This article examines the potential and limits of Large Language Models in judicial practice, taking as its test case the reconstruction of legal argumentation within judicial reasoning. Through an argument mining experiment on decisions of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation, conducted with GPT-4o and interpreted through Philip Bobbitt's theory, the paper asks whether an LLM can grasp not only the textual dimension of a judicial decision, but also its rhetorical form. The results show a concrete usefulness in preliminary tasks of segmentation and textual organization, but also a structural limitation in recognizing ethical argumentation and, more broadly, the law sense required by legal judgment.
Advances in genetics, particularly in their practical application to health care, have created new possibilities in the fight against disease, especially in relation to early and predictive diagnosis. These developments offer significant benefits, but they also generate new ethical and legal dilemmas and conflicts. Among the most salient are those raised by so-called direct-to-consumer genetic tests, which appear to promote greater citizen empowerment through increased access to personal health information. However, this purported empowerment may conceal decisions that are not truly autonomous, due to the lack of reliable information about the clinical validity and utility of such tests. That context, however, may be changing with the growing use of polygenic studies.
This paper offers a critical examination of the dynamics of quantification that underpin identity classification processes in relation to gender, with a specific focus on the regulatory mechanisms governing the hormonal monitoring of professional trans and intersex athletes. These mechanisms illustrate how quantification translates complex social and biological phenomena into parameters that appear objective, yet simultaneously produce normative and performative effects. The apparent neutrality of such standards conceals, in fact, deeply political and value-laden choices that shape not only what the law recognizes as gender, but also the bodily characteristics deemed necessary to embody it.
The impact of artificial intelligence systems has renewed reflection on civil liability, prompting jurists to identify approaches capable of securing fair and effective remedies. The paper reconstructs possible criteria for attributing harm, ranging from product liability to the rules laid down by Art. 2050 of the Italian Civil Code, and foregrounds risk as a parameter for calibrating remedial responses. The general clause in Art. 2043 of the Civil Code remains the minimum framework of protection. Alongside this, the paper considers whether no-fault compensation schemes might be introduced to manage the cost of AI-related harm.
This study analyses the more than quarter-century case-law journey on the "fundamental right to a dignified death" of the Colombian Constitutional Court. It opens with the exam of the birth of the right in 1997 and then explores how, over more than two decades, the Constitutional Court has progressively defined its nature and scope. Finally, it examines the first extension of the clinical cases that qualify for medically assisted death, as well as the definitive elimination of an incomprehensible inconsistency: how the decriminalisation of euthanasia under certain conditions has coexisted with the absolute prohibition of assisted suicide for 25 years.
In line with European legislation, Regional Law No. 57 of 9 December 2024, entitled "Regulation of Digital Innovation in the Regional Territory and Protection of Digital Citizenship Rights", introduces an organic regulatory framework aimed at governing the use of digital technologies while also promoting a balanced relationship between technological innovation and the protection of fundamental rights. This contribution focuses on governance models based on the ethical principles outlined in the regional legislation and on the regulation of artificial intelligence.
In the European Health Data Space, there are still loose ends to be tied up. Regarding the secondary use of genetic data, the failure of Member States to reach a consensus during the EHDS negotiations led to a regulatory exception. Once again, in application of Article 9(4) GDPR, Member States may introduce additional safeguards for the secondary processing of genetic data in the EHDS. This paper analyses the risks of this exception for genetic research and personalised medicine, while proposing policy alternatives that would allow Member States to enhance institutional control over the genetic data lifecycle and boost individual autonomy and trustworthiness.
This paper investigates the intersection between medically assisted suicide (MAS) and the structural crisis of Italy's National Health Service (SSN). Triggered by Constitutional Court rulings no. 66/2025 and no. 132/2025, both of which confirm strict eligibility criteria and stress the importance of procedural safeguards within the SSN, the analysis explores how systemic deficiencies-staff shortages, organizational inefficiencies, and limited access to care-impair the practical realization of MAS. These shortcomings, the paper argues, point to a broader erosion of biomedical ethics, increasingly replaced by market-oriented logics within both public and private healthcare. In the absence of national legislation on MAS, this ethical and institutional gap highlights the urgency of reform to ensure equitable end-of-life care and uphold patient self-determination.
The persistent underrepresentation of older adults in clinical trials constitutes a structural paradox in contemporary pharmaceutical research: those who are the primary recipients of medicinal products are often excluded from the evidentiary processes underlying their authorization. While widely documented in biomedical literature, its legal implications remain comparatively underexplored. This paper examines the issue from a legal and regulatory perspective, situating age-based exclusion at the intersection of scientific methodology, regulatory design, and fundamental rights protection. It reviews the main causes and consequences of underrepresentation and assesses current regulatory responses, including international soft law, U.S. policies, and the EU framework under Regulation (EU) No 536/2014, highlighting persistent gaps between formal commitments to representativeness and their practical implementation.
Research biobanks, fundamental engines for scientific progress, managing vast quantities of biological samples and associated data. Despite their importance, they suffer from a significant regulatory vacuum, lacking a specific and organic discipline. Currently, their regulation is fragmented between national healthcare standards and the complex technicalities of personal data protection. This paper analyzes the existing legal framework and the current gaps, focusing on recent regulatory evolutions. If correctly interpreted, these innovations could disruptively influence the operations of biobanks, offering crucial perspectives to fill existing legal uncertainties while enhancing modern scientific research.
The article examines the emblematic case of the Istanbul Convention-a Council of Europe treaty aimed at preventing and combating violence against women - which in all Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries has been the subject of deliberate distortion campaigns carried out by illiberal and populist actors. These actors have presented it as part of an alleged project by Western European elites to enforce "gender ideology," promote LGBTQ+ rights, and undermine state sovereignty. This narrative, constructed through the strategic use of moral, cultural, and legal categories, has transformed an instrument designed to protect human rights into a symbol of "Western interference," thereby contributing to the delegitimization of both international cooperation on gender equality and the authority of European institutions themselves.
In the last years, the European Union has vigorously sought to curb the ever-spreading production and use of single-use plastic, underpinned by persistent concerns over its adverse environmental and health impacts. The instruments employed include Directive (EU) 2019/904 and, more recently, Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on plastic packaging. The former has not only triggered acute debate, but has also unveiled divergent approaches and standpoints across Member States. This paper hence illustrates its regulatory cornerstones and explores its transposition, as well as the regulation of plastic more broadly, in both Italy and Spain, with a particular focus on extended producer responsibility as a pivotal mechanism of circular economy.
The article analyses the problem of medical cannabis within the framework of human rights and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. The authors point to the tension between the individual's right to autonomy and relief from suffering and the State's obligation to protect public health. An analysis of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights shows that although the choice of treatment falls within the scope of the right to private life, States are granted a wide margin of appreciation-justified by the lack of a European consensus and the need to protect against risky therapies. In this context, the question arises as to whether, with the increasing liberalisation of regulations and growing social acceptance of medical cannabis, the Court, when adjudicating cases concerning access to medical cannabis, will lean more towards individual autonomy or towards the wide margin of appreciation of Member States in ensuring the protection of the public interest.
This paper investigates the hermeneutic challenges posed by technological acceleration, analyzing the evolution from the physical person to the "enhanced subject" and "digital subject." By examining human enhancement practices and digital twins, the study highlights the crisis of traditional dogmatic and constitutional categories, including biodiversity protection under art. 9 of the Constitution. Particular attention is paid to the complex quantification of damages resulting from the injury to "supra-normal" capacities, proposing the analogical application of differential damage. Finally, the article advocates for a "new legal humanism" capable of governing man-machine hybridization, balancing self-determination, progress, and human dignity.
This paper explores the relationship between emerging technologies and vulnerabilities through the analytical distinction between the European paradigm of risk protection and an emerging national paradigm oriented toward the promotion of fundamental rights. EU digital regulation largely adopts a precautionary and risk-management approach aimed at safeguarding the internal market and ensuring minimum standards of rights protection. Within this framework, national constitutional systems may develop complementary strategies focused on the active promotion of rights. The Italian case illustrates how digital technologies can operate as enabling infrastructures for dignity, autonomy, and participation, particularly in relation to vulnerable individuals and contexts.
The paper explores the use of Forensic DNA Phenotyping (FDP) in Italy and the EU, an investigative technique that infers physical characteristics from biological traces. It highlights how FDP raises significant concerns regarding the protection of genetic data and the risk of discrimination. The relevant legislation is examined to underline the potential violation of privacy and the lack of a specific regulatory framework governing its use and providing adequate safeguards. The paper also assesses the impact of artificial intelligence in support of FDP, warning of an amplification of the associated risks. Suggestions are put forward to balance public security with the right to personal data protection.
This paper aims at proposing a critical framework addressed at the environmental justice movement: a deanthropocentrization of the subject-through the recognition of the intrinsic worth of nature, and its procedural shades-may lead to the decolonization of the environment itself. Through examples such as the Ecuadorian recognition of Pachamama, and the acknowledgement of Maori lands as right-bearing entities in New Zealand, the framework builds on the adaptation of collective memories theories, intended as environmental collective memories, to operationalize Eric Yamamoto's "4Rs" approach, based on Recognition, Responsibility, Reconstruction, and Reparation, in a nature-related context.
The picture sketched here rests upon a deep and wide-ranging transformation in both the methods and paradigms that structure the exercise of power. It also constitutes an invitation to interdisciplinary communities of scholars and practitioners to engage in empirically grounded and forward-looking discussions about the sources of legitimacy upon which democratic institutions should rely when adopting laws, which are paradigmatic and foundational acts of authority and power.
In the face of uncertainties in science policy, in recent years the European legislator has combined reflections coming from post-normal science and from the idea of co-production between science and policy to build more open and transparent public decisions. But the science for policy is still often fragmented between the European and national levels, where opaque policy choices are legitimized by presumed scientific objectivity and certainty. The Italian stories of a teratogenic drug, thalidomide, and a rare genetic disease with a very expensive therapy, XLH, reflect and exemplify such fragmentation and opacity.
Technology assessment (TA) emerged over 50 years ago as a scientific approach for analyzing and evaluating the consequences of technology. The main reason for this was the increasing awareness of negative consequences of technology. Parliamentary TA originated in the US Congress. Since the 1980s, it has been established in many European parliaments. This article describes the work of the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag. It reflects on the experiences gained in over 30 years of existence. A clear distinction between scientific and political mandates has proven to be central to the well-functioning of parliamentary policy advice.
