal uncertainty and...