AI and people do not compete on a level-playing field. Self-driving vehicles may be safer than human drivers, but laws often penalize such technology. People may provide superior customer service, but businesses are automating to reduce their taxes. AI may innovate more effectively, but an antiquated legal framework constrains inventive AI. In The Reasonable Robot, Ryan Abbott argues that the law should not discriminate between AI and human behavior and proposes a new legal principle that will ultimately improve human well-being. This work should be read by anyone interested in the rapidly evolving relationship between AI and the law.

This book provides an accessible introduction to selected new issues in transnational law, and connects them to existing theoretical debates on transnational business regulation. More specifically, (i) it introduces the argument about the evolving character of contemporary international business regulation; (ii) it provides an overview of some of the main fields of law that are currently important for firms that operate across borders; and (iii) it sets out an interpretive framework for making sense of disparate developments occurring across a number of jurisdictions, among which are the form of regulation and style of enforcement, issues of legal certainty, and behavioural aspects of regulation. The selected topics are indicative of some key issues confronting businesses looking to operate across national borders, as well as policy makers seeking to introduce and enforce meaningful regulatory standards in an increasingly global society. Topics include: consumer law; product liability; warranty law and obsolescence; collective redress; alternative dispute resolution; corporate wrongdoing; corporate governance; and e-commerce. This timely work offers a novel perspective on transnational business law and examines a range of legal issues that preoccupy companies operating transnationally. This book is intended not only for law students looking for an introduction, overview or commentary on the contemporary state of international business law, but also for anyone looking for an introduction to the regulation of business in a global, inter-connected economy.

International commercial contracts in the context of increasing globalization of the national markets have posed some of the most difficult questions of the legal theory as developed since the emergence of nation states; those are, whether it is possible or desirable to allow international commercial contracts to be governed by the law merchant or, in its medieval name, lex mercatoria, a body of rules which has not been derived from the will of sovereign states, but mainly from transnational trade usages and practices, and to what extent those rules should govern transnational transactions. The traditional approach of legal positivism to the questions maintains that law governing contracts containing a foreign element should be a national law which will be determined according to choice of law rules. However, the particularities of cross border trade yield unsatisfactory results when the rules essentially designed for the settlement of domestic disputes or national laws pertaining to international economic relations, but developed under the influence of a certain legal tradition, are tried to be applied. New solutions are needed to overcome the special problems of international trade between merchants from different legal systems. In that regard, while the international commercial arbitration which has been freed from the constraints of the domestic laws is an important step, the courts generally applying the principle of party autonomy which allows parties to designate the law that will apply to their transactions have proved insufficient due to the positivistic influence on the conflict of laws rules of most countries which has limited parties' choice of law to the national substantive laws. The problems created by those inconsistencies and divergences have been felt more strongly in the European Community which constitutes an internal market by integrating the national markets of Member States into a single one. The present paper is an attempt to search for answers to those questions with a special emphasis on the situation in the European Community on the basis of the idea that law as a servant of social need must take account of the far reaching and dramatic socio-economic changes.

The only truly comprehensive work on marine insurance in the United States to be published since the last edition of Phillips on Insurance in 1867, Parks's work has been heralded around the English-speaking world. With the help of the author's colleagues, this text includes not only the large body of American marine insurance case law, but also United Kingdom and Commonwealth cases and statutes.

This collection of essays critically evaluates the legal framework necessary for the use of autonomous ships in international waters. The work is divided into three parts: Part 1 evaluates how far national shipping regulation, and the public international law background that lies behind it, may need modification and updating to accommodate the use of autonomous ships on international voyages. Part 2 deals with private law and insurance issues such as collision and pollution liability, salvage, limitation of liability and allocation of risk between carrier and cargo interests. Part 3 analyses international convention regimes dealing with maritime safety and other matters, arguing for specific changes in the existing conventions such as SOLAS and MARPOL, which would provide the international framework that is necessary for putting autonomous ships into commercial use. The book also takes the view that amendment of international conventions is important in the case of liability issues, arguing that leaving such matters to national law, particularly issues concerning product liability, could not only restrict or hinder the availability of liability insurance but also hamper the development of technology in this field. Written by internationally-known experts in their respective areas, the book offers a holistic approach to the debate on autonomous ships and makes a timely and important contribution to the literature.

Most SASEC countries rely on maritime transport for their international trade and stronger maritime links are crucial for the subregion to achieve its economic growth potential. For example, improved ports and port access will create better connectivity with Southeast Asia, one of the world's fastest growing economic regions. However, enhanced cooperation among the seven SASEC countries is essential to strengthen maritime links. This report provides an overview of the SASEC maritime sector, identifies the key challenges, and identifies priority collaboration initiatives to overcome them.

Some years ago, while a Senior Lecturer-in-Law at BPP University, one of my Master of Laws' students asked if he could write a dissertation in Maritime Law. He wanted to do a survey of the rules of both Admiralty Law and the Law of the Sea. The department contained no specialist in either of these fields, and I taught neither. As he could not be dissuaded from this plan, I had to undertake a rapid, informal, self-directed learning programme in the subjects in order to gain sufficient professional skill to be able to supervise, and, later, assess the dissertation. His project was surprisingly good -- and I had my first contact with rules concerning territorial seas, contiguous zones, exclusive economic zones, continental shelves and high seas. My interest in these topics grew and, eventually, flourished in the project of this monograph. The book covers the laws in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 that concern baselines and boundary delimitation, together with cases which relate to these topics. There is also a major input to the monograph from procedural matters pertaining to the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and arbitration under Annex VII to the Convention, with an example case provided for each of these mechanisms. As States Parties to the Convention may make a Declaration under its Article 287 for the settlement of their disputes by one or more of these methods -- together with special arbitration under Annex VIII to the Convention for four issues specified therein -- this Article, together with the methods and the remainder of Part XV of the Convention, are core material for a systematic review of the Law of the Sea. In instances in which it is possible, comparisons are made between: (i) the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and its predecessors, i.e., the Geneva Conventions from 1958, and (ii) the rules of the International Court of Justice and those of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. In essence, the Convention builds upon its precursory instruments, which tend to be simpler than the former, and the procedural rules for the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea are similar or identical to those of the International Court of Justice, other than a few provisions that are new or materially modified from the terms of the Court, but with the necessary changes from the latter being made. The cases at this level are fewer than in black-letter subjects of the law, but tend to be complex and, for the legal scholar, very interesting. This is especially true of the South China Sea Arbitration, which was a judgment of pioneering brilliance from an Annex VII arbitral tribunal composed of one academic and four experienced judges, to which a substantial literature has-in the short period since this case's resolution -- been devoted. The very best of luck with your reading!