This chapter examines the early integration of generative AI (GenAI), particularly large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, into judicial workflows. Unlike traditional rule-based decision-support systems, GenAI adopts a bottom-up approach, generating insights from vast datasets to assist real-time decision-making. While offering speed and improved access to information, these tools also present challenges that require careful understanding by their users. Using the recent case of a Dutch judge who employed ChatGPT to estimate the lifespan of solar panels, the chapter illustrates how GenAI is already being used in courtrooms. The value of GenAI lies in supporting, not replacing, human judgement. Yet without a clear grasp of how these systems work, including their limitations and potential biases, judges risk relying on opaque or flawed outputs. The ‘black box’ nature of LLMs complicates their responsible use and raises concerns about the balance between efficiency and discretion. The chapter argues that effective integration of GenAI depends not primarily on regulation, but on judicial education and critical awareness of the technology’s capacities and constraints.

This dispute concerns the United States' compliance with the adopted recommendations and rulings of the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) in United States – Anti-Dumping and Countervailing Duties on Ripe Olives from Spain. The European Union claims that the United States has failed to comply with the adopted findings of the panel report concerning the incompatibility of Section 771B of the US Tariff Act of 1930 (Section 771B) "as such" and "as applied" in the Final Affirmative Countervailing Duty Determination and Countervailing Duty Order of 1 August 2018 on ripe olives from Spain, with Article VI:3 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT 1994) and Article 10 of the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM Agreement).

Chapter 1 introduces the plight of future generations, wildlife, and natural resources as voiceless communities that are disproportionately vulnerable in the face of the climate crisis. It explores the troubling gridlock in international climate diplomacy and recent backsliding of ambition in domestic environmental law in the United States and Europe. It also recognizes that a shift towards an ecocentric governance paradigm is underway in many nations, which would provide greater protection for these voiceless communities. Despite this recent progress, the chapter acknowledges that much work remains in this transition.

Private dispute resolution mechanisms – such as arbitration, mediation, and negotiation – are often criticised for high costs, lengthy proceedings, and inconsistent outcomes. Simultaneously, confidence in traditional courts is declining amid rising litigation expenses, delays, and concerns over impartiality, highlighting the need for more efficient and equitable resolution methods. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) offer promising tools to address these challenges. AI enhances case preparation through natural language processing (NLP), which organises documents, extracts key insights, and supports evidence analysis. Predictive analytics help anticipate outcomes based on past decisions, aiding strategic planning. AI also enables automation in routine case management, accelerating resolution and reducing costs. Generative AI further alleviates administrative burdens, enabling legal professionals to focus on complex legal reasoning and client interactions. This chapter examines how AI is reshaping private dispute resolution, with a focus on current applications, emerging innovations, and future developments. While AI cannot replace human judgement in complex disputes, it plays a vital role in streamlining procedures, promoting fairness, and improving user satisfaction.

In governing the development and deployment of AI across the European Member States, the EU AI Act tries to bring together two very different visions of AI. The first sees AI as a powerful tool that can be made less risky to the health, safety, and fundamental rights of European consumers if it adheres to a series of technical requirements. The second sees AI as a systems technology whose governance requires a nuanced understanding of its transformative effects on the values, fundamental rights, and power relations that characterise society. This chapter uses these two perspectives on AI as a lens through which to reflect on the implications of the EU AI Act for the justice sector. It analyses the extent to which the Act’s provisions and safeguards are aligned with emerging ethical guidelines for the use of AI in the administration of justice and discusses whether it can be expected to effectively address core ethical concerns about the use of AI in the justice sector. This analysis demonstrates the limitations of the ‘tool’ perspective that dominates the AI Act and reveals the considerable discretion it gives judicial authorities to guide the integration of AI as a societally transformative systems technology into the justice sector.

This chapter explores issues of patent infringement and sustainability, with a focus on the case of destruction of infringing goods and contextualizing the analysis in relation to the practice of upcycling. The destruction is a corrective measure adopted by courts when a patentee is confronted with an infringing product or a product resulting from an infringing method of production (Article 64(2)(e) of the UPC Agreement). While this remedy is standard practice, it often results in the destruction of fully functional, high-quality – albeit infringing – goods. In view of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and the Unitary Patent (UP), it is imperative to look at the provision on destruction of infringing goods through the eyes of sustainability. The UPC Agreement neither bars sustainable alternatives to destruction nor offers a sustainability-focused interpretation of the remedy. After reviewing UPC and EU case law, the chapter explores more sustainable interpretations of the destruction remedy, including whether practices like upcycling might still qualify as ‘destruction’. As such, this chapter could serve as a guide for future, more sustainability-centred interpretations of the identified provision under the UPC, thereby better aligning European patent law with the goals of the EU Circular Economy Strategy and the Green Deal.

This chapter analyzes upcycling through an economic lens. First, it discusses the similarities and differences between resale, recycling, and upcycling from an economic perspective. Next, it analyzes the incentives for producers in the primary market to engage with these markets further down the lifecycle of a product. The author argues that companies with sufficient market power in their primary market often have an incentive to try to control such aftermarkets, particularly in the case of resale or upcycling, in order to price discriminate in the primary market or to reduce competition in their primary market. Subsequently, the chapter discusses the role of IPRs in this and analyzes from a normative economic perspective (incentive rationale for IPRs), whether IPRs should grant producers control over resale and upcycling.

Upcycling involves the creative reuse of materials that implicate a range of IPRs. Analyzed within the parameters of exhaustion, upcycling in practice illustrates the potential for the exhaustion doctrine in unleashing creativity through reusing and repurposing works. But this potential is limited by the existing contours of exhaustion, specifically its roots in the distribution rights and its uncertain expansion into repair and reconstruction. These limitations within the exhaustion doctrine are magnified through the overlap of rights in upcycled works: copyright with trademark, trademark with design rights. This chapter sets forth the policies underlying recognition of upcycling as permitted use within the contours of exhaustion and overlapping IPR’s. Overlap does not accrete the rights of IP owners or subtract the rights of follow-on creators. Instead, upcycling invites a rethinking of the dynamic of creative ecosystems marked by the reality of markets, transformative creations, and the needs of creative communities. The chapter also critically examining the policies raised by upcycling mandates challenging the linear model of IP dissemination which traces the origin of works to the owner of broadly defined IPRs.

In recent years, and especially, after the pandemic, policymakers in Latin America and the Caribbean have become increasingly interested in promoting the principles of the circular economy as a core component of the region’s sustainable development. Under the banner of sustainability, the national and regional markets for circular economy items have grown and consumer preference for them has been attracted. However, the debate on the impact of IPRs on the upcycling of goods, which could be protected by an IPRs system, is still very young. This chapter examines whether IP laws interfere with the production and distribution of goods by analyzing national and regional regulations in selected countries in the region, where there is growing interest in circular economy products. In addition, an analysis of the legal defences available within the IP system for the relevant stakeholders will also be undertaken. In particular, the IP systems concerning trademarks, industrial designs, and copyright will be discussed. Finally, the chapter examines whether creating distinctive signs specific to the goods produced under these practices exist and whether this seems desirable.

This introduction offers an overview of the evolving role of artificial intelligence in civil dispute resolution, discussing current developments against the background of broader technological, regulatory and institutional contexts. It examines the dual forces of genuine innovation and persistent hype, clarifies the book’s open and technology-neutral definition of AI, and articulates an equally broad conception of civil dispute resolution encompassing adjudicative but also consensual, formal but also informal mechanisms. The introduction also outlines the book’s comparative ambition and structural organisation, ultimately framing AI as a transformative yet contested actor whose integration into justice systems demands careful, context-sensitive governance.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) presents new challenges and opportunities for the judiciary. This chapter analyses the impact of the EU’s AI Act on the use of AI systems by judicial authorities in Europe, in particular with regard to their classification as high-risk AI systems. In doing so, the chapter examines practical use cases to illustrate the obligations that judicial authorities may face as deployers and providers.

The introduction of the book is dedicated to the discussion of the concept and doctrinal elements (prerequisites) of upcycling, its role in the legal system, as well as its interdisciplinary nature. We argue that upcycling is not a single dimensional activity to be approached solely from the perspective of exclusive IP rights. It represents a new philosophy for environment-conscious producers and consumers, promising the construction of new bottom-up approaches to decrease the negative consequences of human activities on earth. With the growing need for green transition, also addressed by legislators, upcycling can work as a case study for decision-makers from the domestic to the international level to reimagine IP policies to support green transitions at micro level by allowing individual upcyclers the reuse of IP-affected goods; at mezo level by convincing investors and industry-level organizations to renew economic models and invest in transformative reuses; and at macro level by allowing legislation to incentivize innovative activities to minimize waste and maximize the benefits of consumables for their full life-cycle.