Upcycling has become one of the trendiest buzzwords for people with a sustainability-oriented mindset. While the term might refer to various forms of recollection, improvement and reuse of data or (raw) materials, this post adopts a narrower focus. It is limited solely to reviewing how upcycling might be approached from a copyright perspective.
In recent years, upcycling has seen a surge in popularity thanks to its positive impact on sustainability and the circular economy due to consumers’ increasing attention to the environment. As a result, individuals, artisans, and small companies have enthusiastically embraced the practice as a central part of their activities and a way to reduce waste. However, with fame often comes unwanted attention, and the growth of upcycling practices has led to various legal challenges against independent upcyclers based on the argument that their products violate intellectual property (IP) rights.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is remaking Turkey’s opposition – not by defeating it outright, but by replacing it. His latest strategy appears to sideline the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) and elevate the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) as a more fragmented, controllable rival. This calculated manoeuvre could fracture the anti-Erdoğan bloc ahead of the 2028 elections while projecting an image of democratic pluralism.
Israel has been experiencing fierce conflicts between the Prime Minister and the government on the one hand and prominent public officials on the other. Two such conflicts have occupied the public discourse in recent weeks: the conflict between the government and both the Attorney General (Gali Barahav-Miara) and the head of the internal security service (Ronen Bar). In both cases, the government's attempt to remove these officials from office has run into legal difficulties, grounded in accusations concerning conflict of interest, which stem from two opposing principles within administrative law.
Verfassungsblog faces the same challenges as any independent, non-profit, and community-led publication platform committed to Diamond Open Access (DOA). Recently, two projects were launched to strengthen DOA as a publishing model across borders and with a global reach. I attended the kick-off conference in Madrid to find out what we can learn from their approach, how we can benefit from their results and in what ways we can get involved to help shape the future of academic publishing.
With new collections each season, the fashion industry produces a highly problematic fashion garbage heap every year. Circular economy projects seeking to produce “new” garments by reworking second hand and unsold fashion items have particular societal value against this background. Evidently, legal solutions that support fashion reuse have particular relevance in the light of these goals.
How can judicial independence be strengthened in a world of increasing political and economic pressures? In this interview, Margaret Satterthwaite explores innovative solutions and challenges facing justice systems in Latin America and beyond.
The DSA has been in force for over a year now. Hardly any other piece of European legislation has recently provoked so many heated debates, is raising so many fundamental questions and has been adopted so quickly. A key mechanism of the DSA is the principle of supervised self-regulation. In light of current geopolitical shifts and the rapid politicization of major online platforms, the DSA operates in a significantly different context – one the European legislator did not fully anticipate. European enforcers must adapt, the legislator should reconsider its approach.
In the new ultra-fast fashion era, garment production cycles are accelerated to new heights, while the quality of the garments deteriorates. Key characteristics of the industry are its reliance on cheap manufacturing, overconsumption and short-lived garment use. This blog post will set out who is responsible for the protection of human rights from climate change within the textile industry. In a second step, this blog post aims to analyse the EU Strategy, focusing on the intersection between environmental and social rights in the textile industry.
Five Questions to Tom Dannenbaum
13. September 2025
Giovanni Capoccia
12. September 2025
Anne Peters
12. September 2025
Anne Peters