Regulating emerging technologies involves balancing the mitigation of risks with the promotion of innovation; a balance frequently seen as a zero-sum “dilemma of control.” Regulatory sandboxes offer a practical way to address this dilemma by enabling controlled, evidence-based testing of new technologies. In this article, we examine the regulatory sandbox framework introduced by the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA). We argue that the AIA’s multi-level governance structure represents a shift from traditional sandbox models by prioritising regulatory learning over technological disruption and expanding public interest considerations to include strategically aligned commercial innovations. Afterwards, we identify governance challenges across three sandbox phases – pre-testing, testing and post-testing – and propose structured solutions. Our analysis suggests that effective sandbox governance requires specific mechanisms: tailored entry criteria, precise pipeline placement guidance and multi-agency coordination in pre-testing; experimental realism and continuous risk classification updates during testing and clear graduation criteria with robust transition support in post-testing.

Using the fields of memory studies and digital humanities, this article argues that there has been a shift from more collective and social memory to more personalised and individual memory. This shift, it is argued here, can be conceptualised through the psychoanalytic concept of ‘psychosis’. While the causes of the changes in our patterns of memory have been located in capitalist and neoliberal principles, the effects of the changes in our memory habits might be found in psychosis. From falling in love with machinic AI replicas to indulging in conspiracy theories to acting as if we are social media influencers or backing ourselves to win out in impossible job markets, we are inclined towards personal fantasy, often at the expense of participating in social life. But why do we do this? Why is it easier to believe a farfetched conspiracy theory or wild personal dream than it is to participate socially and collectively in the world we live in? Part of the reason, at least, is found in our increasing habitual reliance on new and emergent technologies. Often presented to us as a brand-new form of Artificial Intelligence, these generative tools are the latest update to a longer pattern in our digital world: the trend of developing ‘relationships’ with algorithms that, to larger and smaller degrees, we come to rely on for habits of cognition and recognition. By affecting our patterns of memory, these technologies produce a kind of isolation that lends itself to individual and fantastical – rather than shared and realist – thinking.

This introductory note provides an overview of the amendments brought by the Asylum Procedures Regulation (APR), which will apply from June 2026 as part of the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum. It outlines the main changes introduced by the new framework, including developments relating to procedural guarantees, special procedures, remedies, and ‘safe country’ concepts.

The Nordic countries have often been portrayed as pioneers of human rights and international law. However, few are aware that court-protected human rights played an almost negligible role in post-Second World War Scandinavia. Instead, scepticism towards natural law thrived, and minimalist procedural democracy alongside legal positivism positioned ‘the people’ as represented in parliament at the apex of the democratic hierarchy. Therefore, while the desire to impose judicial limits on parliamentary majorities after the Second World War came to dominate most international constitutional discourse as a combination of judicial review and rights, the Nordics cultivated a form of political and even anti-constitutionalist position long before the term gained popularity elsewhere. This article presents the untold story of how and why the Nordics became a symbol of procedural democracy and majoritarianism, making it challenging for the region to embrace a European constitutional order in full. It also argues that by having few judicial safeguards in place nationally, the Nordic countries are badly positioned in the event of a populist or illiberal takeover. The article warns that a procedural and anti-constitutional democracy model, still strongly hailed in the Nordic countries and increasingly prominent in recent constitutional literature, may legitimate illiberal leaders around the globe with its strong link between the idea of unconstrained power of the majority and the right to rule. It may also, in a European context, significantly obstruct the European Court of Justice’s efforts to flesh out a stronger European constitutional democracy.