This book aims to bring together researchers and experts from different legal and anthropological backgrounds to examine the interaction between borders and migration and the challenge they pose to our societies. The work results from an academic sub-project on Migration Law and Policy at the Faculty of Laws of the University of Malta. It formed part of a much larger project involving a Jean Monnet Network MAPS project led by the University of Naples, L’Orientale. It represents the work und...

The European Union is today a major player in many policy areas, going from classic economic fields as competition policy, agriculture and fisheries policy to new emergent fields as environmental policy, arterial intelligence policy, security and foreign policy and criminal justice policy. These policies comes with an increasing level of EU regulation, having also a substantive impact on the harmonization of national policies and regulations. This expansion of EU competence naturally also pl...

Proponents of multiculturalism do not usually subscribe to Islamist goals. Yet, across Europe, these are being furthered. Sharia councils are deeply at odds with Western moral and legal principles of equality, freedom and justice. But high-profile multiculturalists tend to present a romanticised view of these councils, which obscures both the ideology that motivates them and their practical consequences. Are Sharia councils a legitimate expression of the longing for identity, as multicultural...

The new European rules on bank insolvency seek to prevent future government-funded bailouts. Instead, risks should be internalized by the participants. The rules in the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive and also the Single Resolution Mechanism seek to mimic the outcome of a normal insolvency procedures, without actually letting a failing institution enter full insolvency procedures. The rules enacted are of critical importance to a healthier and more stable financial sector.

This book pr...

Today humanity uses, on average, the equivalent of 1.6 earths to

provide the resources we use and to absorb our waste. A pathway

to sustainable resource use is the circular economy. This concept

aims at optimising the value of the resources used and to minimise

the amount of resources used. The author addresses the question of

what kind of law we need to realize a circular economy. He argues

that many legal frameworks and rules on the national and the

European level will have to be reconsider...

This book examines the South Asian constitutional systems (India 1950, Bangladesh 1972, Pakistan 1973, Sri Lanka 1978, Bhutan 2008, Nepal 2015), adopting a comparative law and ‘contextual’ approach. Social diversity is the main feature of this geographical region, vast in dimension, also according to its demographic profile. This is why studying this area from a legal and institutional perspective is not only a crucial need for comparative law, but also a major methodological and intellec...

This is the inaugural address delivered on the acceptance of the Chair of Empirical Legal Studies at the Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Are liberal democracies in decline? If they are, what role does populism play in this? What can and should democracies do to defend their core features against ‘democratic decay’? And which features can be considered essential? These are difficult questions further complicated by the realisation that their answers depend on perspective. Populism and democratic decay are global phenomena but they play out differently in different countries and regions. They also cannot be properly understo...

'Excellence' is said to be the sole criterion in grant decision-making. How excellence is judged by funding organizations is difficult to grasp. This book helps scientists to acquire a grant for basic research from national and international funding organizations. It describes the processes involved and explains the way in which decisions on the giving of grants are made by peer reviewers and field panels or juries. It focuses on the best strategy for applying, supplies information on how to ...

All over the world, governments impose punishments on their citizens for transgressions of the criminal law. Consensus exists that this sanctioning should be in accordance with the principle of legality and the rule of law. However, governments around the world struggle with providing foreseeability and non-arbitrariness in their sentencing systems. This continuous struggle raises the question how - and to what extent - foreseeability and non-arbitrariness must be guaranteed. Not only in rela...