Following hot on the heels of issue 3 is this issue, the fourth of volume 26, showcasing articles already published on Cambridge Core via FirstView. In case you aren’t already aware, the German Law Journal is the only journal that offers open access and FirstView as standard, meaning you can promote your research quickly and without barriers.

This issue opens with Antonio-Martín Porras-Gómez’s article ‘Law as a Design Science’, in which the author argues in favour of a ‘design-based approach to legal science’. Charting a conceptual path that acknowledges the contribution of legal realism and critical legal theory, alongside other legal-adjacent disciplines that incorporate design science methodologies, such as criminology or gender-studies, this article makes the case for a conception of law that has teleological interpretation at its core.

Zuzanna Nowicka’s article concerns SLAPPs, namely Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, and engages with how this kind of lawsuit challenges states’ obligation to protect freedom of expression. Using the European Court’s case of Real Madrid vs Le Monde (C-633/22) as a lens and a frame, the author engages with freedom of speech standards, the anti-SLAPP directive, and whether non-enforcement of a judgment is permissible under the European Union’s mutual recognition regime.

This issue’s third article is in the arena of corporate governance and compliance, and comes from Irakli Kvirikashvili, who asks ‘What Can We Learn from Business Standards on Corporate Governance & Compliance?’. Focusing on the superior responsibility doctrine, this article seeks to discover the scope and boundaries of, and criteria for, this doctrine in international criminal law.

Moving now to international investment law, in his article Christian Riffel discusses how best to reconcile investment protection, rule of law, and democratic government. Identifying the heart of the legitimacy crisis as the ‘broad, substantive understanding of the international rule of law, combining the doctrine of legitimate expectations with strict proportionality testing’, the author then proposes a recalibration of investment tribunal review standards.

Petra Gümplová takes the view that, in their current form, sovereign rights to natural resources in the ocean commons – specifically the continental shelf – do not promote justice. Challenging this ‘dominant organising principle’ of ocean resource use and governance, the author identifies three distinctively problematic consequences of this approach, then discusses how we might rethink sovereignty to safeguard the ocean commons.

This article from Karlo Nikoleishvili examines prisoner rehabilitation with a view to evaluating rehabilitation efficacy. Problematising this increasingly prominentform of human rights-adherent punishment, the author points to persistent concerns over the fulfilment of this prisoner right, and evidence as to how states repeatedly fail to deliver on their duties in this regard. The key question posed by the article is as follows: what is the content of such a right if prison life invariably leads to an ongoing life of crime?

Concluding this issue is Javier Escobar Veas’ exploration of an intriguing evidentiary challenge: does obtaining incriminating information via brain-reading technologies compromise the right against self-incrimination, which is a right that only applies to testimonial evidence and not real or physical evidence, as the result of this technological intervention would necessarily be.

We hope that you find this diverse collection of research works stimulating and wish you a positive start to the new academic year.

As always, happy reading.

Jen Hendry, on behalf of the GLJ EiC