In September 2023, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) joined the numerous Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council which, over the past decade, analysed the subject of the human rights impacts of new technologies and it published a thematic study on ‘new technologies and enforced disappearances’. The Chapter briefly presents the gestation and contents of the study, but its main aim is to analyse the role played – if any – by new technologies, and in particular digital, information and communication technologies, in the regular activities of the WGEID, with a view at identifying innovative methods to carry out its mandate. The functions of the WGEID are illustrated, together with the opportunities that new technologies may offer to perform them. The challenges currently posed to the WGEID and its ‘counterparts’ by the use of new technologies in terms of security, verification and accessibility are also considered. The concluding remarks offer a reflection on how some of the findings and observations made with regard to the WGEID could be relevant also for the work of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances.

The chapter explains the increasing frequency of so-called morality clauses imposed by sponsors in sponsorship agreements with professional tennis players. The aim of these clauses is to restrict players from particular conduct that reflects negatively on the product sponsored. The chapter explains the contractual nature of these clauses and provides an explanation as to how a violation of these restrictions may bring about a right of termination on the part of the sponsor. In the particular tennis context, the chapter explains the impact of social media and the digital world. It goes on to provide examples of morality clauses in tennis endorsement agreements.

The player explores the history of professional unions in tennis up to the current day. It starts by setting out the dual and shifting roles of tennis player unions, which at all times of its history ranged from a collective action to shared governance. It goes on to ponder what actually is a professional tennis players’ union and lays out a framework for the trade union rights of professional tennis players. Its historical account throws light at initial attempts at player unionization and the pivotal role of player unionization in 1967–75. This led to pro tennis’s labor settlement – business in lieu of bargaining, which in turn culminated in the so-called “Seven Kingdoms” – player voice, rights, pay and conditions in professional tennis, which is the current status. The chapter explores these seven kingdoms and the latest development with the PTPA, which was established in 2020.

This chapter discusses the situation of contemporary disappearances in Mexico and explains how the heterogeneity of perpetrators and victims, especially the involvement of non-state actors in the commission of these crimes, poses conceptual challenges under the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances. It specifically addresses two legal questions: the state’s failure to identify dead bodies as a form of enforced disappearance and impunity as a form of acquiescence. Following this, it presents the Committee on Enforced Disappearance’s 2023 Statement on Non-State Actors and examines how the definition of acquiescence provided by the Committee could impact the categorisation of disappearances in Mexico. It is argued that the Committee’s definition could and should be applied in such a way as to consider a large number of disappearances in Mexico today as enforced disappearances, as well as that a presumption of acquiescence would be appropriate in Mexican context, as it places the burden of proof on the state, thereby potentially overcoming a seemingly arbitrary classification of victims into two categories.

FFramework climate laws have been enacted across a growing range of countries, and are often assumed to provide stability in terms of climate policymaking. This chapter provides a more nuanced assessment. I argue that, while some common design elements of framework climate laws do indeed serve to bring stability to climate policymaking, in many respects framework climate laws depart from the ideal design type envisioned by the literature on time inconsistency, commitment devices, and non-majoritarian institutions. Moreover, framework climate laws can actually serve to make explicit political conflicts and sectoral trade-offs, and can thus serve to politicize even as they depoliticize. Furthermore, by seeking to introduce stability to climate policymaking in the sense of stability in policy design over time, framework climate laws simultaneously and deliberately seek to undermine and challenge stability as status quo. The chapter draws on examples of framework climate laws principally in European countries to illustrate the argument.

This chapter describes the long process of awareness and creation of the International Convention for the Elimination of Enforced Disappearance, the role of non-governmental organisations and the national and international cooperation organisations in that process.

It analyses the role of Condor Operation launched as a multilateral agreement between the national security dictatorships of the Southern Cone and the reaction of civil society and the relatives of the victims who began to seek a way to achieve the recognition of enforced disappearance as an autonomous offence and then the adoption of an International Convention for its punishment.

In this chapter, the testimonies about this process are analysed as well as series of concomitant actions gained momentum, as a result of which, the United Nations (UN) convened a Drafting Group for what ended up being the long-awaited International Convention. Finally, there is a brief analysis of the current state of those NGOs which fought hard for such Convention.

Finally, this chapter consists of research about a historic stage of a generation which is giving way to new people with their new rights, their new fights, and their new utopias.

The chapter generally explores the role, function and regulation of private agents in professional tennis and contrasts similar issues as they arise in other sports in a variety of jurisdictions. The chapter starts off setting out agency in tennis in its particular context. It then goes on to ascertain the background to sports agents in general and tennis agents in particular. Attention is paid to the types and roles of agents in professional tennis, as well as their regulation by the key transnational tennis actors, in addition to their regulation by domestic and transnational rules. The chapter further explores the various contractual agreements between professional tennis players and agents and attempts to set out the law on player–agent contracts. In addition, it sets out a framework concerning the legal issues arising from player–agent relations in professional tennis

Climate activists are divided over whether to adopt strategies emphasizing stability and incremental change versus strategies promoting more extreme and immediate action. One way to promote policy stability is through private governance, that is, voluntary industry self-governance. Proponents argue this can stabilize expectations about the future, incentivize incremental reductions in emissions, and lock in policies and practices. This problem-solving approach serves to depoliticize debate but can lead to political backlash and repoliticization. I examine these dynamics through a case study of the financial sector, particularly the insurance industry. Collective attempts to ensure policy lock-in and stability include initiatives such as the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI), the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, and Net Zero Insurance Alliance. This is a case of failed depoliticization as demonstrated by the political backlash against these efforts.

The conclusion draws together the findings of the book’s fifteen analytical chapters and is divided into six sections. Each section places several individual chapters in conversation with one another. First, we reflect on how the authors engaged with stability, across the four forms we developed in the introductory chapter, before the second section does the same regarding re/politicization. Third, we engage with the running theme throughout the book that stability and re/politicization are not dichotomous but rather interact, and indeed, one can be pursued to achieve the other. Fourth, we explore manifestations of depoliticization encountered within the book and find that, in practice, many regimes pursuing stability are less depoliticized than often assumed. Fifth, we bring in the importance of temporality to our studies, before finally offering concluding remarks on the book’s arguments and suggesting avenues for future research. Throughout the volume, we have presented the antagonism between stability and re/politicization in a deliberately flexible manner, and we hope others will find it – as well as our four novel forms of each approach – to be useful in their own analyses.

This chapter explores the applicability of competition law, particularly in its EU dimension, to actvities, tournaments, broadcasting and others of the ATP, although the same rules apply mutatis mutandis to the WTA and the ITF. The chapter commences by examining good governance standards in EU law and policy and explores access to the organisational market for rival tennis tours under competition law. In doing so, it examines the legality of blocking rivals from accessing the organisational market, in particular in relation to rules 1.07, 1.14 and 8.05A(2)(e) of the ATP Rulebook. The chapter assesses the compatibility of these rules with EU competition law, especially in relation to recent judgments adopted by the CJEU and whether the restrictions to competition imposed therein are compatible with legitimate objectives and proportionality. The chapter examines whether wild cards are compatible with Article 56 of the TFEU and the freedom to provide services.