This introductory chapter briefly outlines the main theme of this volume, namely, to review the new opportunities and risks of digital healthcare from various disciplinary perspectives. These perspectives include law, public policy, organisational studies, and applied ethics. Based on this interdisciplinary approach, we hope that effective strategies may arise to ensure that benefits of this ongoing revolution are deployed in a responsible and sustainable manner. The second part of the chapter comprises a brief review of the four parts and fourteen substantive chapters that make up this volume.

The chapter lays a roadmap for the Handbook on Shareholder Engagement and Voting. It defines shareholder engagement as shareholders’ involvement with their investee companies, using their shareholder rights and powers, both formal and informal (such as voting rights), to influence corporate affairs inside and outside general meetings of shareholders. The chapter further discusses the Handbook’s overall methodological considerations, that is, a sophisticated functionalist approach, with a combined use of doctrinal and empirical methods. The chapter proceeds to elaborate on the framework of research questions that guide the Handbook’s chapter contributions on 19 jurisdictions around the globe. The framework comprises three groups of questions: general jurisdictional features, legal means of shareholder voting and engagement, as well as shareholder voting and engagement in practice. The chapter concludes with a brief outline of the Handbook’s structure.

This introduction presents the main research question, its context and how the book structures its analysis.

In its Preamble, the Constitution of India lists dignity as one of several constitutional values. Dignity has no textual mention in the chapter on Fundamental Rights. The Supreme Court of India has, however, held dignity to be “the founding faith of the Constitution” and the “core of Fundamental Rights.” How is the special significance of dignity explained? By mapping the application of dignity by the Court, this chapter argues that judicial creativity with dignity has come at the cost of unanchored speculation about the content of dignity and uninhibited reliance on interdisciplinary academic literature. Dignity consequently figures in judicial decisions as a right, a justificatory value, and a reason for limiting individual rights. The content of dignity, however, remains perilously thin, and judicial enthusiasm has not resulted in clarity. Rather, questions arise about how extra-legal materials are employed in judicial decisions. The Indian experience, akin to several others, also raises concerns that arise when legal actors, primarily with legal expertise, employ moral and political values as justifications in constitutional rights adjudication.

Disputes should be resolved by using the appropriate process, whether that be litigation or a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) such as mediation. Court systems in jurisdictions throughout the world are organised on the assumption that most commercial cases will settle, often at the doors of the court. Litigation consequently operates as a legal default or fallback option. Parties should be aware of the various forms of ADR available and where commercial mediation fits within the range of processes. Certain dispute resolution processes may be particularly well suited to certain types of dispute, and the parties’ choice should be informed by clear criteria. Mediation has proved difficult to differentiate from other forms of ADR, in part due to the lack of a generally accepted definition. Attempts to define mediation have proved challenging, given its varied use in different contexts. However, a comparative view of mediation definitions, both statutory and judicial, generally reveals a broad consensus across jurisdictions on the treatment of issues such as dispute, voluntary nature, communication between the parties and consensual resolution by the parties.

The long history of taxation in empires, kingdoms and nations has been studied by legal, economic and political historians.1 The history of the ‘tax state’, or a government that is dependent on the power and capacity to tax, is much shorter – at most, about 250 years. A ‘tax state’ is established when a sovereign is able to raise sufficient tax revenues to consolidate, stabilise and centralise government based on this source of finance.2

Mediation is neither novel nor new. However, traditional forms of mediation are different from modern mediation practice; in traditional forms, the role and social standing of the mediator are central to the process, and the outcome focuses more on social harmony than on the individual rights or interests of the parties. This difference has given rise to two broad mediation cultures. Cultural differences can be reflected in different approaches to meeting needs, and can shape the interests of the parties and party behaviour during the process. As an informal and adaptable process, mediation offers the possibility of greater sensitivity to cultural differences. A consequence of globalisation has been the increasing harmonisation of laws and practices, and the harmonisation of dispute resolution systems is an important part of this movement. This is reflected in the emergence of several regional and international instruments, the most recent of which is the Singapore Convention. What matters is the potential for any new regional or international legal instrument to be effective and have a positive impact on the people and corporations involved in cross-border legal relationships.

People in wealthy countries live in a state that is defined by the power to tax and dependent on taxation to fund government, which we call a ‘tax’ state.1 Most of the member states in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are tax states. This book discusses taxation law and policy in the economic, social, legal and political context of tax states and explores the many challenges faced by these tax states in the twenty-first century.

Chapter 1 provides background by introducing concepts of Confucianism and Confucian culture, and by emphasizing the diversity of the Confucian tradition as it evolved in different countries. It is suggested that approaches to competition law and policy in East Asian countries should be shaped and implemented in ways that respond adaptively and strategically to cultural factors. The characteristics of East Asian firms should also be taken into account for purposes of competition law and policy, not merely in the sense that particular vigilance is required, but also because it underlines the need for proactive and creative efforts to change cultural attitudes. The chapter suggests that existing attitudes and mental frames are not always aligned with the legal rules that appear on the books, and they may impede the emergence of cultural pre-conditions that could support or catalyse desirable legal and behavioural change. The chapter describes the various dimensions of Confucian cultural influences that are discussed in the substantive chapters of the book; and it outlines the structure of the book.

This chapter sets out the main objectives and major themes of the work. The overall aim of the project is to establish the implications of a diminishing contract law (common law in particular).By ‘diminishment’ is meant the return to formal and classical law values in the common law and a reduced field of application for the rules of contract law. A brief outline is given of the topics that are explored during the course of the book: the rise of private ordering through contracts and the legal response to this; the ‘contractualisation’ of society; the formalist turn in modern contract law; the likely future pressures on legal development (such as ‘smart contracts’).The chapter raises some initial arguments concerning the drawbacks of a diminishing contract law (lack of development of public rules of contract law; lack of legal scrutiny of many modern contracts, or aspects of them; lack of opportunity for courts to express and apply the normative values that should underpin contracting). The chapter also anticipates, and responds to, some initial questions or criticisms about the project.

Throughout Hong Kong’s history, financial markets and their regulation have evolved with financial crises. Every significant financial crisis in Hong Kong has pivoted on liquidity in either or both the banking and monetary systems.1 Accordingly, liquidity support has played a prominent and critical role in managing Hong Kong’s financial stability. From the beginning, the lender of last resort was the primary means of managing banks’ liquidity and solvency, with funding being sourced from the private sector. Although the government has assumed this role over the past 30 years, there is yet to be a need for this support. With the modernization of financial markets, banks have become susceptible to funding and market liquidity. These liquidity risks were exemplified in the 2008–9 global financial crisis (GFC) and resurfaced, to a lesser extent, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Homeless squatting on empty land is a local challenge, replicated on a world-wide scale. While some have argued that neoliberal globalization has had a homogenizing effect on domestic legal systems generally, and on states’ responses to squatting more specifically, domestic institutions retain significant capacity and capability to govern; and their resilience critically determines economic success and political stability and nation-states adapt to changing circumstances. This chapter frames our analyses of state responses to homeless squatting on empty land in the context of nation state norms and narratives: what we describe – adapting Robert Cover – as the property “nomos” of each jurisdiction. We argue that state responses to squatting are framed by the “foundational” regime goals through which the state’s role and relationships to citizens with respect to property were articulated and understood, and examine how these foundational goals with respect to private property, housing and citizenship emerged in each of the five primary jurisdictions from which we draw insights and illustrations in this book: the United States of America, Ireland, Spain, South Africa, and England and Wales. In doing so, we aim to better understand how domestic institutions, norms and narratives in each of these jurisdictions have shaped the nomos within which “the state” acts in response to homeless squatting on empty land.

This chapter outlines the relevant provisions of the EU (and Member State) competition regimes. The purpose of this is to describe the legal architecture by which agreements among competitors and competitive practices are evaluated. As the EU’s competition provisions do not exist in isolation from other Treaty provisions, those that have a bearing on how the competition provisions are interpreted are also described. This provides a background for the argument of the remainder of the book.

Chapter 1 illuminates the concealed politics behind the growing reliance on law and courts to shape public policy and resolve political struggles. Focusing on what is often depicted as a cradle of judicial activism and the "judicialization of politics" – the European Union (EU) – the chapter develops a revisionist theory of lawyers, courts, and political development that animates this book. Beneath the radar, the EU's political development through law is an exemplary story of how lawyers mobilize courts to catalyze institutional change – alongside the limits, mutations, and consequences accompanying these efforts. It is a story that places in stark relief how political orders forged through networks of courts emerge, why judges would resist these institutional changes when they would augment their own power, and the conditions whereby lawyers can overcome bureaucratic and political resistances to judicialization. The chapter introduces the concept of ghostwriting to describe lawyers who act as agents of change while cloaked behind the sheepskin of rights-conscious litigants and activist judges. It then outlines a research design to exhume how the politics of lawyers shaped the tortuous development of the world’s sole supranational polity, concluding with a roadmap for the rest of the book.

Reducing air pollution, a leading cause of death, has become a critical goal worldwide. However, the degree of success has varied greatly, even in the same locality over time. Theories and empirical studies so far mainly explain the static existence of pollution. The major social science explanations for the existence of pollution are: (1) sacrificing environmental quality at the altar of the economy; (2) pursuing short-sighted environmental planning; and (3) exploiting information asymmetry to weaken environmental monitoring and enforcement. However, they do not explain the systematic temporal variation in environmental policy implementation. This book fills this critical gap and takes a different view than the existing works regarding several factors that explain reported changes in air quality, namely the manipulation of air quality data by subnational officials and the effect of ad hoc, top-down implementation campaigns on actual air quality. The rest of the chapter provides an overview of the mixed methods used, intended audiences, and a roadmap for the book.

This introductory chapter uses the framework of pedagogical choice to articulate and compare competing visions of how the field should be conceptualized and taught. Part 2 explicates the practical challenge that renders pedagogy in the field of comparative constitutional law unusually difficult – namely, the problem of capacity. Part 3 articulates and evaluates five competing models of pedagogy, which might be called instrumentalism, tourism, immersion, abstraction, and representation. Each model is defined by a distinctive set of pedagogical goals and a practical strategy for pursuing those goals in the face of the problem of capacity. Part 4 uses the contents of Constitutionalism in Context to illustrate how the representation model might be implemented in textbook form, and what intellectual and pedagogical benefits might result. Many of the representation model’s unique benefits stem from the fact that it invites and even demands that we explore what might be called boundary cases – namely, extreme, novel, or otherwise nonstandard cases that require us to test or apply familiar concepts and strategies in unfamiliar ways. Part 5 concludes by arguing that the challenges of teaching comparative constitutional law call for pedagogical pluralism.

China’s approach to innovation is unique. To analyse the main features of economic innovation and entrepreneurship in contemporary China, it is first necessary to dispel some common misconceptions. In addressing that topic, this chapter focuses on explaining: (1) technological innovation and how it has been conventionally understood in the literature; (2) China’s distinctive approach to technological innovation; (3) in particular, the complex role of the government, and regulation, in innovation in China; and (4) how China’s distinctive approach to innovation may actually be better at promoting innovation in AI technologies, and other rapidly developing technologies, than other approaches.

Since computers entered the mainstream in the 1960s, the efficiency with which data can be processed has raised regulatory questions. This is well understood with respect to privacy. Data that was notionally public – divorce proceedings, say – had long been protected through the ‘practical obscurity’ of paper records. When such material was available in a single hard copy in a government office, the chances of one’s acquaintances or employer finding it were remote. Yet when it was computerized and made searchable through what ultimately became the Internet, practical obscurity disappeared. Today, high-speed computing poses comparable threats to existing regulatory models in areas from securities regulation to competition law, merely by enabling lawful activities – trading in stocks, or comparing and adjusting prices, say – to be undertaken more quickly than previously conceived possible. Many of these questions are practical rather than conceptual and apply to technologies other than AI. Nevertheless, current approaches to slowing down decision-making – through circuit-breakers to stop trading, for example – will not address all of the problems raised by the speed of AI systems.

The introduction mirrors the volume’s overall structure. It begins with a review of the literature on post-2013 legal institutional reforms before turning to the context and content of procedural law changes and court reforms. The chapter then discusses the role of the Supreme People’s Court as an initiator of criminal procedure amendments and promoter of legal institutional reform. The most significant change in the judicial structure, which is caused by the introduction of the supervision commissions, is examined from the perspective of ongoing court reforms and the balance of power amongst the various actors within the judiciary. The introduction then turns to the criminal procedure law reforms enacted in 2012 and 2018, discussing the new mechanism of pretrial detention, the criminal justice reform goal of ‘trial-centredness’ and criminal reconciliation in public prosecution cases. As the contextual factors of criminal trials often have a decisive impact on the trial outcome, such factors as performance evaluations of courts and judges and media scrutiny of criminal cases are subsequently analysed. It concludes with a summary of the key issues and findings of the volume as a whole.

This chapter debates the relevance of customary law to climate law. In climate-law discussions, most attention focuses on the treaties (the UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, and Paris Agreement) rather than on custom. Views differ as to the relevance or applicability of customary international law to state responsibility for responding to climate change. Sandrine Maljean-Dubois makes the case that norms of customary international law can meaningfully be applied to climate change mitigation, Christopher Campbell-Duruflé, by contrast, argues that those norms are too vague to address the problem in any meaningful way. This debate has important implications for determining the level of mitigation ambition that states must implement.