Month: July 2018

1st August 2018, Earth Overshoot Day

On By officialblogunioIn EditorialsLeave a comment

foto

 by Sophie Perez Fernandes, Junior Editor

▪

According to data from the Global Footprint Network, August 1 is Earth Overshoot Day 2018.

Earth Overshoot Day is an initiative of Global Footprint Network, a non-profit international research organization dedicated to the development and promotion of tools to promote sustainable development. The date of Earth Overshoot Day is calculated by comparing two metrics: the Global Ecological Footprint, humanity’s total yearly consumption, with biocapacity, Earth’s capacity to regenerate renewable natural resources in that year. Both metrics are calculated each year with National Footprint Accounts and using UN statistics and data from additional sources.

As explained in the website, Earth Overshoot Date marks the date when all of humanity have used more from nature than our planet can renew in the entire year. According to the information disclosed last June, humanity will have exhausted on August 1, that is, in just over seven months, its entire nature’s resource budget of 2018. As from that date, the world will live on credit in 2018 – an environmental credit that, according to the data disclosed, is contracted earlier and earlier. Exceeding in 1961, planet Earth registered the first deficit in its environmental budget in the 1970s. Since then, the growing ecological footprint that accompanies the demographic and economic growth of the planet explains that Earth Overshoot Day occurs ever earlier – until the earliest date calculated of August 1 in 2018.
Continue reading “1st August 2018, Earth Overshoot Day” →

The security at sports events: an important issue for the European Union

On By officialblogunioIn EssaysLeave a comment

4574695153_8ab9686e44_o

by Álvaro Alzina Lozano, PhD candidate and Lecturer of Criminal Law at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

▪

On the occasion of the celebration of sporting events in the European Union of such high magnitude as the (UEFA) Champions League, we must analyze how the Union itself has provided cooperation mechanisms to the Member States in order to eradicate possible violent acts in stadiums, because we all remember the lousy images of the last football games in the 2016 European Championship held in France where groups of ultras coming from different cities started urban wars.

The concerns of the European institutions to eliminate the violence generated by hooligans has its origin in the tragedy of Heysel, in which during the 1985 Champions League final at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels (Belgium) 39 fans died after an avalanche caused by the Liverpool hooligans. Furthermore, we must add that two weeks later another 56 fans died in a football stadium in Valley Parade due to a fire.

These main facts caused a movement of concern in the European institutions to prevent these sorts of incidents, and the Council of Europe approved in that year the European Convention on Spectator Violence and Misbehaviour at Sports Events and in particular at Football Matches, which was modified in 2015 by a more updated one.
Continue reading “The security at sports events: an important issue for the European Union” →

The impact of Brexit on international trade taxation

On By officialblogunioIn CommentsLeave a comment

8931595340_478ef13163_o

 by Andreia Barbosa, PhD student at the Law School of UMinho
▪

On 23 June 2016, the British people decided to leave the European Union, re-launching the idea that belonging to the European Union, in the light of Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, does not seem to be an obligation, but a choice. States have the (unilateral) right to leave.

The actual effects of Brexit are not yet fully known. In fact, its exact consequences will only be effectively known when the negotiations are over – which will only happen, predictably, in early 2019.

There are, however, more likely scenarios than others and, consequently, more likely effects than others. Among the most immediate scenarios and effects, are those relating to the commercial transactions between the United Kingdom and the European Union. Because, of course, one of the most important ideals of the European Union is the free movement of goods, based on the existence of a single market without technical and physical frontiers in the free movement of persons, services, goods and capital­. So, the question arises as to the terms under which trade in goods between the United Kingdom and the Member States of the European Union will take place.
Continue reading “The impact of Brexit on international trade taxation” →

Editorial of July 2018

On By officialblogunioIn EditorialsLeave a comment

artificial-intelligence-698122_960_720

 by Alessandra Silveira, Editor 
 and Sophie Perez Fernandes, Junior Editor

▪


Artificial intelligence and fundamental rights: the problem of regulation aimed at avoiding algorithmic discrimination

The scandal involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica (a private company for data analysis and strategic communication) raises, among others, the problem of regulating learning algorithms. And the problem lies above all in the fact that there is no necessary connection between intelligence and free will. Unlike human beings, algorithms do not have a will of their own, they serve the goals that are set for them. Though spectacular, artificial intelligence bears little resemblance to the mental processes of humans – as the Portuguese neuroscientist António Damásio, Professor at the University of Southern California, brilliantly explains[i]. To this extent, not all impacts of artificial intelligence are easily regulated or translated into legislation – and so traditional regulation might not work[ii].

In a study dedicated to explaining why data (including personal data) are at the basis of the Machine-Learning Revolution – and to what extent artificial intelligence is reconfiguring science, business, and politics – another Portuguese scientist, Pedro Domingos, Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, explains that the problem that defines the digital age is the following: how do we find each other? This applies to both producers and consumers – who need to establish a connection before any transaction happens –, but also to anyone looking for a job or a romantic partner. Computers allowed the existence of the Internet – and the Internet created a flood of data and the problem of limitless choice. Now, machine learning uses this infinity of data to help solve the limitless choice problem. Netflix may have 100,000 DVD titles in stock, but if customers cannot find the ones they like, they will end up choosing the hits; so, Netflix uses a learning algorithm that identifies customer tastes and recommends DVDs. Simple as that, explains the Author[iii].
Continue reading “Editorial of July 2018” →