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The purpose of this paper is to explore to what extent the legal environment influences a user’s choice to employ privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs). Drawing upon existing theoretical frames specific to arbitrariness and uncertainty, this research examines whether interest in PETs is influenced by the legal environment of a country.

Using data from Google Trends, the International Property Rights Index, Freedom House and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the research analyzes interest in Tor, VPN technology and pretty good privacy (PGP) in 153 countries between 2012 and 2016.

Findings suggest both countries with both higher and lower arbitrariness and uncertainty of law are associated with an increased interest in Tor and PGP. However, interest in VPN technology does not appear influenced by the legal environment and, instead, is influenced by freedom within the press.

The dual use nature of Tor and PGP is influenced by law enforcement and judiciary effectiveness and transparency and arbitrariness contributing to the public’s interest in decentralized technological protections.

Law enforcement should continue to police via the technologies rather than shutting them down to protect the identities of those needing to use these technologies for legitimate purposes. Only by embracing the technologies, as opposed to seeing them as hurdles to be banned, may law enforcement agencies remain vigilant to the threats posted by nefarious actors.

In this study, the authors introduce a more robust measure of interest in PETs, and do so with a larger, more substantive sample. By situating this interest within the context of policing, the authors can document the dual use nature of the technology, which can be useful in guiding future research, specifically in the area of policy development and officer training.

This study researched how corruption affects the attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI). With the help of a qualitative methodology, the results of the analysis show that firms headquartered in countries where corruption is high have an advantage when operating in a foreign country with a similar institutional environment. The reason for this advantage is that such firms may possess knowledge of how to cope with the arbitrary and pervasive dimensions of corruption at home. On the other hand, firms from countries with lower corruption levels than the host country are more affected by corruption in a highly corrupt host country. Finally, even though this study found evidence that all firms operating in a highly corrupt country might participate in corrupt deals, those headquartered in highly corrupt countries are more willing to do so. This claim is based on the fact that firms from less corrupt countries might face stronger pressures from their headquarters to not engage in corrupt deals, whereas firms from more corrupt countries might not encounter such pressures.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a definition of genetic information by taking into account the debate surrounding it. Particularly, the objections raised by Developmental Systems Theory (Griffiths, 2001; Oyama 1985; Griffiths and Knight 1998) to Teleosemantic endorsements of the notion of genetic information (Sterelny et al. 1996; Maynard Smith, 2000; Jablonka, 2002) as well as deflationist approaches which suggest to ascribe the notion of genetic information a heuristic value at most, and to reduce it to that of causality (Godfrey-Smith, 2000; Boniolo, 2003, 2008).

The paper presents the notion of genetic information through its historical evolution and analyses it with the conceptual tools offered by philosophical theories of causation on one side (“causation as influence,” Woodward, 2010; Waters, 2007; Lewis, 2000) and linguistics on the other (“double articulation” Martinet, 1960).

The concept of genetic information is defined as a special kind of cause which causes something to be one way rather than another, by combining elementary units one way rather than another. Tested against the notion of “genetic error” this definition demonstrates to provide an exhaustive account of the common denominators associated with the notion of genetic information: causal specificity; combinatorial mechanism; arbitrariness.

The definition clarifies how the notion of information is understood when applied to genetic phenomena and also contributes to the debate on the notion of information, broadly meant, which is still affected by lack of consensus (Floridi, 2013).

The very contextual nature of most mitigating evidence runs counter to America’s individualistic culture. Prior research has found that capital jurors are unreceptive to most mitigating circumstances, but no research has examined the capital sentencing decisions of trial judges. This study fills that gap through a content analysis of eight judicial sentencing opinions from Delaware. The findings indicate that judges typically dismiss contextualizing evidence in their sentencing opinions and instead focus predominately on the defendant’s culpability. This finding calls into question the ability of guided discretion statutes to ensure the consideration of mitigation and limit arbitrariness in the death penalty.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once claimed that ‘what can be said at all, can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’. When the term talent transformed from being a rigid term referring to a specific object, e.g. a coin, in the actual world into an empty signifier referring to multiple objects, e.g. individuality or gifts, in a possible world then talent became something that we could not talk about in a clear and unambiguous way; something that talent management then should have been silent about. The reason is that such an unambiguous and accidental use of the term has led to an arbitrary understanding of talent and subjective bias in talent identification, recruitment, and selection systems and to talent management becoming dysfunctional. Moreover, it has also led to an absence of work identity in talent management that inhibits the individual talent and the talent manager in identifying and talking clearly about the qualification and competencies of the individual as they pertain to the job requirements. This could further enhance subjective bias and reinforce the arbitrary understanding of talent and, in the end, lead to insufficient and ineffective talent management processes.

The purpose of this study is to consider the complementarity of ethics and law with regard to the problem of their common existence in society through the identification of common and different characteristics in the philosophy of I. Kant.

This study is based on the observation that in modern society ethics and law remain the main social regulators and their co-existence requires the definition of their interaction and complementarity. Also, as this problem is closely related to issues of freedom and obligation, it is necessary to show their role in ethics and law.

The results show that the complementarity of ethics and law is due to the obligation that unites them, and the categorical imperative is the only postulate of ethics and the rights to execute, which allows a person to always remain worthy of his name. Ethics also has the meaning of legal capacity, and law means the recognition of people moral independence by public authorities. Thus, the law must protect a person not only from arbitrariness on the part of other people but also from the state power.

This paper uses a philosophical approach, the utility of which is that ethics and law are studied as elements of normative regulation system of the society in terms of the phenomenal and noumenal nature of a man. It is proposed to consider ethics and law not only as different social regulators, which have their own specifics but also as complementary elements of a single social being, which should exist together and not attempt to substitute one another.

Looks at the reasons for the collapse of both regimes and considers the importance of repression with these developments. Contrasts the methods of Imperial Russia with the Bolsheviks looking at Court proceedings, prison conditions, education and propaganda in prison, exile and the secret police. Concludes that whilst social support is usually seen as essential for survival of a system, repression is not regarded as a positive element but can become the method for a system’s survival and stability.

The provisions of s. 10–1 of the ordinance of 28th September, 1967, likewise those of EC directive 89/592 of 13th November, 1989, forbid persons who, in virtue of their profession or office, have available to them ‘privileged information’ concerning possible future changes in the price of a transferable security from carrying out dealings in the market before this knowledge becomes public: such information must be precise, confidential, of a kind to influence the price of the security and give rise to the transactions effected. In a judgment of 26th June, 1995 the Court of Cassation, quashing the Court of Appeal's ruling, held that the privileged character of the information within the meaning of the texts could not depend on the analysis that the person receiving and using it could make, but that this character must be determined objectively, excluding any arbitrariness, and in relation to its content alone.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the congruence between Nigeria’s unremitting rule of law deficit, corruption pandemic and its crisis of developmentalism. The paper proves that market failures and state failures are mutually reinforcing and are functions of systemic official corruption in the private and public sectors of the Nigerian economy.

This study is library-based. It relies on secondary data generated by the variegated multilateral agencies, law reports of international and municipal tribunals, relevant books, journals, monographs policy papers and so forth as the basis of analysis.

Findings suggest that Nigeria’s corruption pandemic is a derivative of its unremitting rule of law deficit and that its crisis of developmentalism is a logical function of the pervasive normlessness, very wide latitude for discretion, arbitrariness, weak institutions and lack of centrality of law and its institutions, which characterise its body politik.

Systemic corruption in Nigeria affects the citizens’ perception of social justice and equity and undermines economic efficiency. It has also distorted the work reward causality, which has engendered a rentier social-economic order.

By first demonstrating the congruence between Nigeria’s rule of law deficit, corruption and economic and governance failure; the paper focusses on the total breakdown of norms in the Nigerian private and public sectors and resultant stultification of economic growth, sustainable human development and pervasive impoverishment of the citizenry.

Several recent statistical analyses provide overwhelming evidence for substantial injustice in immigration court decisions. Writers also explored the data for evidence of bias. Several ended with recommendations for more legal training for judges and more professional appellate review. These recommendations assume that the problem is in the interpretation of the law and conduct of the trial. My own experience has been that there is actually a greater problem in the interpretation of facts, at several levels. Courts provide for translators, but merely verbal translation is not enough. Cultural translation is required. In this chapter I illustrate what cultural translation is with instances from five different asylum cases that I have been involved in as an expert witness. I conclude with recommendations to support better use of this kind of information.