With the rise and spread of ICT-enabled crimes and illicit money flows (IMFs), law enforcement authorities and financial intelligence units need innovative investigative tools and skills, and organisational and regulatory adjustments to counter crime. The multi-disciplinary TRACE project is developing AI solutions to identify, track, and document IMFs to pave the way for effectively prosecuting money laundering and predicate offences and recovering criminal proceeds. In this article, the authors present the TRACE project to reveal some of the challenges faced by law enforcement authorities in adopting AI-driven investigative tools, taking into account the ongoing legislative procedures in preparation for the adoption of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act. It is argued that more empirical research is required on the design and feasibility of these AI-enabled tools given their implications for various legal principles, such as privacy, data protection, and the right to a fair trial. An “ethics and rule of law … Read more

For centuries, “doing justice” has been a fundamentally anthropocentric effort: Humankind has been placed at the centre of emerging paradigms and systems such as (quite self-evidently) human rights, constitutionalism, and – gradually – also international law. In addition to focusing adjudication on individuals and their litigated interests, this has meant an administration of justice taking the form of human activity. The advent of automated public decision-making, including adjudication based on artificial intelligence (AI) tools, has raised concerns of possible shortcomings and abuses of justice resulting from their application. So is it time to change this anthropocentric mindset? More specifically, has the time come to replace human judges with AI? Can we do without them? Technological progress, rather than legal considerations, is likely to decide the fate of the anthropocentric outlook. This is why this essay aims to focus on the future of human judges. The proposition put forward is that … Read more

A 2023 non-conviction based (NCB) forfeiture order was recently issued against three clubhouses in Canada. Each served as the chapter headquarters for an outlaw motorcycle gang. Clubhouses form the base of operations for their organized criminal activities. The protracted litigation started in 2007, and a Canadian appellate court found in February 2023 that the clubhouses were forfeitable as instruments, as they supported the organized criminal activities of outlaw motorcycle gangs. The court overturned a trial ruling that part of the NCB law was unconstitutional. The court also held that each clubhouse served as a “safe house” for the respective gang, namely as a place where business could be conducted away from the prying eyes of the police. The clubhouses were also intelligence hubs, where members could discuss their criminal business, their rivals, and the techniques used by police to interdict them. Lastly, the court found that each clubhouse operated as … Read more

Limitations associated with online regulatory frameworks can be better understood by integrating pertinent insights from medicine and theoretical biology. Using insights from the biopsychosocial model, we argue that contemporary Internet regulations are problematic for three reasons. First, they pay insufficient attention to the unique structural characteristics of our digital media ecology, which raise significant epistemological concerns for online regulators. Second, differences in human rights protection and constitutional structure present further challenges requiring keen sensitivity to political and constitutional contexts for optimizing regulatory calibration. Third, our digital media landscape is dominated by private digital platforms whose unprecedented power and business models increasingly imperil the quality and quantity of public discourse, and facilitate privatization of government censorship under the rubric of human rights protection. Without carefully considering these structural differences, regulators – much like physicians – can too easily find themselves treating only symptoms rather than the underlying ailment.

Following similar developments in other parts of the world (e.g. Uruguay, Canada, United States, Thailand), several countries in the EU are questioning or openly challenging the prohibitionist paradigm that has so far dominated international drug control law. Possibly the most far-reaching approach is contained in the concept paper (Eckpunktepapier) adopted by the German Federal Government in October 2022, which would provide for the comprehensive regulation of cannabis for recreational use from “seed to sale”. While the legality of this approach under public international and EU law has been called into question, this article shows that a responsible regulation of cannabis is not only desirable from a policy perspective but also legally feasible.

The ne bis in idem principle is one of the most fundamental guarantees in criminal procedure law. It prohibits a second prosecution in cases that have already been concluded by a final decision. According to the traditional understanding, the principle excludes a duplication of proceedings only within the same jurisdiction. Art. 50 CFR, however, which was incorporated into primary EU law by Art. 6 TEU, extends the principle’s scope to the transnational sphere to the effect that a final decision in one Member State constitutes a bar to new proceedings in other Member States of the EU as well. While this transnational ne bis in idem guarantee in principle allows for limitations, these must meet the requirements provided for by Art. 52 para. 1 CFR.
The pending Case C-27/22, which has its roots in the diesel scandal involving German automobile producer Volkswagen, gives the Court of Justice of the European … Read more