Статьи журнала - Journal of Digital Technologies and Law
Все статьи: 120
AI-based Autonomous Weapons and Individual Criminal Responsibility under the Rome Statute
Статья научная
Objective: international law obligates states to prosecute those who have violated laws in armed conflicts, particularly when the international community now has International Criminal Court (ICC). That is why the aim of the paper is to discover the responsibility for the crimes made with the use of AI-based autonomous vehicles in accordance with the provisions of the Rome Statute of the ICC. Methods: doctrinal analysis allowed to research the positions of experts on the responsibility for the crimes made with the use of AI-based autonomous vehicles in accordance with the provisions of the Rome Statute of the ICC. Results: this paper argues that the ICC can only exercise jurisdiction over natural persons who allegedly have committed the crimes under its jurisdiction, as compared to autonomous weapons. This paper argues that the persons who facilitate the commission of the alleged crimes are highly likely to be criminally responsible for providing means for the alleged crimes to be committed by AI-based autonomous weapons under Article 25(3)(c) of the Rome Statute and concludes that the Rome Statute provides a solution even to AI-based autonomous weapons. Scientific novelty: this paper addresses to the highly relevant issues of the responsibility for the crimes made with the use of AI-based autonomous vehicles in accordance with the provisions of the Rome Statute of the ICC. Practical significance: the results achieved in the paper can be used in regulation design for AI-based autonomous weapons. It can also be used as a basis for the future research in the sphere of liability of AI-based autonomous weapons and AI in general.
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Статья
Objective: to compare modern approaches in law to the use of program codes and algorithms in decision-making that meet the principles of transparency and openness, as well as the increasingly stringent requirements for ensuring the security of personal and other big data obtained and processed algorithmically. Methods: the main methods for researching the principle of transparency in algorithmic decision-making were formal-legal and comparative analysis of legal acts and international standards of information security, as well as the principles and legal constructions contained in them. Results: it was determined that the development of information security standardization, inclusion in legal acts of requirements for the development of information technologies that comply with the principles of transparency and openness of applied algorithms will minimize the risks associated with the unlawful processing of users’ big data and obtaining information about their privacy. Proposals were identified, related to the implementation of algorithmic transparency in the field of data processing legal regulation. Recommendations were formulated, based on which the legislator can solve the problem of ensuring the openness of the logic of information technology algorithms with regard to modern standards of information security. Scientific novelty: it consists in the substantiation of new trends and relevant legal approaches, which allow revealing the logic of data processing by digital and information technologies, based on the characterization of European standards of the “privacy by design” concept in new digital and information technologies of decision-making and data protection, as well as on the new legal requirements for artificial intelligence systems, including the requirement to ensure algorithmic transparency, and criteria for personal data and users’ big data processing. This said, data protection is understood as a system of legal, technical and organizational principles aimed at ensuring personal data confidentiality. Practical significance: it is due to the need to study the best Russian and international practices in protecting the privacy of users of digital and information technologies, as well as the need for legislative provision of requirements for the use of algorithms that meet the principles of transparency and openness of personal data processing, taking into account the need to ensure confidentiality at all stages of the life cycle of their processing, which will ensure the continuity of security management.
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Algorithmic Discrimination and Privacy Protection
Статья научная
Objective: emergence of digital technologies such as Artificial intelligence became a challenge for states across the world. It brought many risks of the violations of human rights, including right to privacy and the dignity of the person. That is why it is highly relevant to research in this area. That is why this article aims to analyse the role played by algorithms in discriminatory cases. It focuses on how algorithms may implement biased decisions using personal data. This analysis helps assess how the Artificial Intelligence Act proposal can regulate the matter to prevent the discriminatory effects of using algorithms. Methods: the methods used were empirical and comparative analysis. Comparative analysis allowed to compare regulation of and provisions of Artificial Intelligence Act proposal. Empirical analysis allowed to analyse existing cases that demonstrate us algorithmic discrimination. Results: the study’s results show that the Artificial Intelligence Act needs to be revised because it remains on a definitional level and needs to be sufficiently empirical. Author offers the ideas of how to improve it to make more empirical. Scientific novelty: the innovation granted by this contribution concerns the multidisciplinary study between discrimination, data protection and impact on empirical reality in the sphere of algorithmic discrimination and privacy protection. Practical significance: the beneficial impact of the article is to focus on the fact that algorithms obey instructions that are given based on the data that feeds them. Lacking abductive capabilities, algorithms merely act as obedient executors of the orders. Results of the research can be used as a basis for further research in this area as well as in law-making process.
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Algorithms, Sociology of Law and Justice
Статья
Objective: to determine the possibility of professional legal activity automation and to identify the limitations that in a democratic society are associated with the use of software capable of generating effective legal solutions in conflict situations. Methods: the conducted empirical research is based on the methodology of social sciences, sociology of law, principles of communicative and communicational theories of law, and formal-legal analysis of legal documents. Results: the paper presents examples of functioning of computer systems that imitate some specific aspects of human intelligence in decision-making. The concept of algorithm and the main characteristics of tasks performed by artificial intelligence systems are defined. The relevance, methods and achievements of sociology of law are outlined, which underlie the systems or computer programs helping to resolve legal conflicts. It is found that the research tools developed as a methodology within the sociology of law since its emergence will be more widely used in the future, due to the growing use of information and communication technologies in legal activities. It is shown that in the administration of justice it is impossible to generate solutions only on the basis of artificial intelligence, since law and the process of making legal decisions on its basis has more complex characteristics in a democratic society. It is emphasized that obtaining the desired legal result is not limited to the processes of algorithmization, categorization or formal exegetics of legal texts. It rather consists in understanding and thinking in accordance with the accepted values, meanings, evaluative criteria, strategies, perspectives, etc. Scientific novelty: the article reveals the significance of the principles of communicative and communicational theories of law under the development of information and communication technologies in legal activity. The main limitations of the use of artificial intelligence in legal activity and, in particular, in justice are identified. Practical significance: the formulated provisions help, while improving legal regulation, to avoid insufficiently justified decisions on the automation of law enforcement, as well as to take into account the increasing importance of the principles of communicative and communicational theories of law in such types of legal activities as creation, interpretation and application of laws.
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Статья научная
Objective: to review the modern scientific approaches to regulating relations in the sphere of using the artificial intelligence technologies; to reveal the main features and limitations of using the risk-oriented and technological approaches in order to determine the directions of their further development. Methods: the methodological basis of the research is a set of scientific cognition methods, including the general scientific dialectic method and the universal scientific methods (analysis and synthesis, comparison, summarization, structural-functional, and formal-logical methods). Results: it was determined that the use of the risk-oriented approach implies building constructive models of risk management. A significant issue in using this approach is the bases of referring the artificial intelligence technologies to high-risk ones. When determining the risk level of using the artificial intelligence technologies, the following criteria should be applied: the type of artificial intelligence technology, its sphere of use, and the level of potential harm for the environment, health and other fundamental human rights. In turn, the central issue of using the technological approach is the necessity and limits of regulation in the sphere of developing and using the artificial intelligence technologies. First, interference into this sphere must not create obstacles for developing technologies and innovations. Second, a natural reaction of a regulator towards newly emerging objects and subjects of turnover is the “imperfect law syndrome”. At the same time, a false idea about a lack of legal regulation may produce an opposite effect – duplication of legal norms. To solve the problem of duplicating legal requirements, it is necessary, first of all, to solve the issue of the need to regulate the artificial intelligence technologies or certain types of software applications. Scientific novelty: a review was carried out of the main approaches to regulating relations in the sphere of developing and using the artificial intelligence technologies; the opportunities and limitations of their use are revealed; further directions of their development are proposed. Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions of the research can be used for determining the optimal approaches to regulating the sphere of digital technologies and for improving the legal regulation of the studied sphere of social relations.
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Artificial Intelligence Impact on the Environment: Hidden Ecological Costs and Ethical-Legal Issues
Статья
Objective: to identify the hidden ecological costs associated with the elaboration, implementation and development of artificial intelligence technologies, in order to ensure its sustainable and harmonious integration with various economic sectors by identifying optimal moral-ethical and political-legal strategies. Methods: the conducted research is based on an ecological approach to the development and implementation of artificial intelligence, as well as on an interdisciplinary and political-legal analysis of ecological problems and risks of algorithmic bias, errors in artificial intelligence algorithms and decision-making processes that may exacerbate environmental inequalities and injustice towards the environment. In addition, analysis was performed in regard to the consequences of natural ecosystems destruction caused by the development of artificial intelligence technologies due to the computing energy-intensiveness, the growing impact of data centers on energy consumption and problems with their cooling, the electronic waste formation due to the rapid improvement of equipment, etc. Results: the analysis shows a range of environmental, ethical and political-legal issues associated with the training, use and development of artificial intelligence, which consumes a significant amount of energy (mainly from non-renewable sources). This leads to an increase in carbon emissions and creates obstacles to further sustainable ecological development. Improper disposal of artificial intelligence equipment exacerbates the problem of e-waste and pollution of the planet, further damaging the environment. Errors in artificial intelligence algorithms and decision-making processes lead to environmental injustice and inequality. AI technologies may disrupt natural ecosystems, jeopardizing wildlife habitats and migration patterns. Scientific novelty: the environmental consequences of the artificial intelligence use and further development, as well as the resulting environmental violations and costs of sustainable development, were studied. This leads to the scientific search for optimal strategies to minimize environmental damage, in which legal scholars and lawyers will have to determine ethical-legal and political-legal solutions at the national and supranational levels. Practical significance: understanding the environmental impact of AI is crucial for policy makers, lawyers, researchers, and industry experts in developing strategies to minimize environmental harm. The findings emphasize the importance of implementing energy efficient algorithms, switching to renewable energy sources, adopting responsible e-waste management practices, ensuring fairness in AI decision-making and taking into account ethical considerations and rules of its implementation.
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Artificial Intelligence Technologies in Criminal Procedural Proving
Статья научная
Objective: to summarize and analyze the approaches, established in criminal procedural science, regarding the use of artificial intelligence technologies, to elaborate an author’s approach to the prospects of transformation of criminal procedural proving under the influence of artificial intelligence technologies. Methods: the methodological basis of the research is integrity of general, general scientific and specific legal methods of legal science, including abstract-logical, comparative-legal and prognostic methods. Results: the main areas of using artificial intelligence technologies in the criminal procedure are defined, such as prophylaxis and detection of crimes, organization of preliminary investigation, criminological support of crime investigation, and assessing evidences at pre-trial and trial stages. The author comes to a conclusion that the rather optimistic approach to this issue, established in the science of criminal procedure, significantly outstrips the actually existing artificial intelligence technologies. The main requirements are identified, which the activity of using artificial intelligence in collecting evidences in a criminal case should satisfy. The author pays attention to the problems of using artificial intelligence technologies in conducting expert assessments, requiring an improved methodology of forensic work. The issue is considered of the prospects of transforming the criminal-procedural proving process under introduction of artificial intelligence technologies. A conclusion is substantiated that the assessment of evidences with mathematical algorithms, in which preset values of each evidence quality are used, contradict to the principle of free assessment of evidences in the criminal procedure. The author comes to a conclusion that today there are no sufficient grounds for endowing artificial intelligence with legal personality during proving. Scientific novelty: the work presents an attempt to consider the role of artificial intelligence in the criminal-procedural proving; it specifies the requirements to be met by this technology during evidences collection and analyzes the prospects of transforming the proving process under the introduction of artificial intelligence technologies. Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions of the research can be used to improve a mechanism of legal regulation of artificial intelligence technologies in the criminal procedure.
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Artificial Intelligence as an Auxiliary Tool for Limiting Religious Freedom in China
Статья научная
Objective: based on studying the statistics of crimes, national legislation and norms of international law, to give a legal assessment to restrictions of the right to worship implemented with the use of artificial intelligence technologies in China. Methods: the methodological basis of the research is the set of methods of scientific cognition, including specific sociological (analysis of statistical data and other documents), formal-legal (examining legal categories and definitions), formal-logical (analysis and synthesis), general scientific (induction, deduction), and other methods. Results: the work researches prerequisites for using artificial intelligence technologies in China to control public relations arising during religious activity both in the digital space and beyond; analyzes the legal framework of the measures implemented; gives a legal assessment to restrictions of the religious freedom using artificial intelligence technologies; forecasts the further development of Chinese legislation and foreign policy associated with religious freedom. Additionally, the work analyzes materials of human rights organizations aimed at hindering the Chinese policy of “sinicisation” and “de-extremification” of ethnic and religious minorities, including with the help of control and propaganda using modern digital technologies. Scientific novelty: the work researches the attempt of China to regulate the challenges related to religious activity, arising during rapid digitalization of the society and state, which the Republic faces being a developing, multinational and polyconfessional country. The established restrictions of religious freedom using artificial intelligence technologies are considered along with the relevant criminal statistics. The legal assessment of using artificial intelligence as a tool for restricting the right to worship is given from the standpoint of international law, as well as with the account of Chinese national legislation. Practical significance: the research results can be used to elaborate a consistent legal framework for using artificial intelligence technologies to counteract extremism.
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Authors’ Moral Rights in the Digital Environment
Статья
Objective: to answer the question whether the authors’ moral rights the in the digital environment correspond to their original purpose, and to determine the impact of the development of social networking platforms, artificial intelligence technologies and non-fungible tokens (NFT) on the transformed role and features of the protection of the author’s moral rights under modern conditions. Methods: the research is based on historical-legal, comparative-legal and formal-dogmatic methods. Legal institutions and legal practice on the issue of protection of the author’s moral rights are subjected to critical analysis. Results: the genesis and normative fixation of the author’s moral rights are investigated in historical retrospect. It is noted that at present the protection of these rights is insufficiently regulated at the international level, while national copyright law, for example, of continental European states, provides a sufficiently strong protection of the author’s moral rights; however, the effectiveness of the latter is weakening in the digital age. The paper analyzes the changing landscape of copyright relations caused by technological progress: in social networks, in the generation of works by artificial intelligence, and in the creation of digital works of art. The thesis is substantiated that the author’s moral rights are undesirable in the context of social platforms. The paper proposes solutions to the issues of authorship of works created by artificial intelligence, violation of author’s rights, and integrity in case of full or partial borrowing of a work to generate a new work by artificial intelligence. The role of NFT technologies in solving the problem of preserving the author’s moral rights is defined. Scientific novelty: the work fills a gap in research on the relationship between copyright and technological development. It identifies and evaluates the innovations in the purpose and content of the author’s moral rights, caused by the processes of digitalization, and attempts to solve the problem of the author’s rights compliance with technological progress. Practical significance: the obtained results may serve as a conceptual basis for further development and improvement of national legislation and international legal regulation in the field of copyright protection, transformation of the objectives, role and place of the author’s moral rights in the digital environment.
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Concept of Electronic Evidence in Criminal Legal Procedure
Статья научная
Objective: elucidating the potential of digital transformation for elaborating the optimal means and methods of collecting evidences and introducing scientific organization of labor of the officials implementing criminal procedure. The scientific approach within the concept consists in minimizing the costs of collecting evidentiary information in criminal cases in electronic form and by electronic means, as well as storing the criminal case materials in electronic form. Methods: dialectic method occupies the leading position among the research methods, the issues of electronic documentation being considered in the interaction and interdependence with information-technological development of the society. The set of scientific cognition methods within the research creates prerequisites for objective and comprehensive approach to the problems under study. Results: the authors’ concept of electronic evidence is a system of information-technological and legal views on the criminal-procedural form, which is intended for optimizing the process of collecting, registering and preserving them in the criminal case materials. The concept development is aimed at elaborating new approaches to organizing the work of investigation agencies and courts, taking into account the achievements in the sphere of information technologies, providing new techniques of collecting criminal-relevant, criminal-procedural, criminological significant information when investigating and hearing of a criminal case. The proposed concept is also aimed at improving interaction and in-service communication of the officials of the preliminary investigation bodies with the officials of information-technological systems for the purposes of collecting evidentiary information in electronic form. Scientific novelty: the changes were systemically analyzed, which are taking place in the contemporary information society, through the prism of the emerging problems between the sectoral criminal-procedural evidentiary law and more modern technological means of collecting evidentiary information. The article demonstrates a new approach to creating technological interaction using digital technologies, on the scientific base of organization of proving activity, intended to optimize and rationalize the process of proving in criminal procedure. Practical significance: the research materials can be used to prepare proposals on making changes and additions in the current legislation with a view of implementing the practice of already functioning models of criminal-procedural activity of foreign countries, an inexhaustible potential of information-technologies, software, and artificial intelligence to rationalize proving in criminal cases.
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Concepts of Work: from Traditional Social-Labor Ideas to Modern Effects of Digital Transformation
Статья научная
Objective: technology and digitalization play a converse role in these two fields of study of criminal sciences. On the one hand, they are used by agencies of criminal justice system in order to control, manage and prevent crime and criminals. On the other hand, criminals enjoy technology in carrying out their plans to commit crime. Thus, from the criminal sciences’ perspective, technology may be used or misused, and this is an interesting topic, and at the same time, an important research area for criminologists. Methods: the present article seeks to provide a descriptive-analytical discussion about digitalization of criminology and criminal justice in the light of modern technologies, internet and cyberspace. It introduces new areas and sub-disciplines including administrative criminology based upon actuarial justice and risk management/assessment theory, cyber criminology and cyber victimology, as two sub-disciplines of the new century, and algorithmic or computational criminology, as one of the latest area in criminal sciences, which all are influenced by digitalization and technology. Results: authors concluded that due to the digitalization atypical work emerges but legislator defines the scope of work regulated by law and that makes atypical work relationship becomes a typical work relationship. At the same time some areas fall into the gray zone. To fix that legislator should provide an interpretation that will not become empty in a year or two due to technological changes. Scientific novelty: the applicability of technology and digitalization in criminology and criminal justice has widely increased and developed, specifically since the beginning of the third millennium. Practical significance: digitalization and Technology has become increasingly important to criminology and criminal justice at both the theory and practice within the sphere of social and criminal sciences. The nature and types of crime and criminals, and also the methods and mechanisms of control and preventing them in the light of requirements of criminal policy and criminal justice are highly dependent upon technology and digitalization.
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Copyrights to the Results of Artificial Intelligence Activity and Means of Their Protection
Статья
Objective: to substantiate the mechanisms of legal protection of intellectual property objects created with the use of artificial intelligence. Methods: the use of artificial intelligence to create works that are traditionally considered copyright objects was investigated with a set of general scientific and theoretical-legal methods of scientific cognition, including comparison, analogy and synthesis. In addition, the practice of using artificial intelligence, including neural networks, to create such works was considered in several aspects on the basis of retrospective and multifactor analysis. Results: the paper summarizes the current practice of using artificial intelligence to create works that traditionally belong to intellectual property objects (texts, images, music, software), taking into account the formulated scientific and legal positions. Several qualitatively different variants of the use of artificial intelligence were identified. For each of these variants the mechanism of legal protection was proposed and the areas of their effective application were indicated. Proposals were made to regulate the legal protection of the results of artificial intelligence activity; this was made not in the paradigm of competing doctrines, but by combining several tools, each of them to be applied in a relevant situation. Scientific novelty: the paper presents ontological differentiation of the results of artificial intelligence activity and the corresponding mechanisms of their legal protection. The author propose to consider the results of activity created by artificial intelligence not as a single object of legal regulation, but as a set of externally similar, but ontologically different objects, each requiring a separate approach to legal protection. Practical significance: the ontological differentiation of the results of artificial intelligence activity and their corresponding legal protection mechanisms proposed in this paper is relevant both as a basis for further research and as proposals to supplement civil legislation.
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Creating the metaverse: consequences for economy, society, and law
Статья научная
Objective: to define the degree of influence of such developing technological field as metaverse on various spheres of society and to identify the need for reaction on the part of law. Methods: the key method used for the research is the systemic-structural method, which allows establishing connections between various elements of the society as a complex system, analyzing the regularities generated by the spreading influence of metaverse prototypes in one sphere on other ones. Additional methods used are formal-logical, comparative-legal methods, as well as the methods of legal modeling and forecasting. Results: the practical implementation of the metaverse concept will open new opportunities for people, but will be accompanied by drastic changes in the economic subsystem of the society, in particular, the multifold growth of the share of virtual economy and structural changes in employment. The changes will also occur in the social subsystem: the social links and the education models will transform, new personal demands will occur. Changes in the economic and social spheres will entail the need to adapt law to them, in order to preserve the effective legal regulation of social relations. Also, it should be noted that the metaverse will increase the capabilities of not only people but also the artificial intelligence, for which virtual environment is actually the “natural” one. Legal norms must provide protection of a human under the increased virtual component in people’s lives, accompanied by intellectualization of the environment. Scientific novelty: the author has systematically analyzed the changes taking place in various spheres of the modern society in connection with the development of the technological field of metaverses; highlighted the key issues arising due to the said development and requiring legal solution both at the constitutional level and at the level of sector legislation; and proposed the necessary changes in legal regulation. Practical significance: the research materials can be used when preparing proposals on changes and amendments in the current legislation, as well as in pedagogical activity, in particular, for implementation of educational courses or modules related to law under digital transformation of the society.
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Cоздание метавселенной: последствия для экономики, социума и права
Статья
Цель: определение степени влияния такого развивающегося технологического направления, как метавселенные, на различные сферы общества и выявление потребностей в реагировании со стороны права. Методы: основным методом, используемым при проведении исследования, является системно-структурный метод, позволяющий установить связи между разными элементами общества как сложной системы, проанализировать закономерности, порождаемые распространением влияния прототипов метавселенных в одной сфере на другие. В качестве дополнительных применяются формально-логические, сравнительно-правовой, а также методы правового моделирования и прогнозирования. Результаты: реализация концепции метавселенной на практике откроет новые возможности для людей, но будет сопровождаться серьезными изменениями в экономической подсистеме общества, в частности многократным ростом доли виртуальной экономики и структурными сдвигами в занятости. Изменения коснутся и социальной подсистемы: трансформируются социальные связи, модели обучения, появятся новые потребности личности. Перемены в экономической и социальной сферах повлекут необходимость адаптировать к ним право в целях сохранения эффективности правового регулирования общественных отношений. Необходимо учитывать и то, что метавселенная увеличит возможности не только людей, но и искусственного интеллекта, для которого виртуальная среда является практически «естественной». Нормы права должны обеспечить защиту человека в условиях увеличения виртуальной составляющей в жизни людей, сопряженной с интеллектуализацией среды. Научная новизна: системно проанализированы изменения, происходящие в различных сферах современного общества в связи с развитием технологического направления метавселенных, выделены основные вопросы, возникающие из-за этого развития и требующие правовых решений как на уровне конституции, так и на уровне отраслевого законодательства, предложены необходимые изменения в правовом регулировании. Практическая значимость: материалы исследования могут быть использованы в работе по подготовке предложений о внесении изменений и дополнений в действующее законодательство, а также в педагогической деятельности, в частности, при реализации учебных курсов или модулей, связанных с правом, в условиях цифровой трансформации общества.
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Digital Assets: Legal Regulation and Estimation of Risks
Статья научная
Objective: to substantiate the need to create a universal mechanism of legal regulation of digital currencies and tokenized assets, based on a uniform categorization of digital assets and the author’s interpretation of the conception of digital assets risk, in order to ensure their safe circulation with legal means and effective development of the global digital economy in the future. Methods: the research was carried out with a combination of cognition techniques of various levels: from philosophical to private scientific; the key position among them belongs to a systemic approach, a comparative legal method and a formal-juridical analysis of normative materials. Results: the present research lays the conceptual basis for building a global system of legal regulation of digital assets circulation and facilitates identifying and resolving the key issues, necessarily emerging in the analysis of the current mechanisms of legal regulation at national level and in the estimation of various types of digital assets. Scientific novelty: consists in a comprehensive consideration of the essence and features of the legal nature of various types of digital assets, possessing, alongside with significant advantages, high risks from legal and financial viewpoints. Based on contradictory approaches and revealed gaps in the legal regulation of various types of digital assets, the author proposes a uniform categorization of digital assets, substantiates the concept of digital assets risk, attempts to substantiate the need to create a universal mechanism of legal regulation of digital currencies and tokenized assets, which would allow forming an effective system of means to protect property right to them and ensure safety of their circulation. Practical significance: is due to the current absence of a unified approach and a possibility to apply the existing legal norms in relation to innovative digital assets, taking into account their specificity, despite their trans-border character. The main provision and conclusions of the research can be used to improve the mechanisms of legal regulation of digital assets circulation.
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Digital History of Law: Principles of Methodology
Статья
Objective: to theoretically substantiate the basic principles of methodology of a new interdisciplinary area of socio-humanities – the digital history of law; to demonstrate the heuristic potential of digital technologies in legal historical sciences. Methods: the study is based on systemic, formal-logical, and comparative general scientific methods. Results: it is concluded that the methodology of the digital history of law is based, first of all, on the source-centric approach, which considers a source as a macro-object of humanitarian and social sciences, through which information exchange takes place (O.M. Medushevskaya’s concept of cognitive history). Secondly, it is based on the combination of traditional methods of legal history with digital techniques and technologies and methods based on them – within a research program of historical-legal (historical-juridical) source studies. The article attempts to summarize the existing digital technologies and techniques, as well as methods based on them, as applied to legal historical sciences; their heuristic potential is shown in case studies. Scientific novelty: for the first time in the Russian legal history science, the author substantiates the methodology of the digital history of law as an interdisciplinary field that studies the past of state and law using digital information and communication technologies and tools. Practical significance: under the shifts in socio-humanities (digital, linguistic, visual ones, etc.), which have become relevant in recent years, and the development of the digital type of social communication, methodological approaches to obtaining new knowledge are changing, new interdisciplinary branches of scientific knowledge are emerging, as well as new requirements for the qualification of researchers. The ongoing changes affect legal historical sciences: digital history of law is formed as an interdisciplinary area within digital humanities, at the confluence of history, legal science, and information science. The understanding and application of digital technologies and the scientific cognition methods based on them in legal historical research open up new opportunities for legal historians in determining the directions of their scientific research and obtaining new scientific results. This ultimately expands our understanding of historical and legal facts, phenomena and processes.
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Статья научная
Objective: today, a significant part of professional tasks are performed in the digital environment, on digital platforms, in virtual and other meetings. This necessitates a critical reflection of traditional views on the problem of accessible environment and digital accessibility, taking into account the basic universal needs of persons with disabilities. Methods: a gap between the traditional legal perspective on special working conditions for persons with disabilities and the urgent need of a digital workplace (digital environment) clearly shows lacunas in the understanding of accessibility, which are identified and explored with formal-legal and doctrinal methods. The multifaceted aspects of digital inclusion are revealed based on an informative approach to legislation. It leads, among other things, to searching for recommendations which would fill this gap and contribute to the creation of a more inclusive and responsible legal, social and technological environment. Results: the research has led to a conclusion that the existing legal, social and technological paradigms need to be re-evaluated. This reevaluation should aim to develop a more inclusive and benevolent concept of accessible environment that takes into account the diversity of human experience and needs, and a wide range of behavioral and cognitive characteristics. Creating special conditions in the workplace for those with overt and covert health problems should become an integral part of the employer’s focus, along with improving management efficiency. Scientific novelty: covert (hidden) health problems have traditionally been understudied, although they include a range of mental and physical impairments, which, like explicit health problems, vary in their origin, intensity, and permanent or episodic character. This study fills a gap in the issues of disability and its legal protection, taking into account the trend of digital inclusion, the dynamic labor activity of today, and the wide range of human abilities and needs. Practical significance: the aspects of hidden or latent disability considered in the study provide a different perspective at employment, focusing on the workplace conditions that could be created. Employers may be unaware of the need to create special working conditions for those with hidden health problems. This results in negative effects on unemployment, increased sick leave, limited opportunities in the workplace, and more. Employees are often reluctant to disclose their non-obvious health problems to employers; hence, employers should facilitate disclosure of such information by creating relevant conditions. Such an approach will contribute to the legal protection of this category of employees and to further development of the existing legislative regulation, since the latter does not fully comply with today’s needs and changed reality.
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Digital Transformation of Tax Law Principles
Статья
Objective: to search for conceptual issues, features and prospects of development of tax law principles and tax obligation institute in the context of modern digitalization trends. Methods: the study is based on a set of general legal (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction) and special-legal (formal-legal, comparative-legal) methods of cognition. Results: the main features of tax law principles characterizing their digital development were defined, namely: the expansion of the list of such principles and the changes in their content, predominantly at the level of institutional principles of taxation. A conclusion is made that in the digital era the tax law principles retain their theoretical significance as the most important category of the relevant science. The author states that the digital transformation of the institutional principle of tax fulfillment independence takes place mainly in the following directions: firstly, the range of taxpayers is expanded, in respect of which the duty to calculate tax can be imposed on a tax authority; secondly, the mechanism of the tax obligation execution is changed, among other things, by increasing the tax obligations of state authorities and credit organizations. Scientific novelty: the paper assesses the approaches used in the scientific literature and normative-legal framework related to transformation of the taxation principles due to the intensive use of information and communication technologies in tax relations. The author also analyzed the digital transformation of the principles of tax obligation as one of the main tax-legal institutions. Practical significance: is due to the lagging pace of tax legislation development in the Russian Federation compared to the objective processes of creation and application of new information and communication technologies in tax relations and adjacent spheres. The main provisions and conclusions of the study can be used as a basis to improve the tax legislation, as they develop knowledge about new tax law institutions – professional income tax, tax monitoring, single tax payment, and automated simplified taxation system.
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Digital Transformations of the South African Legal Landscape
Статья
Objective: South Africa is a country with great potential for intensive development due to the active growth and adoption of digital technologies. The rapidly emerging digital landscape is transforming the legal framework, which in turn influences the digital environment. This transformative relationship determined the focus of the research, which is to identify the legal system adaptability under dynamic changes, as well as the legal landscape evolution under digitalization and technological progress. Methods: the study of the changing legal landscape required an interdisciplinary approach that combines legal analysis with ideas from sociology, economics, etc. In doing so, the formal-legal method was used to examine the key legal instruments shaping South Africa’s digital environment and providing the opportunities and challenges of the interaction between digital technologies and South African law. Results: the paper provides insights into how the South African legal system is addressing digital challenges; assesses the integration of digital innovations into the legal system; highlights the transformative impact of digital technologies on traditional legal processes, including collecting evidence, dispute resolution and access to justice. Finally, it evaluates the role of digital technologies in making legal processes more efficient. Scientific novelty: the study contributes to the ongoing debate on the complex relationship between digital technologies and South African law. It shows how South African law is coping with digital complexities and substantiates new insights into the transformation of the traditional legal paradigm as a result of digitalization, as well as its implications for legal proceedings and access to justice. By delving into the adaptations, challenges and innovations arising at the intersection of law, technologies and digitalization, insights are gained into how South African law navigates the dynamic digital landscape. Practical significance: adapting the legal landscape to digitalization and technological advances is critical to ensure rapid technological progress. It also requires collaboration between government agencies, civil society, experts in law and technology. The study provides valuable recommendations and suggestions for policymakers, legal practitioners and stakeholders shaping South Africa’s legal ecosystem. The author addresses the challenges of ensuring personal data privacy, enhancing electronic interactions, and countering cybercrime. The importance of introducing technological achievements while maintaining robust legal safeguards is emphasized.
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Digital Trends of Criminology and Criminal Justice of the 21st Century
Статья научная
Objective: to define the key trends in the development of criminology and criminal justice under significant broadening of digitalization and using modern technologies. Methods: the priority of analytical method combined with descriptive method provided an optimal set of tools for searching and revealing the main digital trends in the development of criminology and criminal justice in the 21st century. Results: the growing dependence was revealed between criminal-legal science and digital technologies, which leads to the change in essence and types of contemporary criminality, models of criminals’ behavior, methods and mechanism of crime control and prevention in the light of requirements of criminal policy and justice. The dual role of the global digitalization trend is highlighted, the achievements of which are used both by the agencies of criminal justice system (in particular, for crime control, management and prevention) and criminals when implementing their criminal intents. It was determined that the essential transformation of criminology and criminal justice is largely caused by a dramatic development of digitalization in the 21st century, as well as by the modern technologies created on its basis, which appear to be more effective than the standard methods of traditional criminology, including quantitative and qualitative estimations, observation, interviews, polls, etc. Scientific novelty: new spheres of criminal-legal knowledge are introduced, as well as the corresponding disciplines formed exclusively under the influence of digitalization, such as cyber criminology and cyber victimology; algorithmic (computational) criminology, based on actuarial justice and the theory of risks, is highlighted as the most recent trend in criminological science. Practical significance: the account of trends and positive experience gained in the sphere of digitalization determines the successful solution of the tasks associated with crime counteraction, transformation of approaches to the content, goals and methodology of applied criminology and criminal justice. The global megatrend of digitalization essentially changes the appearance of the criminal-legal science, sets the new theoretical and applied directions of its development. Timely upgrade and adaptation of knowledge, skills and capabilities in compliance with the achievements of digitalization will allow criminology and criminal justice to correspond to the tasks of the new millennium.
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