Social Sciences

Abstract: The proliferation of digital technologies has created unprecedented challenges for mental health and well-being globally, prompting regulatory responses in developed nations. However, the feasibility of implementing digital detox laws in developing economies remains underexplored. This paper examines the viability of digital disconnection legislation in resource-constrained contexts through a comprehensive analysis of existing regulatory frameworks, infrastructure limitations, economic constraints, cultural factors, and political considerations. Drawing on international comparative evidence from 50 countries, we analyze policy mechanisms including right-to-disconnect legislation, screen time regulations, and internet addiction laws. Our findings reveal significant barriers to implementation in developing economies, including inadequate digital infrastructure, economic dependencies on digital platforms, cultural norms favoring hyperconnectivity, and weak regulatory enforcement capacity. Despite these challenges, emerging evidence from Latin American countries and select Asian nations demonstrates that adapted regulatory approaches emphasizing education, voluntary compliance, and phased implementation may offer viable pathways. We propose a context-sensitive policy framework that balances digital well-being objectives with developmental priorities, recommending multi-stakeholder collaboration, capacity building, and culturally grounded interventions. This research contributes to the nascent literature on digital regulation in developing contexts and provides evidence-based guidance for policymakers navigating the tension between technological advancement and public health protection.

Abstract: (1) Background: The mink farming industry was established in Ireland in the 1950s and despite a significant decline in farm numbers over subsequent decades, it remained economically important due to the employment it provided in disadvantaged rural areas. However, growing animal welfare concerns, supported by scientific reviews and advocacy from animal welfare groups and veterinary professionals, increased pressure for legislative reform. This article examines the development of the Irish mink farming industry, the factors leading to its prohibition, and Ireland's position within broader European trends concerning fur farming. (2) Methods: The article adopts a historical and legal approach, analyzing industry data, government policy, animal welfare advocacy, scientific reviews, and legislative developments from the 1950s to the enactment of the Animal Health and Welfare and Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2022. (3) Results: The analysis demonstrates that mink farming declined from approximately forty producers in 1960 to three farms by 2022. Concerns about the welfare of farmed mink gained prominence, particularly following Veterinary Ireland’s call for an end to fur farming and the publication of scientific reviews challenging fur production practices. These developments informed government policy and led to legislation prohibiting the breeding and keeping of animals for fur production. (4) Conclusions: Ireland’s prohibi-tion of mink farming reflects a policy shift towards prioritizing animal welfare over a declining industry. Scientific evidence, ethical concerns, and sustained advocacy were central to this legislative change, positioning Ireland ahead of broader European Union developments in the regulation of fur farming.

Abstract: Few figures in contemporary health and sport systems sit as awkwardly as the kinesiologist. This article examines the regulatory frameworks governing kinesiology in Italy and the United States, and its central claim is that both systems, for all their differences, betray the same structural deficit: formal acknowledgement of the profession coexists with an institutional fragmentation that erodes its practical autonomy, its public recognition, and its integration into healthcare delivery. The Italian model, anchored in Legislative Decree No. 36/2021, has moved toward legislative recognition of distinct professional profiles, the basic kinesiologist, the sports kinesiologist, and the kinesiologist of preventive and adapted physical activities, but it has done so without establishing a professional order, leaving implementation to a patchwork of infra-legislative instruments and regional variation. The American model runs the other way. It operates almost entirely through private certification bodies, ACSM, NSCA, NASM and ACE, accredited by the NCCA, with Louisiana the lone state to require statutory licensure for clinical exercise physiologists. Three shared failures emerge from the comparison: the absence of a unified title-protection mechanism, the conflation of certification with regulation, and the subordination of the profession to allied health hierarchies. What both systems lack, this article argues, is not professional awareness but a coherent regulatory architecture, one that distinguishes title protection from scope-of-practice regulation, certification from licensure, and professional recognition from professional sovereignty. The method is a qualitative socio-legal comparison: legislative texts, administrative instruments, accreditation standards and the empirical labour-market literature are read against one another rather than in isolation. The aim is not to rank one system above the other. It is to show that two divergent regulatory paths converge on a single unresolved problem, namely the gap between the existence of a profession and the institutional capacity to make that profession publicly legible, accountable and autonomous. At the centre of that gap stands the vulnerable subject, whether patient, athlete or ordinary fitness participant. Where titles go unprotected and credentials multiply, the burden of telling competence from improvisation falls on the very person least equipped to bear it. Structural reform is therefore required, not as a corrective to professional ignorance but as a translation of professional identity into enforceable, coherent, publicly legible status. The architecture of such reform must distinguish, in both systems, title protection from scope-of-practice regulation, certification from licensure, and professional recognition from professional sovereignty.

Abstract: This article presents a doctrinal analysis of the way restorative justice has entered the Italian criminal system through Legislative Decree No. 150 of 10 October 2022, the so-called Cartabia reform, as later integrated by Legislative Decree No. 216 of 27 December 2024. The central theme of the paper is the model of complementarity between restorative programs and the ordinary criminal proceeding, considered in the light of Directive 2012/29/EU and Recommendation CM/Rec(2018)8 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. After reviewing the notion, the models and the application mechanisms of restorative justice, the article focuses, on the doctrinal plane, on three areas of friction within the new regulatory architecture. They concern the access of restorative programs to all stages of the proceeding, the question of safeguards in cases of intimate partner violence and gender-based crime, and the institutional design of the new Centres for restorative justice. For the third issue, the article keeps its claims at the level of the legislative text and treats any proposition on territorial variation, on the functioning of the Centres or on the implementation deficit as a hypothesis for future empirical research. On the whole, the Italian regulatory intervention looks relevant, albeit with some critical issues, and to be kept under observation for future application developments. In particular, it seems possible to assert that the reform has formally opened the doors to a relational paradigm of justice, but the cultural transition, from a criminal-centric system towards a model of relational justice, will depend, in fact, on the practical choices of judges, mediators and local authorities in the coming years.

Abstract: Technological and social development is desirable and even indispensable, which necessarily involves the restriction of new life situations within a legal framework. European legislation has been visibly struggling with this problem in recent years, but the established/ongoing regulation may be an obstacle to development. Among other things, this includes the issue of regulating platform work. The emergence and spread of platform work has numerous advantages from an economic point of view, but from a legal point of view, the cautious regulation of this relatively new employment construction is not acceptable to the majority dealing with labour law. In our opinion, the relevant EU legislation is fundamentally flawed, as it basically seeks to answer the question of whether a given legal relationship is an employment relationship or not. This is similar to trying to decide whether a mule is a horse or a donkey. Obviously, neither. Similarly, in the case of platform work, we can start from this and treat it accordingly. Thus, the present study examines why platform work can be considered a special construction and what are the labour law guarantees that are justified to be extended – at least as a rule – in this regard. Our aim is to examine whether it is possible to develop a minimum guarantee system that allows for easier transparency, greater legal certainty and a more uniform application of the law, unlike the current regulation.

Abstract: The article explores the question how the new developments in the EU copyright law influence the Slovenian legislation. Presently, the Slovenian system of collective management of copyright and related rights is under scrutiny of European Commission, which recently opened infringement proceedings for failing to correctly apply the InfoSoc Directive and Collective Right Management Directive. The future Streamz decision of the Court of Justice of European Union, initiated by the Belgian Constitutional Court, could also significantly influence the Slovenian copyright rules, since the Slovenian legislator implemented the Digital Single Market Directive by similar means as Belgian legislator. One of the pressing issues in Slovenian copyright law, which was recently considered by the Higher Court of Ljubljana, is also the collection, management, and distribution of private copying levy as one of the permittable exceptions and limitations of exclusive authors rights under InfoSoc Directive. The thorough analysis of these pressing issues reveals complex intertwining of the EU and national law regarding collective management of exclusive author’s rights and of various remuneration rights. The article, focusing on legal-dogmatic approach and the analysis of legal sources using grammatical, purposeful, systematical and comparative legal methods, offers overview of Slovenia's system of copyright protection, draws attention to its possible incompatibilities with EU law, and provides possible legislative solutions.

Abstract: Artificial intelligence emerges as a pivotal tool in environmental protection. This domain remains critical for sustaining natural resources vital to human survival. Escalating threats include climate change, air pollution, biodiversity loss. Existing literature explores AI’s technical applications predominantly. It overlooks comprehensive ethno-legal frameworks governing environmental deployment. This reveals a significant research gap. This study investigates AI’s capacity to enhance environmental governance while scrutinizing its ecological footprint. The objective is to evaluate AI’s dual role. AI facilitates sustainable development through innovative solutions. It exacerbates resource consumption concurrently. The study proposes regulatory mechanisms aligned with constitutional mandates–Article 48A and 51A(g), Constitution of India. A mixed-methodology approach integrates doctrinal analysis with case studies. Legal texts include the Environment Protection Act 1986. Case studies dissect AI’s efficacy. Google DeepMind achieves 40% energy reduction in data centers. SilviaTerra maps forest carbon via machine learning. Focus areas cover climate modeling, air quality forecasting, species monitoring, compliance enforcement. Preliminary results indicate AI optimizes environmental data processing—e.g., IBM Green Horizon’s 72-hour pollution forecasts—yielding promising outcomes in predictive accuracy (spatiotemporal trends) and policy support. However, findings highlight AI’s energy-intensive nature—e.g., high carbon emissions from large language models—underscoring unaddressed ecological costs. Implications suggest a balanced framework proves imperative. Reactive Reactive AI applications (e.g., Wildbook’s species tracking) excel in enforcement, yet proactive measures—energy-efficient algorithms—demand prioritization to curb e-waste. This study bridges the gap by advocating adaptive legal standards. These mirror UNFCCC commitments. AI’s environmental benefits must outweigh detriments. This ensures viability. It lays groundwork for future interdisciplinary research into scalable, ethically sound AI deployments, reinforcing sustainable development’s economic, social, environmental triad.

Abstract: The Digital Services Act (DSA) represents a landmark regulatory context aiming to secure a safer, trusted and more transparent digital environment. While the DSA establishes a harmonised regulatory framework for intermediary services across the EU, it significantly relies on national regulatory authorities for effective implementation. This article examines the implementation of the DSA in Cyprus and discusses the national legal framework adopted through primary and secondary legislation. It analyses the powers, legally mandated tasks, rights, and obligations of the digital services coordinator in Cyprus including its supervisory, investigatory, and enforcement competences as well as the sanctioning mechanisms. This article provides a comprehensive legal analysis of the coordinator’s operation and contributes to the academic debate on the national implementation of the DSA as a horizontal legal tool of intermediary services and digital platforms accessed by European citizens.

Abstract: On January 5, 2026, the Inclusive Framework effectively ended the threat of extraterri- torial tax war by issuing the Side-by-Side Package. The guidance creates a “Switch-Off Rule” that gives priority to source-state domestic law over residence-state global rules. By formalizing the Qualified Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (QDMTT) Safe Harbour and recognizing the U.S. tax system as a “Qualified Comprehensive Blended Regime” (QCBR), the package lets nations use domestic law as a legislative “shield” against extraterritorial enforcement. Jurisdictions can now protect their tax base from foreign Income Inclusion Rules (IIR) and Undertaxed Profits Rules (UTPR) by enacting a QDMTT. The package confirms that a QDMTT does not merely credit against global liability; it extinguishes the extraterritorial taxing right ab initio. It also averts a transat- lantic trade war by designating U.S. Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (erstwhile GILTI, now called as Net CFC Tested Income or NCTI) and the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (CAMT) as a QCBR, granting the U.S. system “Side-by-Side” equivalence and suspending the UTPR for U.S. multinationals. The international tax architecture has shifted from hierarchical harmonization to “interoperable sovereignty,” with the 15% global minimum now serving as a bottom-up certification standard for domestic tax floors rather than a top-down mandate.

Abstract: Advances in generative AI have brought advanced tools to tax & legal practice, but with them comes AI hallucinations, which are fabricated citations, quotes, or facts that appear plausible but are entirely false. In 2023, a notable U.S. case (Mata v. Avianca) revealed this risk when attorneys, relying on ChatGPT for research, submitted a brief containing fictitious case law and were sanctioned as a result. This incident revealed substantial risks for the tax & legal profession. Increased AI use in tax & legal submissions and decision drafting subsequently led to numerous similar global incidents. By late 2025, a collection of various datasets logged nearly 800 cases of AI-related citation errors or hallucinations” in at least 25 countries, with a marked increase in 2025 alone. These cases span court filings by lawyers and pro se litigants, as well as orders drafted by judges or tribunals. This development necessitates an examination of professional responsibility and procedural fairness concerning AI-generated falsehoods. This article analyzes how courts and administrative bodies across jurisdictions have responded to AI-generated hallucinations in tax & legal submissions and decisions, and what these responses indicate regarding emerging verification standards under existing law. The analysis compares incidents from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Israel, and other jurisdictions, focusing on the imposition or withholding of sanctions, the treatment of various actors (e.g., lawyers, self-represented parties, experts, judges), and the adaptation of tax & legal doctrines to this challenge.

Abstract: Article 136 of the newly revised Law of the People's Republic of China on Penalties for Public Order Violations establishes a ‘system for sealing public order violation records,’ with the provision that ‘records of public order violations such as drug use may be sealed’ provoking significant public debate. Against this backdrop, Professor Yin Bo of China University of Political Science and Law has repeatedly engaged with media interviews to offer a systematic theoretical defence of the sealing system. He emphasises its alignment with principles such as proportionality, protection of personal dignity, and the integration of punishment with education, positioning it as a preliminary exploration of a ‘criminal record expungement system’. This article, after comprehensively reviewing Yin Bo's principal arguments and the new legal provisions, introduces a Marxist legal analysis framework, Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law and the overall national security outlook, alongside formal logic and argumentation theory, to conduct a systematic critical analysis of his reasoning. The article contends: Firstly, from the perspective of class analysis and social structure, abstracting the sealing system as ‘universal rights protection’ risks obscuring its asymmetrical benefits within existing power structures. This may objectively reinforce ‘secondary protection’ for privileged classes while exacerbating relative insecurity among ordinary workers. Second, from the perspective of Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law and key discourses on drug control, the fundamental stance of ‘putting people at the centre’ and ‘zero tolerance for drugs’ demands a higher degree of preventive prudence in balancing rights protection and public security. Yet Yinbo's argumentation significantly underestimates the external risks associated with high-risk behaviours such as drug use. Third, logically, the argument confuses categories (‘minor offences—general offences—high-risk offences’), commits the fallacy of ‘generalising from the particular’ by extrapolating systemic overreach from individual injustices, and deliberately blurs the conceptual distinction between ‘record sealing’ and ‘expungement of criminal records’. This paper ultimately advocates: while upholding the positive role of the sealing system in ‘correcting labelling discrimination,’ it is imperative to strictly differentiate between types of conduct and occupational risks. A systemic combination of ‘tiered sealing + meticulous review + rigid accountability’ should be established to genuinely achieve an institutional equilibrium that both aligns with the direction of building a China governed by law and does not undermine the overall defence of the people's war on drugs and national security in the new era.

Abstract: The life conflict represents a paradigmatic ethical dilemma in the application of autonomous driving powered by artificial intelligence, where the right to life of passengers in the vehicle collides violently with that of pedestrians outside. In these contexts, can artificial intelligence replace humans in making choices to protect passengers or prioritize passengers at the expense of pedestrians? As autonomous vehicles become increasingly widespread, the life-or-death dilemma demands clearer normative resolution. This is a central issue in legal governance and the foundational principle guiding the development of industry for public. This paper explores whether artificial intelligence can replace human decision-making and the boundaries of such decisions, addressing ethical challenges in autonomous driving through legal frameworks to advance the progress of industry.

Abstract: The newly introduced ‘sealing of public security violation records’ system under the revised Public Security Administration Punishment Law has sparked intense debate due to its implications for public safety expectations concerning highly sensitive activities such as drug-related offences, occupational access boundaries, and data governance risks. This paper refrains from making factual determinations regarding online allegations against any specific individuals or institutions. Instead, it adopts a ‘systemic security governance’ methodology to explore how the legislature can achieve risk containment, factual clarification, and institutional consolidation within the rule of law framework when significant societal doubts arise (including ‘indications of potential external undue influence during the legislative proposal stage’) and supporting regulations have yet to form a rigid closed-loop system. This paper proposes: guided by the normative benchmarks of scientific, democratic, and lawful legislation emphasised in Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, and framed by the risk management principles of coordinating people's security, political security, and institutional security as required by the overall national security outlook, the NPCSC should lawfully arrange for the temporary suspension of Article 136's key application provisions within a specified timeframe. concurrently initiating investigations into specific issues or specialised reviews. This would establish an auditable governance chain of ‘first contain risks, then investigate thoroughly, finally consolidate,’ thereby minimising systemic spillover costs to public safety, data security, and public trust without undermining institutional objectives.

Abstract: In recent years, Zhu Zhengfu, a deputy to the National People's Congress, has consistently advocated for issues such as ‘abolishing the crime of provoking trouble’, ‘sealing minor criminal records’, and ‘sealing public security violation records for drug use’. His proposals have generated significant influence in both public discourse and legislative debates. On the surface, these proposals appear to champion ‘rights protection’ and ‘humanitarian concerns.’ However, when re-examined within the frameworks of Marxist jurisprudence, Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, and the overall national security outlook, they reveal a series of concerning issues in their logical structure, value orientation, and security perspective. This paper, while clarifying online rumours and adhering to factual foundations, focuses solely on Zhu Zhengfu's publicly available and verifiable legal propositions for analysis. It critiques these from three dimensions: logical reasoning, national security implications, and ideological roots. Furthermore, it proposes a tiered reform pathway for optimising the crime of provoking trouble and the systems governing prior convictions and records under the comprehensive national security outlook. The article contends that several of Zhu Zhengfu's assertions exhibit dualistic reasoning in logic, display pronounced formal liberal rights-centrism in values, and underestimate systemic risks within complex social structures in security perspectives. His discourse system is highly isomorphic with Western legal liberalism, creating significant tension with the path of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics in the new era. Subjecting the rule-of-law discourse of NPC deputies to public scrutiny from the perspectives of the people's stance and national security is essential to upholding the people's congress system and the overall national security outlook.

Abstract: This paper conducts a systematic critical analysis of Professor Lao Dongyan of Tsinghua University's public discourse advocating for Zhao Hong of Peking University and supporting the ‘sealing system for public order offences such as drug use’. The analysis is grounded within the normative framework constituted by Marxist legal principles and Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law. The research aims to examine the consistency and tensions between her argumentative system and the Marxist legal stance, as well as the overall national security outlook. Methodologically, this study first abstractly reconstructs Professor Lao's core argumentative chains concerning record sealing, cyberspace governance, and criminal law restraint, delineating her premises, problem definitions, and reasoning pathways. Subsequently, employing a multi-level logical diagnostic approach, we conduct a dual examination of both form and substance at the levels of semantic premises, problem structures, and rules of inference. This analysis is normatively contrasted with Marxist jurisprudence's ‘people-centred approach,’ ‘class analysis,’ and ‘historical and structural perspectives,’ as well as Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law's comprehensive national security outlook and its tripartite framework of ‘security-development-rights.’ The findings indicate that while the argument offers valuable insights in clarifying the boundaries between public order offences and criminal acts, resisting over-criminalisation, and countering ‘public opinion trials,’ it exhibits several structural biases. These include: narrowing the concept of ‘the people’ to a specific rights-bearing group; simplifying the security-development-rights triad into a unidimensional opposition between ‘state power and individual rights’; overemphasising risks to rights, confounding factual and value judgements, and flattening heterogeneous critiques into a homogeneous discursive object. The conclusion posits that this logic system centred on ‘rights-risk-technological governance’ is only partially compatible with Marxist jurisprudence. Overall, it has yet to genuinely address the value hierarchy demanding ‘people's security as the purpose, political security as the foundation, and national interests as paramount.’ Therefore, in institutional debates concerning drug governance and internet governance, it is necessary to conduct substantive calibration and reconstruction of relevant theoretical discourses and institutional designs, while upholding the people's stance and the overall national security outlook.

Abstract: The newly revised Law of the People's Republic of China on Penalties for Public Order Violations introduces a "system for sealing public order violation records," with the sealing of records for acts such as drug use sparking intense public debate. Zhao Hong, a researcher at Peking University Law School, has systematically articulated several key arguments in multiple media outlets in defence of the sealing system. These include: "Drug use constitutes an administrative offence rather than a criminal act"; "Sealing records embodies the legal system's civilised approach to tolerance for error and rehabilitation"; and "Opposition to governing society through ancient-style branding methods akin to facial tattooing." This article meticulously reconstructs his principal arguments while introducing Marxist legal theory, Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law and key anti-drug directives, formal logic and argumentation theory, alongside comparative Western jurisprudential experience concerning "criminal record sealing/expungement" to conduct a multidimensional critical analysis of his discourse. The research indicates: on the one hand, Zhao Hong's conceptual distinctions between "public order offences versus criminal offences" and "sealing versus expungement" possess a certain enlightening significance, and formally align with contemporary international trends towards "stigma removal and reintegration promotion". On the other hand, his argumentation exhibits significant blind spots in terms of class analysis, the people's stance, and the overall security perspective: it inadequately exposes the class structures and inequalities underlying drug issues; lacks a holistic grasp of the tension between "people's security" and "individual rights"; and insufficiently internalises Xi Jinping's requirements for "zero tolerance" in drug control, coordinating security and development, and adhering to bottom-line thinking (You Quanrong, 2023; Xi Jinping, 2015; Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, 2020). Logically, it extrapolates universal sealing from a minority of minor offences and counters public security anxieties by occupying the moral high ground of "modern rule of law civilisation," exhibiting a structural bias of "substituting risk analysis with moralising rhetoric." From a comparative law perspective, Western legal systems predominantly adopt a refined "tiered-conditional-exceptional" model, excluding acts severely endangering public safety from blanket sealing while supplementing this with rigorous procedures and ex post facto review mechanisms. This paper ultimately proposes that for the sealing system of public security violation records to embody the humanitarian concerns of socialist rule of law within the Chinese context while aligning with the overarching national security outlook and the practical logic of the "people's war" on drugs, it must introduce mechanisms such as tiered sealing, strict exceptions, procedural participation, and dynamic assessment at both legislative and discursive levels. Concurrently, it must theoretically return to the people-centred stance and practice-oriented approach emphasised by Marxist jurisprudence and Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law.

Abstract: Contemporary digital media ecosystems challenge the presumption of innocence—a cornerstone of fair trial rights enshrined in ICCPR Article 14(2) and ECHR Article 6(2)—through rapid dissemination of sensationalized pretrial information that biases public and judicial perceptions. This article examines how social media amplifies "trial by media" effects, analyzing empirical evidence from high-profile cases like Chauvin and Anthony, alongside ECHR jurisprudence such as Salabiaku v. France (1988), to identify regulatory shortcomings in juror exposure mitigation and cross-border content control.​Employing a doctrinal and comparative legal methodology, it evaluates sub judice rules, contempt powers, and emerging digital protocols, revealing their limited efficacy against algorithmic amplification and user-generated prejudice. Key findings highlight the need for recalibrated balances between expression freedoms and procedural safeguards, particularly for marginalized defendants facing stereotyping.​The study proposes actionable reforms: mandatory digital literacy for jurors, harmonized international takedown mechanisms, and enhanced media ethics training. These measures aim to preserve judicial impartiality amid informational ubiquity, offering a framework for policymakers and courts in the digital era.

Abstract: The Saudi sector has witnessed a significant digital transformation within the framework of Vision 2030, through the expansion of innovation in artificial intelligence and financial technology (FinTech). Despite the considerable benefits of these developments, they also present challenges, including the need for transparency and accountability This necessitates that the Saudi Central Bank establish clear regulations to ensure the protection of customer rights. This research aims to analyze the legal requirements for using artificial intelligence technologies in Saudi financial institutions and assess the extent to which the current legal framework aligns with relevant international standards and instruments, The study adopted a descriptive, analytical, and comparative approach, through analyzing relevant Saudi legislation and comparing it with international principles. The findings revealed the existence of a charter regulating the ethics of using artificial intelligence in financial institutions, under the supervision of the General Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence and the Saudi Central Bank, but the regulation still needs development. The study recommends the need to establish a unified legal framework to regulate the use of artificial intelligence in the financial sector that is consistent with international standards and promotes trust, transparency and data protection.

Abstract: This study examines the legal frameworks, enforcement challenges, and economic implications of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—using a normative juridical approach and qualitative analysis. The findings reveal significant disparities in the governance of IPR among these nations, with China and India leading in innovation and enforcement reforms, while Brazil, Russia, and South Africa face persistent challenges related to institutional capacity and judicial delays. Despite aligning with international standards such as TRIPS, enforcement gaps and socio-economic priorities influence the effectiveness of IPR systems. The research highlights the dual economic impact of IPR: fostering innovation and investment while raising concerns over access to essential goods. It underscores the need for harmonized frameworks, enhanced enforcement mechanisms, and a balanced approach to innovation and equity in BRICS countries.

Abstract: This paper examines the complex intersection between unfair trade practices and intellectual property rights (IPR), where the fundamental goals of promoting innovation and ensuring fair competition often create tension. The study analyzes how IPR systems, while designed to protect innovations and foster economic growth, can sometimes facilitate anti-competitive behaviors that necessitate intervention through competition law and unfair trade practice regulations. The research explores multiple dimensions of this intersection, including the pro-competitive features of IPRs, antitrust influences, and enforcement mechanisms across various jurisdictions, with particular emphasis on the European Union, United States, and India. The paper examines sector-specific applications across copyrights, patents, industrial designs, trade secrets, geographical indications, traditional knowledge, and technology transfer agreements. Key findings reveal that while international frameworks like TRIPS, Paris Convention, and Berne Convention provide foundational protection, significant challenges persist in harmonization, enforcement, and addressing power imbalances between developed and developing nations. The study highlights emerging issues such as digital piracy, patent trolling, forced technology transfer, and the protection of traditional knowledge from biopiracy. The analysis demonstrates that effective regulation requires a nuanced approach that balances IPR protection with competition law principles, emphasizing the need for continuous adaptation of legal frameworks to address evolving market dynamics and technological advancements.