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Introduction
Serge Gutwirth (°1960) is was full Professor at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the VUB, where he studied law, criminology and obtained a post-graduate degree in technology and science studies. He has been teaching comparative law, human rights, legal theory and "law and science", and doing research in law & science/technology, environmental law, criminal law and comparative law.
He became Emeritus on October 1, 2023 but kept a voluntary research appointment at the VUB on the commons.
Current institution
Publications
Publications (162)
This chapter describes an ongoing collective vegetable gardening initiative involving 18–25 people near Brussels. The group’s objective is to reach autonomy or self-sufficiency in healthy vegetables, emphasizing independence and control over vegetable growing, the quality of vegetables, mutual care and experimenting cooperation and collective pract...
Dans cette intervention je fais deux choses.
D’abord je dis l’importance du travail de Bruno Latour pour le juriste que je suis. Je sais que c’est un peu hors-sujet aujourd’hui, mais je lui et me dois de le faire. C’est bien grâce à "La fabrique du droit" que je me suis réconcilié avec le juriste en moi.
Ensuite je vais passer au thème de ma sessio...
Israël heeft evenveel verantwoordelijkheid als feitelijke macht en dus zowat de gehele verantwoordelijkheid voor wat vandaag gebeurt. Gepubliceerd in De Morgen, 27 mei 2024 via https://www.demorgen.be/aanval-op-israel/ik-ben-de-actievoerende-studenten-erg-dankbaar-zij-doen-wat-hoort~b9a1643a/
The war against the "cancel culture" (of woke) is a war against open science and scientific controversy.
Q.e.d after the re-election of 45
See also : https://www.dewereldmorgen.be/artikel/2023/08/17/volgende-aanval-tegen-cancel-culture-aan-universiteiten-een-zwaargewonde-de-wetenschappelijke-controverse/
‘Het aan banden willen leggen van constitutionele hoven opent de deur voor autoritaire meerderheden en regeringen’, schrijven juristen Serge Gutwirth en Paul De Hert (VUB). Ze formuleren een antwoord op een aantal recente voorstellen van N-VA en socioloog Mark Elchardus.
See also : https://www.knack.be/nieuws/belgie/justitie/de-stem-van-het-volk-la...
Is masochistische seksualiteit zonder blijvend letsel echt erger dan studenten- dopen met een dode? Volgens het Antwerpse hof van beroep wel, volgens Serge Gutwirth en Paul De Hert helemaal niet.
La question qui m’a été posée par l’ARAU est la suivante : « Si on peut définir la ville comme un écosystème urbain et, à l’instar de ce qui se fait parfois pour la nature, faire de la ville un sujet de droit, peut-il permettre de développer un nouvel arsenal à même de mieux défendre le milieu urbain ? ».
Le chapitre tend de répondre en analysant c...
Several European Commission's initiatives have been resorting to ethics in policy discourses as a way to govern and regulate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The proliferation of invocations of ‘ethics’, especially concerning the recent debate on (the regulation of) Artificial Intelligence (AI), can be referred to as the ‘ethificat...
Dans cette contribution les auteurs présentent certains passages cruciaux du parcours de recherche de Paolo Grossi afin de les lier à leurs travaux concernant les questions juridiques posées par les communs de la terre et les écologies locales.
This contribution offers to steer a discussion on
the constitutive stance of fundamental rights in Western legal
systems. The story of the democratic constitutional state,
a story of rule of law and human rights, is an already 250
years old utopia, which strangely persists despite long-stand-
ing patterns of slavery, war, torture, poverty, hunger,...
On 25 July 2018, Confédération paysanne and Others v. Premier mi-nistre et Ministère de l'Agriculture, de l'Agroalimentaire et de la Forêt, the Court of Justice of the European Union rendered a controversial ruling in the C-528/16 case. Taking a precautionary stance, the CJEU unambiguously stated that the EU's legislation on genetically modified or...
Ce second cours Francqui 2019-2020 embraye sur la reprise d’un vieux débat, à savoir celui autour des organismes génétiquement modifiés (OGM). Ce « vieux » débat fût en effet relancé par le développement et la mise en œuvre de « nouvelles techniques de modification de plantes » (aussi : gene editing, genome editing, directed mutagenesis ...), la pr...
Comment décrire ce que c’est que de faire du droit. Qu’est-ce qui caractérise la pratique du droit ? Qu’est-ce qui fait dire à mes ami.e.s à un certain point de la discussion : « Ho mais, là, tu commence à faire du droit ! ».
Ce qui est surprenant ici, c’est qu’il semble évident même à mes
ami.e.s « profanes » de repérer le passage du droit. Il y a...
The subjects of this volume are more relevant than ever, especially in light of the raft of electoral scandals concerning voter profiling.
This volume brings together papers that offer conceptual analyses, highlight issues, propose solutions, and discuss practices regarding privacy and data protection. It is one of the results of the twelfth annua...
This paper examines some of the tensions between the ideals and the operationalisation of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). It does so through reflections on research into integrating assessments of various kinds in the context of complex, emerging technologies. Its aim is to address some aspects of what actually happens, as new collaborat...
The subjects of Privacy and Data Protection are more relevant than ever, and especially since 25 May 2018, when the European General Data Protection Regulation became enforceable.
This volume brings together papers that offer conceptual analyses, highlight issues, propose solutions, and discuss practices regarding privacy and data protection. It...
This report relates to the empirical work conducted under the Promoting Integrity as an Integral Dimension of Excellence in Research (PRINTEGER) research project on research integrity and scientific misconduct.1 It briefly presents the general requirements of fairness in procedures (Section 1), introduces the variety of structures in place for the...
The present deliverable combines a study of relevant legal requirements, codes and legislation (Section 1), in particular searching for remarkable commonalities and salient frictions, with a discussion on some of the upcoming regulatory challenges in the area of research integrity and scientific misconduct (Section 2). The selection of analysed ins...
A l’aune de la mise en œuvre du Règlement Général de Protection des Données (RGPD) en mai 2018, le débat sur la propriété de l’information et le ownership of data bat son plein. Les discussions sur le contrôle des données se déroulent passionnément, et elles ont, du moins pour des vétérans de la recherche en matière de protection des données à cara...
Which law(s) for which common(s)?
In the face both of the frightening consequences of three centuries of complicity between the freedom of enterprise of the owners and the sovereignty of the State, and the incapacity of political leadership to even recognize – let alone to react to – them, it is very refreshing to see the development of a movement...
commons θέτει το δίκαιο σε δοκιμασία Μετάφραση: Βικτωρία Νασούλη Επιμέλεια: Ελισσάβετ Σπυρίδου Εισαγωγή Το κείμενο που μεταφράζεται παρακάτω δημοσιεύτηκε το 2016 στην Revue Juridique de l'Environnement (τόμος 41, τεύχος 2, σελ. 306-343) με τον τίτλο «Le droit à l'épreuve de la résurgence des commons». Κατά την άποψη των συγγραφέων, τα commons βασίζ...
The subjects of Privacy and Data Protection are more relevant than ever with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) becoming enforceable in May 2018.
This volume brings together papers that offer conceptual analyses, highlight issues, propose solutions, and discuss practices regarding privacy and data protection. It is one of the r...
This book features peer reviewed contributions from across the disciplines on themes relating to protection of data and to privacy protection. The authors explore fundamental and legal questions, investigate case studies and consider concepts and tools such as privacy by design, the risks of surveillance and fostering trust. Readers may trace both...
This White Paper explores the legal dimensions of the European Union (EU)’s value-driven cybersecurity, investigating the notions of ‘value-driven’ and ‘cybersecurity’ from the perspective of EU law. It starts with a general overview of legal issues in current value-driven cybersecurity debates (Chapter 2), showing how values embedded within the fr...
In tegenstelling tot de fabel van hun tragedie waarin ze tot zelfdestructie worden gedoemd (G. HARDIN), berusten de commons op samenwerking, solidariteit, zelfbestuur en de gedeelde zorg voor hun duur- zaamheid, waarvan de deelnemers tenslotte allen samen afhangen (E. OSTROM). Hun verdwijning kan daarom gezien worden als een werkelijke uitroeiing,...
In our contribution, we want to focus on the ways the commons and the law meet. That is to say: in both directions. We do not only want to analyze how the law copes (or could cope) with the commons, but also how the commons themselves produce law as a common, and how that turns out to be troubling in regards for a number of legal and constitutional...
This deliverable is part of Work Package II of the Promoting Integrity as an Integral Dimension of Excellence in Research (PRINTEGER) research project. Titled What is integrity? Multidisciplinary Reconnaissance, Work Package II is devoted to the analytic reconnaissance of research integrity and scientific misconduct. This report contributes to such...
This volume brings together papers that offer methodologies, conceptual analyses, highlight issues, propose solutions, and discuss practices regarding privacy and data protection. It is one of the results of the eight annual International Conference on Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection, CPDP 2015, held in Brussels in January 2015.
The book ex...
When the commons put the law on test. Despite the tale of their tragedy, the commons are driven by an agreement or «government » (E. Ostrom) and the shared concern not to destroy the resource from which all depend. Their disappearance is the result of an eradication by the collusion of the freedom of enterprise of the owners, and the sovereignty of...
Thirteen essays exploring Bruno Latour's legal theory from a variety of disciplinary perspectives – including a chapter by Bruno Latour responding to the arguments and critiques offered in each chapter. This book develops an exciting new vision for legal theory combining analytical tools drawn from Latour's actor-network theory developed in works l...
A decisive philosophical intervention pitched at the level of law’s ontology, Gutwirth’s ‘Providing the Missing Link’ renders the difference between law as an institution or a body of norms and law as a mode of existence or value a crucial point of passage for any future philosophy of law. The first, Gutwirth argues, isn’t really law at all, but a...
Pour mieux comprendre la fraude scientifique et l’attention qu’on lui porte, les auteurs l’analysent au départ d’une description de ce qui fait la singularité générique du travail scientifique et de ce qui le caractérise uniquement. Cette approche fait rapidement émerger deux problèmes. D’une part, s’impose le constat de la diversité des sciences,...
En Belgique, l’euthanasie peut etre appliquee legalement par des medecins a la demande expresse et repetee d’un patient qui se trouve dans une situation medicale sans issue et fait etat d’une souffrance physique ou psychique constante et insupportable qui ne peut etre apaisee et qui resulte d’une affection accidentelle ou pathologique grave et incu...
Tackling problematic scientific behaviour beyond moralisation: another science policy is possible!
In this article the authors focus upon the measures taken as a reaction against scientific fraud against the background of the contemporary science policy that turns the practice of science into a knowledge economy. In the light of the availability bu...
Dans sa contribution Serge Gutwirth introduit l’article de Jean-Pierre Marguénaud en distinguant deux façons de concevoir le droit et la personnification juridique des animaux afin de situer et conforter l’approche choisie par celui-ci.
Numerous science, technology and engineering developments are perceived as raising privacy concerns. As such, privacy repeatedly finds itself addressed through the mixed lens of an 'ethical-legal' (if not 'ethical-legal-social') perspective. The aim of this contribution is to dispute the validity of this indistinctive approach, to stress its shortc...
This volume brings together papers that offer conceptual analyses, highlight issues, propose solutions, and discuss practices regarding privacy and data protection. The first section of the book provides an overview of developments in data protection in different parts of the world. The second section focuses on one of the most captivating innovati...
The disruption of the climate : thinking what is coming with Bruno Latour. In his contribution Serge Gutwirth presents Bruno Latour’s article by describing the issue of climate disruption and the geopolitical and philosophical debates it raises.
In this special section of this issue of Science and Public Policy, authors are reflecting the fundamental challenges that the rapid progress in science and technology poses for human rights
and privacy in particular. They aim to find new answers to the question how a (global) governance of science and technology
could address these challenges.
Ea...
Guest editorial section of SciVerse ScienceDirect focused on emerging technologies and the transformations of privacy and data protection. The editorial section informed how Privacy and emerging fields of science and technology: Towards a common framework for privacy and ethical assessment (PRESCIENT) was undertaken as a three-year research project...
In this contribution, the authors explore the differences and interplays between the rights to privacy and data protection. They describe the two rights and come to the conclusion that they differ both formally and substantially, though overlaps are not to be excluded. Given these different yet not mutually exclusive scopes they then apply the righ...
The existence of a fundamental right to the protection of personal data in European Union (EU) law is nowadays undisputed. Established in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in 2000, it is increasingly permeating EU secondary law, and is expected to play a key role in the future EU personal data protection landscape. The right's reinforced visibil...
This paper discusses the recent Havasupai case with a view to investigating the concept of dignitary harm and its relevance in the context of biobank research. The Native American Havasupai tribe objected to research that had been done on their blood samples and to results that were stigmatising and disruptive to their selfunderstanding. We show th...
Il y a deux façons de parler du droit, qui, tant chez les juristes que chez les « profanes », coexistent étrangement, un peu à la façon d’une illusion d’optique. On voit soit la jeune fille, soit la vieille femme, et jamais les deux à la fois, et le passage d’une « vue » à l’autre est difficile à saisir : on est dans l’une ou dans l’autre. En d’aut...
This paper considers the relationship between privacy and security and, in particular, the traditional “trade-off” paradigm. The issue is this: how, in a democracy, can one reconcile the trend towards increasing security (for example, as manifested by increasing surveillance) with the fundamental right of privacy? Our political masters justify thei...
The overhaul of the EU data protection regime is a welcome development for various reasons: the 1995 Directive is largely outdated and cumbersome within an Internet (indeed, Web 2.0) environment. The 2008 Framework Decision is a practically unenforceable instrument, and even harmful in its weakness in protecting personal data. The Commission's prop...
This paper posits that ethical dilemma scenarios are a useful instrument to provoke policy‐makers and other stakeholders, to including industry, in considering the privacy, ethical, social and other implications of new and emerging technologies. It describes a methodology for constructing and deconstructing such scenarios and provides four such sce...
Departing from the ECJ’s Huber case where Germany was condemned for discriminatory processing of personal data and which suggests that there is a strong kin between data protection and discrimination issues, this chapter is an attempt to further compare the two fundamental rights - non-discrimination, and data protection. Beyond their place in the...
On 25 January 2012, the European Commission presented its long awaited new �Data protection package�. With this proposal for a drastic revision of the data protection framework in Europe, it is fair to say that we are witnessing a rebirth of European data protection, and perhaps, its passage from an impulsive youth to a more mature state. Technolog...
The ratification process of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in the European Union has raised many (academic and non-academic) questions on various aspects of the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR), one of them being the relation between copyright enforcement and the fundamental rights of (alleged) infringers. In this a...
Although Europe has a significant legal data protection framework, built up around EU Directive 95/46/EC and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the question of whether data protection and its legal framework are 'in good health' is increasingly being posed. Advanced technologies raise fundamental issues regarding key concepts of data protection. Fa...
Book with contributions on writings and ideas of Koen Raes
There is great confusion as to the exact meaning of privacy. As Solove puts it, privacy is a concept in disarray. It is a sweeping concept and nobody can articulate what it means.2 In this respect,3 privacy has successively been conceptualised in terms of ‘right to be let alone’,4 control over personal information,5 the construction of one’s identi...
Privacy impact assessment can be a tool for responsible research and innovation (RRI). RRI can be defined as a transparent, interactive process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other. In order to allow a proper embedding of scientific and technological advances in society, actors and innovators keep in mind...
There is no doubt that EU measures on the automated processing of data on individuals have an impact on fundamental rights. But which fundamental rights are more deeply affected by them? And how should these rights be safeguarded to ensure the effective protection of individuals and democratic societies? This Policy Brief highlights a series of ele...
On 15 March 2006, the Data Retention Directive, demanding the retention of telecommunications data for a period of 6 months
up to 2 years, was adopted. Since then, this seemingly straightforward directive has “generated” quite an impressive number
of court judgments. They range from the European Court of Justice to the administrative (e.g. Germany...
Three decades have passed since the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) promulgated Guidelines on the Transborder Flows of Personal Data , and still the issue of transborder flows of personal data continues to plague policymakers, industry, and individuals who have no idea what happens to their data once that data is trans...
Le chapitre critique l'idéologie de la 'restorative justice'
Volgens velen kenmerkt het strafrecht zich door het feit dat het leidt tot het opleggen van een straf.
Vanuit dit oogpunt wordt het strafrecht te snel en te gemakkelijk gereduceerd tot straffen, en dus tot
wat het Hof van Cassatie omschrijft als ‘leedtoevoeging’.2 Dan wordt het: strafrecht = leedtoevoeging.
Ons inziens is dit echter niet de kern va...
Privacy and data protection have never been static. On the contrary, the history of the last 40 years shows the reverse. New issues and challenges continue to emerge, requiring an ongoing process of interpreting their effect in terms of reach, objectives and their deeper significance. Indeed, the consequences of technological applications due to un...
The right to respect for private life is developed in European legal frameworks through different legal notions and instruments.
One of such mechanisms for privacy protection, constantly backed up by the European Union (EU) legislator for already more
than a decade, is the regulation of so-called unsolicited communications. This contribution explor...
In this chapter we endeavor to expose the singularity of profiling techniques, data mining or knowledge discovery in databases. Pursuant to this, we point at a number of caveats that are linked to the specifics of profiling. Those caveats pertain to issues related to dependence, privacy, data protection, fairness (non-discrimination), due process,...
Surveillance is becoming ubiquitous in our society. We can also see the emergence of "smart" surveillance technologies and the assemblages (or combinations) of such technologies, supposedly to combat crime and terrorism, but in fact used for a variety of purposes, many of which are intrusive upon the privacy of law-abiding citizens. Following the d...
Les études de la surveillance (Surveillance studies) sont-elles en mesure d’appréhender dans leur globalité des formes atypiques de surveillance où le présupposé d’un contrôle disciplinaire ne peut être démontré ? Comment saisir ces formes de surveillance qui se développent dans le quotidien de nos activités ? Rocco Bellanova, Paul de Hert et Serge...
Privacy is an important fundamental human right. It underpins human dignity and other values such as freedom of association and freedom of speech. However, privacy is being challenged in the networked society. The use of new technologies undermines this right because it facilitates the collection, storage, processing and combination of personal dat...
One of the most challenging issues facing our current information society is the accelerating accumulation of data trails in transactional and communication systems, which may be used not only to profile the behaviour of individuals for commercial, marketing and law enforcement purposes, but also to locate and follow things and actions. Data mining...
The right to respect for private life is developed in European legal frameworks through different legal notions and instruments. One of such mechanisms for privacy protection, constantly backed up by the European Union (EU) legislator for already more than a decade, is the regulation of so-called unsolicited communications. This contribution explor...
This book is a warning. It aims to warn policy-makers, industry, academia, civil society organisations, the media and the public about the threats and vulnerabilities facing our privacy, identity, trust, security and inclusion in the rapidly approaching world of ambient intelligence (AmI). In the near future, every manufactured product – our clothe...
Le droit, le mode technique et les science sont des pratiques singulières, différentes et irréductibles. Dès lors, comment les articuler sans les aplatir, sans les trahir ? Il faut donc d'abord bien distinguer leur régimes d'énonciation et modes d'existence propres, afin de pouvoir ensuite penser des modes possibles d'articulation respectueux de le...
The authors contend that the emerging ubiquitous Information Society (aka ambient intelligence, pervasive computing, ubiquitous networking and so on) will raise many privacy and trust issues that are context dependent. These issues will pose many challenges for policy-makers and stakeholders because people's notions of privacy and trust are differe...
The concept of 'identity' offers little hope, even when it is subtly and dynamically conceived. My reasons for this scepticism are clear. On the one hand, collective identities are always constraining reductions, limiting the freedom of self-determination of the individual, reducing him or her to one or two of his/her characteristics. On the other,...
(De Morgen, 27 November 2009)
In this column we defend the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in the Lautsi v. Italy case (Nov. 3, 2009) which prohibits Italy to expose crucifixes in the classrooms of public schools. This ruling was heavily criticised by officials of the Vatican and and by a group of 5 Italian members of the European Par...
To get the maximum benefit from ambient intelligence (AmI), we need to anticipate and react to possible drawbacks and threats emerging from the new technologies in order to devise appropriate safeguards. The SWAMI project took a precautionary approach in its exploration of the privacy risks in AmI and sought ways to reduce them. It constructed four...
The Harry effectSmall scientifictionTaking a fiction as a starting point the paper considers what would happen if monkeys were given the legal status of persons. After examining what is already available in the various legal systems, a crucial difference is noted between the status of the juridical person and the symbolical person. What would be im...
This book is about data protection, privacy and liberty and the way these fundamental values of our societies are protected and enforced, particularly in their interaction with the ever developing capacities and possibilities of information and communication technologies.
The authors are all closely involved in data protection and privacy. They re...
It is impossible to summarise data protection in two or three lines. Data protection is a catch-all term for a series of ideas
with regard to the processing of personal data (see below). By applying these ideas, governments try to reconcile fundamental
but conflicting values such as privacy, free flow of information, the need for government surveil...
This article explores the "fair trial" as a good practice for the construction of public proof. If proof signifies closure on matter(s) at hand, and publicness is taken to signify both "access to" and "participation in" the construction of proof by the publics concerned, the authors contend that the "fair trial" is a good example of building public...
The ‘SWIFT affair’ eloquently illustrates the complexities of the protection of personal data in the context of global privacy-invading counterterrorist efforts. At the core of the issue there is not only the possibility for US authorities to secretly (and legally) access information on financial transactions taking place in the European Union (EU)...
The laws of 1999 and 2004 concerning the implementation of municipal administrative sanctions (in short GAS legislation) gave local authorities new legal instruments to act more vigourously against phenomena of nuisance. Local authorities can now impose an administrative fine of up to 250 euros for behaviour which is contrary to public order (clean...
The laws of 1999 and 2004 concerning the implementation of municipal administrative sanctions (in short GAS legislation) gave local authorities new legal instruments to act more vigourously against phenomena of nuisance. Local authorities can now impose an administrative fine of up to 250 euros for behaviour which is contrary to public order (clean...
The laws of 1999 and 2004 concerning the implementation of municipal administrative sanctions (in short GAS legislation) gave local authorities new legal instruments to act more vigourously against phenomena of nuisance. Local authorities can now impose an administrative fine of up to 250 euros for behaviour which is contrary to public order (clean...
A fictional scenario of daily life in a world networked with ambient intelligence illustrates the dark side of the technology and the need for appropriate safeguards.
For a summary of the contributions we refer to the introductory chapter. In this chapter we undertake to draw some summary
conclusions. It seems that profiling, especially in the context of smart applications and Ambient Intelligence, requires a
focus shift from data to knowledge, while the type of knowledge that is at stake differs from more tradi...
In this contribution De Hert and Gutwirth rethink notions such as privacy and data protection against the background of the principles of the democratic constitutional state. They focus upon the necessity to differentiate between privacy and data protection in relation to the distinction they make between opacity and transparency tools. Proceeding...
In the eyes of many, one of the most challenging problems of the information society is that we are faced with an ever expanding mass of information. Selection of the relevant bits of information seems to become more important than the retrieval of data as such: the information is all out there but what it means and how we should act on it may be o...
In the present chapter we argue that to try to cope with new technologies with the concept of regulation is problematic from a legal point of view. Lawrence Lessig’s approach of ‘regulation’ as the ‘optimal mix of technology, law, social norms and market mechanisms’ should be complexified, as those modalities have different aims, functions and rati...
In the eyes of many, one of the most challenging problems of the information society is that we are faced with an ever expanding mass of information. Selection of the relevant bits of information seems to become more important than the retrieval of data as such: the information is all out there, but what it means and how we should act on it may be...
