There is a deep scepticism concerning the idea that AI should be used in the making of judicial decisions. There are normative risks such as inaccuracy and a lack of explainability and accountability, and there are sociological risks to public trust in the judicial system. Prominent legal instruments such as the EU AI Act, Vilnius Convention, and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) seek to set some clear guardrails around the use of AI in judicial decision-making, but face two problems. First, they underappreciate the Collingridge dilemma, in which premature intervention risks over-regulation, while belated intervention risks under-regulation. Second, there is a misplaced faith in the power of legal obligations to provide sufficient (and enforceable) guidance. This chapter asks what model of governance should be adopted for the use of AI in courts. In doing so, it undertakes a survey of the current status and evolution of AI technology in courts, examines how we should evaluate risks, and considers competing governance models. It argues that a model of anticipatory governance, often suitable for long and complex problems, should be adopted, and some of the implications are discussed.

This book presents a snapshot of a field that, at the time of writing in the early 2020s, is very active and developing into different directions – ranging from rigorous theoretical studies to very concrete applications in various other areas; a field that can broadly be characterised as the mathematical study of differential equations and variational methods on graphs and their applications to machine learning, image processing, and image analysis.

To avoid ambiguity, we note that we write $\mathbb{N}$ for the strictly1 positive natural numbers and ${\mathbb{N}}_0:=\mathbb{N}\cup \{0\}$.

Chapter 10 demonstrates that a Latin American regional bloc with a common agenda focused on international legal reform emerged in the League of Nations during the 1920s and that the origins of this bloc can be traced to an important but little-known campaign spearheaded by the Uruguayan diplomat Enrique Buero. Correspondence from Buero’s recently uncovered private archives reveals the domestic, international, and bureaucratic political obstacles that had to be overcome in order to forge a coalition in Geneva. Ultimately, Uruguay and Latin America’s pivot to the League created leverage for legal reform regarding the use of force and diplomatic protection across multiple international organizations.

My aim, in this response to Peters’ timely and powerful work, is both to acknowledge its transformative force for legal studies and at the same time to introduce distinctions that may be of value in distinguishing discussions of the ‘theatricality’ of law from the emergence of a modern understanding of ‘theatre’ as the production of coherent and powerful fictions enacted by characters. The early modern period (1500–1650) is described, in chapter 5 of Peters’ study, as ‘the age of theatre’. If Peters shows how judicial proceedings draw on the performative aspects of rhetoric and theatre, my response aims to show how, in the ‘age of theatre’, theatre’s distinctive fictionality drew on the fiction-generating power of probable argument and inferential reasoning, as taught in legal rhetoric.

This chapter contends that awareness is the first step to any changes, and therefore, cultivating sustainability literacy is needed badly to understand the inescapable laws of thermodynamics that limit the growth pursued by the ‘development’ ideology. In such a way the Ulamas and Muslim leaders will be sufficiently-informed to devise the environmental Shariah that correctly situates human society within the context of Earth’s limited natural energy flows and resource stocks, and at the same time, comply with the will of God. Given these physical constraints of the planet, the currently dominant ethical framework and the endless rat-race of modern life have placed us in a riverbed of self-destruction. Technological fixes can temporarily improve conditions but they cannot move us out of this riverbed of unsustainability. Here is where Muslims need to redefine a genuinely Islamic development model and its parameters. An Islamic development paradigm should not aim at making humans possible to forget God and his own inner reality, and being stifled by the prison of their own creation. Unlike the dominant Eurocentric development paradigm, an Islamic development needs to have its own criteria of happiness index in which humans are free to roam around and choose objects at will.

Oil has seriously impacted the institutional development of the state in the Arabian Peninsula. More specifically, the sudden and unprecedented acquisition of massive oil revenues resulted in the freezing of the state’s formal and informal institutions, at the point at which petrodollars were injected into the state’s coffers. From then on, state leaders were able to deploy the state’s wealth to dictate the pace and direction of institutional change. Over time, any institutional change has been directed towards enhancing regime security, and the pace of change has been calculated and deliberately slow. Any political opening has been dictated by the logic of state power maximization (in relation to society). At the same time, partly to ensure its popular legitimacy and partly through the vision of its leaders, the state has deployed its massive wealth both to foster rapid economic and infrastructural development, and to enhance the living standards of its citizens. In other words, whereas oil may have stunted institutional development –– i.e., an institution’s curse –– it has been an economic blessing.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is used in criminal courtrooms to support judicial decision- making. Despite heavy criticism on opacity, complexity, non-contestability, or unfair discrimination, such uses have been favoured, given AI’s promises of efficiency, effectiveness, and accuracy in the overall decision-making process. Focusing on the use of AI-generated evidence, this chapter analyses various European frameworks on evidence and fair trial scheme, the data protection guarantees under the Law Enforcement Directive (LED) and the requirements for AI use by the judiciary set out by the AI Act. We assess whether and to what degree the use of AI in criminal courtrooms can respect fundamental European principles regarding human rights and defence rights.

Chapter 21 offers the first source-based historical analysis of the League of Nations’ attempt to codify international law between 1925 and 1930. Drawing on institutional archives and private papers, it demonstrates that codification was for the League Secretariat not merely a legal endeavour, but also a strategic tool to engage the United States – either as a League member or as part of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ). Encouraged by important middlemen such as Manley O. Hudson and Arthur Sweetser, the initiative aimed to rekindle US legalist Republican support and counter alternative projects that could challenge the League’s role in international peace and cooperation. Beyond US–League relations, the chapter reveals persistent divisions over the aims and methods of codification, reflecting broader struggles within international legal circles. The failure of the project was not just an institutional setback for the League but also a symptom of the legal community’s inability to promote a shared agenda. Rather than an isolated episode, the codification effort was part of a longer trajectory, shaped by both disruptions and continuities. While it barely produced immediate results, it laid important groundwork for later developments in international law.

This chapter considers the comic dimensions of Sancho’s correspondence. Sancho’s humor draws on British national culture to interrogate divisions within the community and to prompt readers to notice lines separating insiders from outsiders. Sancho uses farce to create internal tiers of closeness within his group of affiliates, parody to forge pathways for bonding with strangers, and satire to criticize society while also promoting recognition of commonalities.

Chapter 5 addresses the German–Polish Convention of 15 May 1922, a legal instrument that was negotiated with the direct participation of the League Secretariat and whose aim was the smooth partition of the multi-ethnic industrial region of Upper Silesia. It shows that while this treaty provided opportunities for ‘peace through law’, it ultimately failed to meet this expectation. After providing an overview of the Convention’s drafting process and its key features, notably its reliance on international procedural avenues to guarantee individual rights, the chapter examines these guarantees and how they came into being. It then focusses on the role of the president of the Mixed Commission for Upper Silesia, Felix Calonder, a vocal proponent of ‘peace through law’. In his role as local guarantor of minority rights, Calonder developed a systematic case law that was unequalled before the advent of the international human rights law bodies after the Second World War and foreshadowed some of the principles adopted by them. It concludes by reflecting on the various limitations that this law shared with other attempts to use legal techniques to solve interstate conflicts of the interwar period.