Andrej Zwitter

• Dr. iur., Mag. iur.
• Head of Faculty at University of Groningen

From November 26 to 29, 2008, ten heavily armed members of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Kashmiri separatist group, attacked several public sites in Mumbai, India, with automatic weapons and grenades, killing 164 people and wounding three hundred. This was one of the first known instances of terrorists employing powerful search algorithms such as Twitte...

This article aims to contribute to the theoretical discussion about the rule of law and about its definition by looking at situations where the rule of law is put to the test – states of emergency. States of emergency and laws of exception have specific characteristics, one fundamental characteristic being that legislative power is shifted to the e...

The laws governing humanitarian action stand at the intersection of several fields of international law, regional agreements, soft law and domestic law. Through in-depth case studies and analysis, expert scholars and practitioners come together to offer an interdisciplinary approach, which includes contributions from legal policy, international rel...

The speed of development in Big Data and associated phenomena, such as social media, has surpassed the capacity of the average consumer to understand his or her actions and their knock-on effects. We are moving towards changes in how ethics has to be perceived: away from individual decisions with specific and knowable outcomes, towards actions by m...

Citizen science initiatives offer an unprecedented scale of volunteer-driven data collection but often face scrutiny regarding their methodology, research design, data collection, and analysis. Addressing these concerns, this paper adopts a data science approach to process and enhance the integrity of data generated from citizen science projects, p...

This perspective article explores foundational shifts required for the conceptualization of future principles and goals to inform the starting re-negotiation process of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) post-2030. Based on a multi-stakeholder consultation and workshop-based focus groups, this article emphasizes integrating non-material aspec...

This perspective article explores foundational shifts required for the conceptualization of future principles and goals that might replace the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) post-2030. Based on a multi-stakeholder consultation and workshop-based focus groups, this article emphasizes integrating non-material aspects of human flourishing, such...

This article provides an initial analysis of the EU AI Act's (AIA) approach to regulating general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) – such as OpenAI's ChatGPT – and argues that it marks a significant shift from reactive to proactive AI governance. While this may alleviate concerns that regulators are constantly lagging behind technological devel...

Citizen science initiatives offer an unprecedented scale of volunteer-driven data collection but often face scrutiny regarding their methodology, research design, and data collection as well as analysis. Addressing these concerns, this paper adopts a data science approach to process and enhance the integrity of data generated from citizen science p...

Governance theory in political science and international relations has to adapt to the onset of an increasingly digital society. However, until now, technological advancements and the increasing convergence of technologies outpace regulatory efforts and frustrate any efforts to apply ethical and legal frameworks to these domains. This is due to the...

Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have pervaded all aspects of modern life. For decades, popular culture and science fiction literature have frequently featured autonomous systems, robots, algorithms and other manifestations-or imaginations-of what data-driven lives could look like. Asimov's three laws of robotics or Philip K. Dick's questi...

As one of the emerging concepts in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and the Internet of Things (IoT), Digital Twin (DT) technology can predict system responses before they occur. Considering the rapid growth of new information and technology (ICT) applications in the tourism industry and the digitisation through IoT, we suggest...

This study aims at identifying challenges of the existing disaster preparedness education programs for children in Iran. There are two main non-formal disaster education programs for preparing children for disasters: The Earthquake and Safety School Drill Program (ESSD) and Ready Students for Severe Days, or DADRAS. To implement these programs, dif...

The capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) evolve rapidly and affect almost all sectors of society. AI has been increasingly integrated into criminal and harmful activities, expanding existing vulnerabilities, and introducing new threats. This article reviews the relevant literature, reports, and representative incidents which allows to const...

Health data bear great promises for a healthier and happier life, but they also make us vulnerable. Making use of millions or billions of data points, Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are now creating new benefits. For sure, harvesting Big Data can have great potentials for the health system, too. It can support accurate diagn...

The design and management of digital identity is a complex challenge. On the one hand, it requires a clear understanding of the parameters that are involved in identity management. On the other hand, it requires the cooperation of many stakeholders. In particular, this involves those public authorities and private organisations that need to be alig...

This article examines whether the territorial scope of the EU General Data Protection Regulation promotes European values. While the regulation received international attention, it remains questionable whether provisions with extraterritorial effect support a power-based approach or a value-driven strategy. Developments around the enforceability of...

Sustainable tourism research focuses on mitigating or remediating environmental, social and economic impacts on tourism. In the past years, Big Data approaches have been applied to the field of tourism allowing for remarkable progress. However, there seems to be little evidence to support that such approaches are an inspiration to sustainable touri...

Health data bear great promises for a healthier and happier life, but they also make us vulnerable. Making use of millions or billions of data points, Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are now creating new benefits. For sure, harvesting Big Data can have great potentials for the health system, too. It can support accurate diagn...

This article looks at central opportunities and drawbacks of the ‘passportization’ approach to governing the current health emergency. It showcases the complexity of the ‘vaccination passports’ idea, the technological and organisational difficulties expected during implementation, as well as its regrettable appeal. We provide a comprehensive overvi...

This article looks at central opportunities and drawbacks of the ‘passportization’ approach to governing the current health emergency. It showcases the complexity of the ‘vaccination passports’ idea, the technological and organisational difficulties expected during implementation, as well as its regrettable appeal. We provide a comprehensive overvi...

A transparent debate about algorithms The police use all sorts of information to fulfil their tasks. Whereas collection and interpretation of information traditionally could only be done by humans, the emergence of ‘Big Data’ creates new opportunities and dilemmas. On the one hand, large amounts of data can be used to train algorithms. This allows...

This chapter analyses Augustine’s theory of war and peace, advancing that if we better understand his comprehensive concept of peace as the harmonic interaction of individuals with each other, mediated by their relationship with God. The chapter also compares Augustine’s theory of universal peace with Kant’s concept of perpetual peace in his famous...

Societies at large still grapple to categorize digital space as a phenomenon. At the same time, scientists and developers are searching for innovative methods to better understand how the fundamental shifts caused by digital change will affect the future of humanity over the coming decades. Interdisciplinary governance research at the intersection...

The COVID-19 pandemic leads governments around the world to resort to tracking technology and other data-driven tools in order to monitor and curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Such large-scale incursion into privacy and data protection is unthinkable during times of normalcy. However, in times of a pandemic the use of location data provided by telecom...

While “classical” human identity has kept philosophers busy since millennia, “Digital Identity” seems primarily machine related. Telephone numbers, E-Mail inboxes, or Internet Protocol (IP)-addresses are irrelevant to define us as human beings at first glance. However, with the omnipresence of digital space the digital aspects of identity gain impo...

“Network effects” or “network externalities” are terms to describe the phenomenon that products or services can experience increase in value the more users they have. A classic example is communication networks. Network effects are associated with insights in social network analysis and network economics. The concept is also relevant in discourses...

Advancements in the digital domain, for example, in blockchain technology, big data, and machine learning, are increasingly shaping the lives of individuals, groups, organizations, and societies. These developments call for effective governance to protect the basic interests and needs of these actors. Simultaneously, the very nature of governance i...

Technologies and their inherent design choices create normative structures that affect governance. This chapter aims to illustrate how blockchain technology in particular introduces new norms into a legal framework. We first analyze the different forms of governance by distinguishing between old and new governance. With a view to code that function...

Presentation on the Eu-funded Horizon 2020 'Cutting Crime Impact' Project (https://www.cuttingcrimeimpact.eu) during a University of Groningen Data Federation Hub Meetup at Campus Fryslân on 17 October 2019. More information: https://www.rug.nl/datafederationhub/calendar/dfh-meetup-data-research-center-campus-fryslan

While ‘classical’ human identity has kept philosophers busy since millennia, ‘Digital Identity’ seems primarily machine related. Telephone numbers, E-Mail inboxes, or Internet Protocol (IP)-addresses are irrelevant to define us as human beings at first glance. However, with the omnipresence of digital space the digital aspects of identity gain impo...

While Predictive Policing is an innovative tool to use data and statistical methods to forecast the probability of crime and improve the effectiveness of deployment of resources, it is based on many underpinning assumptions. The main ethical issues relating to PP circle around the themes data selection and machine bias, visualisation and interpreta...

"Big Data" has the potential to facilitate sustainable development in many sectors of life such as education, health, agriculture, and in combating humanitarian crises and violent conflicts. However, lurking beneath the immense promises of Big Data are some significant risks such as 1) the potential use of Big Data for unethical ends; 2) its abilit...

Big data revolution promises to be instrumental in facilitating sustainable development in many sectors of life such as education, health, agriculture, and in combating humanitarian crises and violent conflicts. However, lurking beneath the immense promises of big data are some significant risks such as (1) the potential use of big data for unethic...

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another.

Abstract Blockchain technology is swiftly entering the fields of humanitarian and development aid. While it has the potential to revolutionize the aid sector, e.g., through pairing smart contracts with forecast-based financing, it also has the potential to perpetuate societal problems and add new risks. This essay outlines the use cases of Blockcha...

Geopolitical challenges not only cause humanitarian crises; they can also be the source of failures in humanitarian action. Recent years have brought unique changes to the humanitarian landscape, from criminal and political threats, proliferation of actors in the international humanitarian sector, to professionalisation and accountability agendas i...

Staatsnotstandsmechanismen geben der Exekutive einerseits einen erweiterten Handlungsspielraum auch vis-à-vis der Grundrechte und Freiheiten. Andererseits wird dieser Spielraum natürlich durch die Menschenrechte generell und speziell durch Artikel 4 des Internationalen Pakts über bürgerliche und politische Rechte (IPbpR) reguliert und eingeschränkt...

Die Digitalisierung schreitet ungebremst voran, gefährdet aber auch unsere Demokratie, wenn wir sie nicht zügeln. Was müssen wir tun?

Big Data, Nudging, Verhaltenssteuerung: Droht uns die Automatisierung der Gesellschaft durch Algorithmen und künstliche Intelligenz? Ein Appell zur Sicherung von Freiheit und Demokratie.

Die Macht der Daten lässt sich für gute und für schlechte Zwecke nutzen. Fünf Prinzipien für eine Big-Data-Ethik.

The digital domain, technological innovations, and Big Data analytics increasingly shape the lives of millions of individuals, groups, organisation, and societies. This cyber age calls for effective governance to protect the basic interests and needs of individuals and groups. Simultaneously, the very nature of governance is changing. Increasingly...

The current refugee crisis illustrates once more the limi- tations of the international community in coordinating matters of burden-sharing in the face of claims of sover- eignty by states. It also highlights the international com- munity's failure to fulfill its responsibility in dealing with the crisis before it led to refugee flows by addressing...

Humanitarian aid workers are faced with many challenges, from possible terrorist attacks to dealing with difficult stakeholders and securing operational space free from violence. To do their work properly and safely, they need effective intelligence. Humanitarian intelligence refers to the use of investigative and analytical techniques in service o...

With the explosion of social media sites and proliferation of digital computing devices and Internet access, massive amounts of public data is being generated on a daily basis. Efficient techniques/ algorithms to analyze this massive amount of data can provide near real-time information about emerging trends and provide early warning in case of an...

Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Big Nudging, and Cybernetic Society: Is the automation of society coming? A joint appeal to secure freedom and democracy. This is the English translation of the Digital Manifesto, which appeared in Spektrum der Wissenschaft http://www.spektrum.de/pdf/digital-­‐manifest/1376682

Disasters have long been a scourge for humanity. With the advances in technology (in terms of computing, communications, and the ability to process and analyze big data), our ability to respond to disasters is at an inflection point. There is great optimism that big data tools can be leveraged to process the large amounts of crisis-related data (in...

Disasters have long been a scourge for humanity. With the advances in technology (in terms of computing, communications, and the ability to process and analyze big data), our ability to respond to disasters is at an inflection point. There is great optimism that big data tools can be leveraged to process the large amounts of crisis-related data (in...

With the explosion of social media sites and proliferation of digital computing devices and Internet access, massive amounts of public data is being generated on a daily basis. Efficient techniques/ algorithms to analyze this massive amount of data can provide near real-time information about emerging trends and provide early warning in case of an...

This chapter introduces the rationale for the book. It explains why Big Data is one of the most prominent challenges of our time, with far-reaching implications for society and security. It sets out why the tension, and interaction, between innovation and ethics is at the forefront of the various challenges of Big Data. It clarifies the division of...

This chapter emphasises the radical departure that the Big Data age signifies for researchers, corporates, and public bodies alike. It argues that the nature of Big Data and the means of analysis raise their own specific ethical problems that nowadays go beyond the privacy consideration of the individual. Instead, these changes raise questions abou...

This book brings together an impressive range of academic and intelligence professional perspectives to interrogate the social, ethical and security upheavals in a world increasingly driven by data. Written in a clear and accessible style, it offers fresh insights to the deep reaching implications of Big Data for communication, privacy and organisa...

2015 has shaken the EU to its core. Hard upon the heels of geopolitical upheavals in Ukraine, as well as internal battles to define both Eurozone and energy governance, the refugee crisis has prompted a sober reckoning of the EU’s competence and its humanity. With an increasing number of articles and Special Issues in Politics and Governance focusi...

Doing what is right is not always easy. Doing what is right is not optional if one wants to call oneself a professional in a globalized world. Acting within the general boundaries of ethically acceptable margins of society is a prerequisite of being a full and equal member of society. Acting within the specific ethical boundaries of a profession is...

Legal mechanisms governing the state of emergency can play an important role in authoritarian rule and post-revolutionary transition periods. Egypt has experienced the terror of a regime empowered by emergency law. In Tunisia, emergency law was not so much an issue before but rather after the Jasmine revolution. Given the importance of emergency re...

oiip Working Paper, No. 28 Abstract The European Security Strategy (ESS) is currently being reformulated. This working paper puts forward a new methodological approach in the construction of global strategies for stakeholders in the international system. It makes the case that contemporary strategy formulation (including the ESS) insufficiently a...

The main aim of this chapter is to show that S. Augustine’s peace theory has an important contribution to make when discussing the other two authors. In this sense, this chapter aims to build bridges in the history of thought between three authors that are usually treated as islands in their own domain. The material, of which the bridges between th...

The laws governing humanitarian action stand at the intersection of several fields of international law, regional agreements, soft law and domestic law. Through in-depth case studies and analyses, expert scholars and practitioners come together to offer interdisciplinary approaches which include contributions from legal policy, international relati...

The laws governing humanitarian action stand at the intersection of several fields of international law, regional agreements, soft law and domestic law. Through in-depth case studies and analyses, expert scholars and practitioners come together to offer interdisciplinary approaches which include contributions from legal policy, international relati...

This book presents a new framework of analysis to assess natural and man-made disasters and humanitarian crises, and the feasibility of interventions in these complex emergencies. The past half-century has witnessed a dramatic increase in such crises - such as in Haiti, Iraq and Sudan - and this volume aims to pioneer a theory-based, interdisciplin...

A re-reading of Augustine’s theory of war and peace can be fruitfully advanced if we better understand his comprehensive concept of peace as the harmonic interaction of individuals with each other, mediated by their relationship with God. After introducing Saint Augustine as a peace, rather than just war, theorist, we expand on Augustine’s concepti...

2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day through pictures, messages, gps-data, etc. "Big Data" is seen simultaneously as the new Philosophers Stone and Pandora's box: a source of great knowledge and power, but equally, the root of serious problems.

State of Emergency Mapping (STEM) is a database project providing information on emergency powers de iure and de facto in order to gain a better understanding of the politics of law in different regions of the world. Phase 1 of the database project covers 15 years of empirical data that maps state of emergency declarations worldwide. More specifica...

State of Emergency Mapping (STEM) is a database project providing information on emergency powers de iure and de facto in order to gain a better understanding of the politics of law in different regions of the world. Phase 1 of the database project covers 15 years of empirical data that maps state of emergency declarations worldwide. More specifica...

2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day through pictures, messages, gps-data, etc. "Big Data" is seen simultaneously as the new Philosophers Stone and Pandora's box: a source of great knowledge and power, but equally, the root of serious problems.

"The laws governing humanitarian action stand at the intersection of several fields of international law, regional agreements, soft law and domestic law. Through in-depth case studies and analysis, expert scholars and practitioners come together to offer an interdisciplinary approach, which includes contributions from legal policy, international re...

The question of the universality of human rights has much in common with the question of the universality of ethics. In the form of a multidisciplinary reflexive survey, the aim of this article is to show how human rights discourses derive from more basic principles related to basic needs. These needs are the universal grammar for moral principles,...

We are proud to welcome our readers, contributors and reviewers to this inaugural issue of Politics and Governance, published by Librello Publishing House—a peer reviewed, open-source journal dedicated to the study of politics in the national, regional and global realm, and the modes and methods of governance in all its manifestations.

The rise of open source online journals, free online courses, and other changes in the research and education environment, coined the "academic spring" by some commentators, represents an increasing trend in opening up the rules of access for research. Universities, libraries, publishers and even governments are paying attention to this new movemen...

This article presents the current constitutional developments around the Arab Spring. It analyses the prospects of democratic control and the rule of law from the view of constitutional arrangements concerning states of emergency. As such each section briefly outlines the political and legal background of the country and takes a look at the legal n...

Terroranschläge, Umweltkatastrophen, nukleare Unglücksfälle und in jüngerer Zeit auch Staateninsolvenzen können unter dem Begriff des Staatsnotstandes zusammengefasst werden. In all diesen Fällen ist der Staat mit verschiedenen Rechtskreisen konfrontiert.„Notstand und Recht“ ist das erste deutschsprachige Werk zum Notstandsrecht mit Fokus auf Deuts...

The field of Humanitarian Assistance has become increasingly complex in every aspect. Since the end of the cold war one can observe multiple changes – increase in humanitarian action, increased number and variation of humanitarian actors, proliferation of tasks between different actors (e.g. militaries as relief and developmental actors), professio...

Since the end of the cold war, the United Nations (UN) System in regard to humanitarian assistance developed incredibly fast. Numerous resolutions of the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council have been adopted and specialized bodies like the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs have been establish...

ETHICS AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT IN HUMANITARIAN EMERGENCIES International humanitarian organizations – be they intergovernmental such as the United Nations' agencies for refugees (UNHCR), children (UNICEF) and food (WFP), or non-governmental, such as Médecins sans Frontières, Oxfam or Medical Corps – can be considered experts in humanitarian crisis ma...

It is becoming increasingly apparent that there are major gaps in International Humanitarian Law and Public International Law in the area of humanitarian assistance. In response international organizations such as the UN and the EU are developing their own legal frameworks for humanitarian assistance and the body of customary law and so-called inte...

This study examines two important questions regarding terrorism and political violence: which threats to human security constitute root causes for collective violence and which adequate responses for these root causes are available to the international community. The responses are examined on the basis of international law, in particular human righ...

The overall aim of this article is to illustrate the recent challenges to humanitarian action caused by the doctrine of the Global War on Terror. Therefore, the first part will give an illustrated overview of how insecurity in the field influences the performance of humanitarian actors and how beneficiaries suffer from this change. A very common pe...

The post Cold War period witnessed the emergence of a trend of explaining political violence and conflict by mainly ethnic factors, religious motivations and nationalistic reasons. In this paper we will analyse one particular economic cause of political violence, namely poverty. We will try to determine whether or not poverty has a role to play in...