Books by Georgios Dimitropoulos
95 Washington Law Review 1117, 2020
Blockchain technology is a new general-purpose technology that poses significant challenges to th... more Blockchain technology is a new general-purpose technology that poses significant challenges to the existing state of law, economy, and society. Blockchain has one feature that makes it even more distinctive than other disruptive technologies: it is, by nature and design, global and transnational. Moreover, blockchain operates based on its own rules and principles that have a law-like quality. What may be called the lex cryptographia of blockchain has been designed based on a rational choice vision of human behavior. Blockchain adopts a framing derived from neoclassical economics, and instantiates it in a new machinery that implements rational choice paradigms using blockchain in a semi-automatic way, across all spheres of life, and without regard to borders. Accordingly, a global law and cryptoeconomics movement is now emerging owing to the spread of blockchain.
This Article suggests that such a rational choice paradigm is an insufficient foundation for the future development of blockchain. It seeks to develop a new understanding of blockchain and its regulation through code according to the emerging "law and political economy" framework. Blockchain is much more than a machine that enables the automation of transactions according to a rational choice framework. Blockchain should instead be understood as a technological infrastructure. Acknowledging the infrastructural dimension of blockchain technology may help identify a new role for the law in its interaction with blockchain, as well as for government in its interaction with the new technology. More precisely, identifying blockchain as an "infrastructural commons" helps us recognize that law
and regulation should not be relegated to the role of merely facilitating the operation of the invisible hand of the market by and within blockchain, but should rather acquire more active roles, such as safeguarding access on non-discriminatory terms to users, on a model with net neutrality and other public utility safeguards. The Article closes by proposing a "law and
political economy" framework for blockchain that is based on principles of publicness, trust, and interoperability.
by Maurizia De Bellis, Mario Savino, Dario Bevilacqua, Giuseppe Martinico, Ayelet Berman, Francesco Giovanni Albisinni, Georgios Dimitropoulos, Matthias Goldmann, livia lorenzoni, Simone Penasa, and Gianluca Sgueo This is the first chapter of the Casebook. It examines the emergence of administrative law beyond... more This is the first chapter of the Casebook. It examines the emergence of administrative law beyond the State and the rise of global administration. On one hand, it focuses on the notion of the State and the implications for this of the formation of a global administrative space. Topics analysed include the concept of “the State” in a globalized world; the application of this concept to the Palestinian case; and the rise of the global regulatory State in the South. On the other hand, it deals with the proliferation and differentiation of IOs, offering a classification of global institutions into four different types: formal intergovernmental organizations (e.g., the UN, WIPO, UNESCO, WHO, ILO, UNICEF, IOM, or even ASEAN); hybrid public-private organizations and private bodies exercising public functions (e.g. ICANN, the WADA, ISO, or the Global Fund); transgovernmental and transnational networks (such as the G-8, the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) ASEAN International Investment Agreements, or the Basel Committee); complex forms of governance, such as hybrid, multi-level or informal global regulatory regimes (e.g. global and national proceedings under the International Patent Cooperation Treaty, decision-making procedures in fisheries governance, the composite interaction of UNESCO advisory bodies in the World Heritage Convention, or the clean development mechanism).
Zertifizierung und Akkreditierung im Internationalen Verwaltungsverbund. Internationale Verbundverwaltung und Gesellschaftliche Administration
[Certification and Accreditation in the context of International Integrated Administration.]
Publ... more [Certification and Accreditation in the context of International Integrated Administration.]
Published in German.
The certification and accreditation system is a new kind of administrative mechanism. Georgios Dimitropoulos analyzes conformity assessment, product safety, sustainability and climate protection, and using these as reference fields he shows the development of an international administrative “Verbund” Its development is accompanied by the emergence of further administrative phenomena such as integrated administration and societal administration.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moderne Verwaltung entwickelt neue Instrumente für den Umgang mit Bürgern und Unternehmen sowie mit ausländischen und supranationalen Verwaltungen. Repräsentativ für diese Veränderung ist das System der Zertifizierung und Akkreditierung. Dieses System hat sich auf dem privaten Markt entwickelt. Seit einiger Zeit wird es zunehmend auch zur Erfüllung administrativer Ziele eingesetzt. Dazu wird seine Verbreitung von der globalen und europäischen Verwaltungsebene vorangetrieben. In den Referenzgebieten Konformitätsbewertung, Produktsicherheit, Nachhaltigkeit und Klimaschutz zeigen sich auch neue Formen internationaler Verwaltung. Es entsteht ein Internationaler Verwaltungsverbund. Dieser dient als das funktionale Äquivalent zum Staat für das Verwalten jenseits des Staates. Neue administrative Phänomene treten in diesem Rahmen zutage: dekonzentrierte internationale Implementation, Verbundverwaltung und gesellschaftliche Administration. Der Verbund wird durch ein internationales Kooperationsprinzip und ein internationales rule of law- Prinzip normativ verfestigt.
Papers by Georgios Dimitropoulos
Domestic Investment Laws and International Economic Law in the Liberal International Order
World Trade Review
International Economic Law (IEL) has largely regulated cross-border trade and investment in the p... more International Economic Law (IEL) has largely regulated cross-border trade and investment in the post-WWII world. IEL has become an important part of the Liberal International Order that prescribes a set of rule-based relationships for international cooperation based on political liberalism, economic liberalism, and liberal internationalism. However, economic globalization has witnessed a relative decline, especially after the 2008 global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. This form of ‘de-globalization’ challenges the assumptions upon which modern IEL is premised. This introductory article to the special issue on ‘Domestic Investment Laws and International Economic Law in the Liberal International Order’ explains how domestic law has started playing an increasingly important role in regulating foreign investment. Often overlooked instruments such as Domestic Investment Laws, Investment Screening Mechanisms, and Investment Promotion Agencies are now important tools in promot...
International Journal for Innovation Education and Research
This paper presents the development and implementation of experiential behavioral economics cours... more This paper presents the development and implementation of experiential behavioral economics course in three Middle East universities. Experiential learning has proven to have many benefits for students because of putting them at the center of the learning process and allowing them to learn by doing. More specifically, as part of the practical sessions, students were tasked to design, implement and report on one field experiment conducted in collaboration with a nudge unit. We believe that this approach whereby students apply their knowledge through experimentation to address issues relevant to their communities and environment can be more effective and impactful than traditional teaching or relying only on classroom-based experiments. In this paper, we share the lessons learned from the journey of delivering several experiential behavioral economics courses.
Blockchain Law: Between Public and Private, Transnational and Domestic
New Directions in European Private Law, 2021
Blockchain’s Heterotopia
The Cambridge Handbook of Lawyering in the Digital Age, 2021
Addressing climate change in the MENA region through regulatory design
Climate Change Law and Policy in the Middle East and North Africa Region, 2021
Global Currencies and Domestic Regulation: Embedding through Enabling?
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2019
This article identifies cryptocurrencies and other virtual currencies as global currencies that c... more This article identifies cryptocurrencies and other virtual currencies as global currencies that could have a major impact on national jurisdictions. Regulation concerning cryptocurrencies can be described in the terms of the ‘double movement’ that Karl Polanyi identified for the expansion of the market society in the 19th and 20th centuries. Cryptocurrencies have been developed by anti-establishment individuals and groups, and other opponents of the global financial system that – in Polanyi’s terms – belong to a collectivist counter-movement. The effect they have produced, though, is rather to expand global markets and the market system. This has spurred a counter-movement to the counter-movement, or what could be called the ‘anti-countermovement.’ The response of the anti-countermovement to the expansion and influence of the global currencies is paradoxical if not schizophrenic. The anti-countermovement treats global currencies both as currencies and as a technology. This has led to various regulatory measures in different jurisdictions. When viewed as currency, cryptocurrencies are regulated both as money and commodities leading to an indifferent approach to their regulation or a command-and-control approach or various intermediate approaches. When viewed as a technology, different jurisdictions have taken an enabling approach to the regulation of cryptocurrencies by establishing ‘innovation hubs’ and ‘regulatory sandboxes’ for FinTech companies. This paper concludes by discussing the dangers of embedding cryptocurrencies through enabling them, namely the problem of more finance, and possibly an internal clash of domestic agencies. The way to mitigate the dangers of embedding through enabling is by regulating the new cryptocurrency intermediaries.
World Trade Review
Under the Liberal International Order (LIO) of the post-WWII years, foreign investment protection... more Under the Liberal International Order (LIO) of the post-WWII years, foreign investment protection was meant to be granted by international law and institutions. But current economic de-globalization is giving way to institutional and legal de-globalization. Domestic laws relating to foreign investment, especially in the form of Domestic Investment Laws, are taking over International Investment Agreements as the standard means of regulating cross-border trade and investment flows. The article compares substantive and procedural standards of investor protection in international and domestic investment law, as well as old and new Domestic Investment Laws, with a focus on non-discrimination and dispute settlement. The move to domestic law in IEL does not always signify a trend for most states to isolate themselves from the international economy. Rather, it is often an effort to achieve similar ends as those of the LIO but using different means. The article discusses an alternative polit...
Global Currencies and Domestic Regulation
Regulating Blockchain
This chapter identifies cryptocurrencies and other virtual currencies as global currencies that c... more This chapter identifies cryptocurrencies and other virtual currencies as global currencies that could have a major impact on national jurisdictions. Regulation concerning cryptocurrencies can be described in the terms of the ‘double movement’ that Karl Polanyi identified for the expansion of the market society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Cryptocurrencies have been developed by anti-establishment individuals and groups, and other opponents of the global financial system that—in Polanyi’s terms—belong to a collectivist counter-movement. The effect they have produced, though, is rather to expand global markets and the market system. This has spurred a counter-movement to the counter-movement, or what could be called the ‘anti-countermovement’. The response of the anti-countermovement to the expansion and influence of the global currencies is paradoxical, if not schizophrenic. The anti-countermovement treats global currencies both as currencies and as a technology. This h...
Regulating Blockchain: Techno-Social and Legal Challenges
Oxford University Press, 2019
This introductory chapter provides an overview of the main legal and policy implications of block... more This introductory chapter provides an overview of the main legal and policy implications of blockchain technology. It proceeds in four steps. First, the chapter traces the technical and legal evolution of blockchain applications since the early days of bitcoin, highlighting in particular the political ambitions and tensions that have marked many of these projects from the start. Second, it shows how blockchain applications have created new calculative spaces of financial markets that seek to challenge existing forms of money. Third, it discusses the core points of friction with incumbent legal systems, with a particular focus on the regulability of decentralized systems in general and data protection concerns in particular. Fourth, the chapter provides an outline to the contributions to the volume, which span a wide array of topics at the intersection of blockchain, law, and politics.
Journal of International Economic Law, 2021
International commercial courts are currently proliferating from the last generation special econ... more International commercial courts are currently proliferating from the last generation special economic zones of the Gulf region to the whole of Asia and Europe. International commercial courts are institutions of a new era of international economic law and adjudication. Zone courts, alongside the new uses of arbitration within special economic zones, may be viewed as the adjudicatory counterpart of the move towards unilateralism in international economic law. The idea is to move cases from the international to the domestic realm and overall domesticate international economic law and adjudication. The unilateral strategy to achieve this is the introduction of new courts that sit in a space between the national and the international and are based on English (common) law. However, the new system does not oblige the transferal of cases. The special economic zones-driven judicial unilateralism adds an investment attraction to the repertoire of states, as well as choices to parties. Adjudi...
Certification and Accreditation in the International Administrative Verbund: Integrated and Societal Administration
European review of public law, 2012
Global Administrative Law and Global Justice: On the Role of the Rule of Law Principle in the Global Legal Order
EU and Global Administrative Law, Athens, Spring 2009
Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, 2017
This article searches for paths, frameworks and modules for the measurement and evaluation of jud... more This article searches for paths, frameworks and modules for the measurement and evaluation of judicial independence in international law. First, it discusses the measurability of the concept. Judicial independence, both as such and especially at the international level, is very difficult to measure, given the ambivalence of some proxies and variables that have been used in empirical research in order to measure it, and given the competing interests and actors in international adjudication: independence does not stand alone as the only value that needs to be protected in international adjudication. Second, the article presents methodologies for the evaluation of international judicial independence. The three competing methodologies are (i) the subjective, which looks at the subjective perception of the judges themselves or the public; (ii) the output-based, which looks at the decisions of the courts and tribunals; and (iii) the institutional, which looks at the personal independence ...
National Security: The Role of Investment Screening Mechanisms
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2019
The international investment regime is rapidly changing. Investment law is becoming a much more d... more The international investment regime is rapidly changing. Investment law is becoming a much more domestic field of law. A domestic investment institution that has been on the rise in the last years is investment screening mechanisms (ISMs). ISMs operate in parallel to international investment law. National security considerations lie at the epicenter of the screening procedures. Studying the USA, Australia, Canada, and the EU, the chapter shows how the assessment of national security concerns has started leaving the realm of international investment law and investment arbitral tribunals in favor of domestic mechanisms of ex ante evaluation of interference by foreign investment with national security interests. In addition to this move from the international to the domestic, the comparative study shows that G. Dimitropoulos (*) Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) College of Law, Doha, Qatar University College London (UCL) Centre for Law, Economics and Society, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 J. Chaisse et al. (eds.), Handbook of International Investment Law and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5744-2_59-1 1 there is an opening of the definition of the term of national security to also include considerations beyond national security in the strict sense. Still, the chapter suggests that the world is not necessarily advancing towards more closeness, but rather towards a fairer balance between globalization and national sovereignty.
National Sovereignty and International Investment Law: Sovereignty Reassertion and Prospects of Reform
The Journal of World Investment & Trade, 2020
The growing tendency among States to terminate their international investment agreements and/or r... more The growing tendency among States to terminate their international investment agreements and/or replace them with domestic laws may be understood as a reclamation of national sovereignty vis-à-vis international institutions. The article develops a typology of moves to reassert sovereignty in international investment law, distinguishing: (a) an isolationist reassertion from (b) an international reassertion and in turn from (c) domesticating reassertion. The article further claims that international investment law and its reform needs to be informed by research into domestic systems of governance in order to better conceptualize the ways in which international law principles are implemented alongside and through the use of domestic legal instruments, but also in order to help inform the reform process of international investment law. It finally identifies the ways in which domestic and international law co-exist and mutually influence each other with a view to the substantive and proc...
The International Rule of Law and the Social Legitimacy of International Dispute Resolution Mechanisms. A Comment on Thomas Laker
The Rule of Law and Its Application to the United Nations, 2016
Uploads
Books by Georgios Dimitropoulos
This Article suggests that such a rational choice paradigm is an insufficient foundation for the future development of blockchain. It seeks to develop a new understanding of blockchain and its regulation through code according to the emerging "law and political economy" framework. Blockchain is much more than a machine that enables the automation of transactions according to a rational choice framework. Blockchain should instead be understood as a technological infrastructure. Acknowledging the infrastructural dimension of blockchain technology may help identify a new role for the law in its interaction with blockchain, as well as for government in its interaction with the new technology. More precisely, identifying blockchain as an "infrastructural commons" helps us recognize that law
and regulation should not be relegated to the role of merely facilitating the operation of the invisible hand of the market by and within blockchain, but should rather acquire more active roles, such as safeguarding access on non-discriminatory terms to users, on a model with net neutrality and other public utility safeguards. The Article closes by proposing a "law and
political economy" framework for blockchain that is based on principles of publicness, trust, and interoperability.
Published in German.
The certification and accreditation system is a new kind of administrative mechanism. Georgios Dimitropoulos analyzes conformity assessment, product safety, sustainability and climate protection, and using these as reference fields he shows the development of an international administrative “Verbund” Its development is accompanied by the emergence of further administrative phenomena such as integrated administration and societal administration.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moderne Verwaltung entwickelt neue Instrumente für den Umgang mit Bürgern und Unternehmen sowie mit ausländischen und supranationalen Verwaltungen. Repräsentativ für diese Veränderung ist das System der Zertifizierung und Akkreditierung. Dieses System hat sich auf dem privaten Markt entwickelt. Seit einiger Zeit wird es zunehmend auch zur Erfüllung administrativer Ziele eingesetzt. Dazu wird seine Verbreitung von der globalen und europäischen Verwaltungsebene vorangetrieben. In den Referenzgebieten Konformitätsbewertung, Produktsicherheit, Nachhaltigkeit und Klimaschutz zeigen sich auch neue Formen internationaler Verwaltung. Es entsteht ein Internationaler Verwaltungsverbund. Dieser dient als das funktionale Äquivalent zum Staat für das Verwalten jenseits des Staates. Neue administrative Phänomene treten in diesem Rahmen zutage: dekonzentrierte internationale Implementation, Verbundverwaltung und gesellschaftliche Administration. Der Verbund wird durch ein internationales Kooperationsprinzip und ein internationales rule of law- Prinzip normativ verfestigt.
Papers by Georgios Dimitropoulos