Articles for category: Focus

Information and Paternalism

Disclosure mandates are often considered to be the least paternalistic of all regulatory techniques. Indeed, information provision is believed to enhance both autonomy and efficiency by facilitating more informed decisionmaking. According to this traditional approach, disclosure regulation – a key instrument in the Nudge toolbox – is beyond reproach. Legitimacy concerns might be raised with respect to other Nudge-type interventions (specifically, the setting of default rules), but not disclosure. I propose a two-pronged challenge to this conventional wisdom.

8. Januar 2015

Educating Citizens: The Choice for Paternalism

Liberal political philosophy has two alternative options in principle: It can either stick to its original theorems such as the harm principle or the separation of law and morals and from here try to prove large parts of present social and political reality as wrong, illegitimate, dangerous etc. The other option is trying to adjust the original theorems to the apparent needs of modern societies, which is what I would prefer in the long run.

7. Januar 2015

Nudging and human dignity

Cass Sunstein’s "Why Nudge?" presents a proposal for nudging as an alternative to traditional regulatory mandates and economic incentive-based regulation. I shall suggest that nudging creates considerable tensions with thick conceptions of human dignity.

6. Januar 2015

Why not Nudge?

Now as ever, I agree with Cass Sunstein’s views on many matters. I above all agree that nudging is compatible with any defensible liberal idea of autonomy, and especially with the undeniable claim that nudges can often enhance autonomy in the empire of caveat emptor. Indeed, my concern is that libertarian paternalism is too libertarian, not too paternalistic.

5. Januar 2015

Constitutional limits to health-related nudging – a matter of balancing

Politically as well as from the point of view of constitutional law, I see neither good reasons to generally reject health-related nudging towards less self-damaging behavior, nor good reasons to issue a general clearance certificate on the grounds that nudging always leaves the addressee “at liberty”. The state is not prohibited from taking sides in matters of public health – neither generally, nor specifically insofar as self-damaging behavior of accountable persons is concerned. However, claiming that people who are just being nudged remain free to resist the nudge falls far short of the constitutional law problems that nudges can raise.

5. Januar 2015

The Ethics of Nudging

The last decade has seen a rapid growth of interest in choice-preserving, low-cost regulatory tools, sometimes termed "nudges." Especially in light of that interest, it is important to obtain an understanding of the nature and weight of the ethical concerns.

5. Januar 2015

»We had something in mind, which then changed and became something different« – interview with Oreste Pollicino, co-founder of Diritti Comparati

You founded Diritti Comparati in 2010. What motivated you to start a blog on comparative law in Italy? We started publishing the first posts in March 2010. Diritti comparati was a group project, a collective effort from the start: we started with three collaborators, myself, Alberto Alemanno and Andrea Buratti. Raffaele Torino joined the project a bit later. The idea was sparked by the factual situation of the Italian legal discourse. We noticed that in Italian academic debate, there was no platform or attempt to discuss comparative law, especially comparative public law, outside of classic law reviews. Law reviews require ... continue reading

29. Dezember 2014

CJEU Opinion 2/13 – Three Mitigating Circumstances

The academic response to CJEU Opinion 2/13 on EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights can be characterised as a combination of shock, disbelief and protest. Indeed, the Opinion looks like total overkill, as the grounds for rejecting the draft accession agreement are so many and so diverse that they unavoidably give the impression of being primarily based on a defensive and territorial attitude of protecting the exclusive and superior nature of the CJEU’s own jurisdiction. That said, the critical discussion on Opinion 2/13 should include a search for rational explanations as to why the CJEU’s opinion is negative, even if in the extreme. What follows is a short reflection on three factors towards that kind of an approach, without any intention to defend the Opinion itself.

26. Dezember 2014