This article discusses the key methodological shortcomings of experimental regulations and regulatory sandboxes. I argue that the poor design and implementation of these experimental legal regimes have both methodological and legal implications. The deficient design of experimental regulations and regulatory sandboxes can have three adverse effects: First, the internal validity of experimental legal regimes is limited because it is unclear whether the verified results are the direct result of the experimental intervention or other circumstances. The limited external validity of experimental legal regimes impedes the generalizability of the experiment. Second, experimental legal regimes that are not scientifically sound make a limited contribution to the advancement of evidence-based lawmaking and the rationalization of regulation. Third, methodological deficiencies may result in the violation of legal principles which require that experimental regulations follow objective, transparent, and predictable standards. I contribute to existing comparative public law and law and methods literature with an interdisciplinary framework which can help improve the design of experimental regulations and regulatory sandboxes. I draw on social science literature on the methods of field experiments to offer novel methodological insights for a more transparent and objective design of experimental regulations and regulatory sandboxes.

This article presents an interdisciplinary comparison of British and German legal arguments concerning the justification of the use of force against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). It is situated in the broader framework of research on strategic culture and the use of international law as a tool for justifying state behaviour. Thus, a gap in political science research is analysed: addressing legal arguments as essentially political in their usage. The present work questions whether differing strategic cultures will lead to a different use of legal arguments. International legal theory and content analysis are combined to sort arguments into the categories of instrumentalism, formalism and natural law. To do so, a data set consisting of all speeches with regard to the fight against ISIS made in both parliaments until the end of 2018 is analysed. It is shown that Germany and the UK, despite their varying strategic cultures, rely on similar legal justifications to a surprisingly large extent.

This essay is a scientific reflection on Leuven Restorative City (LRC). The cities, which present themselves as ‘restorative cities’, aim to ensure that restoration continues to nestle in the capillaries of our society. The article argues that realizing the LRC-promise requires restorative thinking through the meso-level of local public life. This involves reference to a number of notions that can be traced back to Ancient Greek thought in Athens, in which the intellectual virtue of ­phronesis – practical wisdom in a social and political context – is central. Citizens are seen as allies in the solution of social issues. LRC contributes to this through its focus on ‘turning conflict into opportunities’. Restorative justice wisdom is more widely applicable in society. However, the LRC process can sometimes be erratic and unpredict­able. The article points to the possible alternation of good and bad periods, and puts forward the expectation that the development of restorative practices in Leuven can be understood as cascades. In these cascades, the course of the diffusion of restorative practices is presented in terms of successive waves of learning experi­ences and knowledge sharing.

Computational analysis can be seen as the most recent innovation in the field of Empirical Legal Studies (ELS). It concerns the use of computer science and big data tools to collect, analyse and understand the large and unstructured data, such as for instance (legal) text. Given that the text is now the object of analysis, but the methods are (largely) quantitative, it lies in the intersection between doctrinal analysis and ELS. It brings with it not only a great potential to scale up research and answer old research questions, but also to reveal uncovered patterns and address new questions. Despite a slowly growing number of legal scholars who are already applying such methods, it is underutilised in the field of law. Furthermore, given that this method comes from social and computer sciences, many legal scholars are not even aware of its existence and potential. Therefore, the purpose of this special issue is not only to introduce these methods to lawyers and discuss possibilities of their application, but also to pay special attention to the challenges, with a specific emphasis on the ethical issues arising from using ‘big data’ and the challenge of building capacity to use such methods in law schools. This editorial briefly explains some of the methods which belong to the new movement of Computational Legal Analysis and provides examples of their application. It then introduces those articles included in this special issue. Finally, it provides a personal note on the way forward for lawyers within the movement of Computational Legal Analysis

The ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp are among the main European ports of entry for the import and further distribution of cocaine. Earlier research underlines the interchangeability of these ports regarding the criminal networks trafficking cocaine into Europe. In this contribution, the interchange­ability of these European sea ports regarding cocaine trafficking is questioned. Based on empirical research, and applying the routine activity approach, the Port of Rotterdam and the Port of Antwerp are compared with respect to their physical characteristics, the potential, motivated offenders, as well as the existing public and private security measures.

This paper concerns the question whether in the period 2011-2017 displacement effects occurred from the Netherlands to Belgium in the context of synthetic drugs production, cannabis cultivation, and retail of illicit drugs, and if so, how these may be explained. We conclude that displacement took place in modi operandi of retail drug dealers. This is explained foremost by the policy of banning non-residents from Dutch coffeeshops in border region municipalities. Dealers and traffickers responded by switching to local distribution in Belgium as well as deliveries by drug couriers. The synthetic drugs and cannabis cultivation markets show minor changes in modi operandi, but no changes occurred in choosing production locations. Displacement effects in the context of organized drug crime must be explained from a range of factors. Reality is therefore more complex than assuming that government interventions are the main cause of a balloon effect.

In order to advance our understanding of digital drug markets on social media, this article examines the trustworthiness of cocaine dealers on Telegram Messenger. Based on an exploratory netnography, we illustrate that digital dealers on Telegram Messenger use a number of sales tactics to attract potential customers, emphasizing the quality of the goods and service and (competitive) pricing strategies. These sales tactics include various signals that seem intended to appear as trustworthy as possible to potential customers. Seen from the perspective of signaling theory, our study highlights the ambiguity of these signals that, depending on the online observer, could both signal trustworthiness and untrustworthiness.

This article describes traits of the hitherto underexposed transit trade of cocaine via the Netherlands, based on a qualitative social network analysis of a diversity of data. Research findings show that the transit trade via the Netherlands is dominated by poly-drug trafficking. It is noteworthy that streams of predominantly mono-drugs are entering the Netherlands, while mainly streams of poly-drugs are leaving the country. Our research furthermore shows that cocaine intended for European markets may be transited via the Netherlands to European countries to which the cocaine was initially imported. This is what we refer to as ping-pong trade. Another characteristic of the transit trade of cocaine via the Netherlands is that the actors involved, mainly coordinate parts of the cocaine supply chain. Although different groups within the cocaine distribution chain collaborate, this does not necessarily mean they actually know each other. Taken together, the organization of the distributive trade of cocaine is in this article positioned as an interdependent transnational network of networks (NoN). We suggest that future research into the transit trade of cocaine should apply such a transnational NoN perspective to fully grasp the interdependence of the micro and meso levels of the trade and, in so doing, ultimately comprehend the effect this may have on the macro level.

Thought experiments have been widely used in virtually all sciences and humanities. Law is no exception. We can find countless instances of such experiments in both the legal practice and the legal theory. However, this method has hardly been studied by legal scholars, which contrasts with the vast literature devoted to it in other fields of knowledge. This article analyses the role that some thought experiments – those where an imaginary legal change is made, and its social effects are observed – may play in law. In particular, we show why these empirical legal thought experiments might be useful for the practice and theory of law, the main principles for conducting them and how the law deals with them.

De groeiende aandacht voor Empirical Legal Studies (ELS) in Nederland roept vragen op over het onderwijs in empirisch-juridische vaardigheden in ons land. Er gebeurt al het nodige op dit vlak, maar een nauwkeurige inventarisatie van welke ELS-vakken reeds concreet worden aangeboden in Nederland ontbreekt. Een dergelijk overzicht zou het mogelijk maken dat opleidingen van elkaar leren en kennis en kunde uitwisselen in plaats van het wiel opnieuw uit te vinden. Daarom hebben wij een uitgebreide rondgang gemaakt langs de diverse opleidingen aan rechtenfaculteiten, om in kaart te brengen welke vakken met aandacht voor empirische methoden reeds in het reguliere rechtencurriculum worden aangeboden. In dit artikel rapporteren wij de resultaten van deze landelijke inventarisatie en werpen een blik op de toekomst in het licht van recente discussies en ontwikkelingen die verband houden met ELS in Nederland.

For years, Dutch legal scholars have been debating about the desirability of mandatory private enforcement of irregularities and fraud by the insolvency practitioner. The assumption is that revenue-oriented insolvency practitioners impede efficient enforcement of irregularities in insolvency. The findings of our quantitative study support the assumption that insolvency practitioners do not take enforcement actions in every suspicious insolvency and that norm violations are less likely to enforced when no recourse is offered. The findings of our qualitative study indicate that there are additional explanations for this relative lack of enforcement, such as lack of renumeration and poor follow-up procedures. Therefore, although the insolvency practitioner is assumed to be of great importance in combatting irregularities in bankruptcies, we doubt the effectiveness and preventive effect of the role of the insolvency practitioner. We make various recommendations to facilitate insolvency practitioners in dealing with irregularities.

This is a case study in ‘new legal pluralism’ which is interested in the operation of plural legal orders in countries of the global North. It considers the way in which the Nigerian Igbo living in Antwerp, Belgium settle their disputes. It first presents the Antwerp Igbo’s organisation in a Union possessing a constitution with precise legal stipulations. It then finds that the Igbo take the law with them from their home region into a diasporic community. Next it looks into the concrete organisation of dispute settlement and presents five cases as exemplars. It then discusses the advantages and drawbacks of applying Igbo law and justice, the issue of women’s rights, and the plurality and flexibility of the system. The conclusion underscores the fact that legal pluralism is a universal empirical reality.

This qualitative study examines how criminal careers in cybercrime start and can be explained. Based on offender and expert interviews, the authors conclude that traditional factors linked with the initiation, such as a maturity gap (for juvenile offenders) and opportunism (for adult offenders), in combination with different types of (online) disinhibition – social, technical, situational and psychological – can explain the start of a criminal career. Features of the digital context appear to play a major role in the development of a criminal career and this requires more online supervision and education about – among other things – legal alternatives and the risks and boundaries of the online environment.

This article contains the results of a crime script analysis regarding the processes of human trafficking and human smuggling in Curaçao. The crime script analysis was conducted using data from five criminal investigations of human trafficking and seven criminal investigations of human smuggling. The results show that human trafficking in Curaçao consists of labor exploitation and sexual exploitation in bars, cafes and clubs. Young women are recruited from Colombia, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic to work as waitresses, trago girls and/or prostitutes. Once they arrive on the island, the women are dependent on the perpetrators and are subjected to exploitation In this research, two types of human smuggling have been witnessed. The first type consists of Venezuelan smugglers who transport fellow Venezuelan nationals to Curaçao by boat in exchange for payment. The second type of smugglers are Curaçao locals who rent out rooms to Venezuelans that reside on the island illegally.

The article deals with the possibility of socializing law students through space. It first indicates which features of space affect the possibility of influencing interactions and identity. It then discusses how we can use symbolic interactionism to study interactions and socialization in spaces of law faculties. Then, on the basis of the interviews conducted with law faculty students about their space perception, it shows how to research student socialization through space and how far-reaching its effects can be.

In the last decades, many Western countries have embraced an exclusionary stance towards non-members by increasingly relying on deportation. An important target of ‘crimmigration’ practices is represented by convicted foreign nationals, who are subject to deportation after serving their sentence. In Italy, trial judges can issue a deportation order towards convicted foreign nationals considered socially dangerous. This article examines whether and how deportation has found its space in judicial settings. Drawing on data collected in the court of Turin, this article sheds light on how structural and cultural traits of the Italian judicial system make deportation ‘a machine without an engine’.

Over the past decade, the concept of crimmigration has dominated legal and criminological understanding of contemporary immigration control. Drawing on the Netherlands as case study, this article provides a critical reflection on ‘crimmigration’ as both a policy trend and a scholarly trend. We argue that much of the existing scholarship has presented a one-dimensional understanding of crimmigration as a unilateral process singularly trending towards increasing punitiveness, securitization and exclusion. We examine a number of concrete examples illustrating the need for a more complex understanding that incorporates an analysis of the full range of actors and (counter)processes within the field of crimmigration.

Classic pragmatists like John Dewey entertained an encompassing notion of science. This pragmatic belief in the continuities between a scientific, ethical and cultural understanding of the world went into decline in the middle of the 20^th century. To many mid-century American and English philosophers it suggested a simplistic faith that philosophy and science could address substantive questions about values, ethics and aesthetics in a rigorous way. This critique of classic pragmatism has lost some of its force in the last few decades with the rise of neo-pragmatism, but it still has a hold over disciplines like economics and law. In this article I argue that this criticism of pragmatism is rooted in a narrow conception of what science entails and what philosophy should encompass. I primarily focus on one facet: John Dewey’s work on art and aesthetics. I explain why grappling with the world aesthetically, according to Dewey, is closely related to dealing with it scientifically, for instance, through the poetic and aesthetic development of metaphors and concepts to come to terms with reality. This makes his theory of art relevant, I argue, not only to studying and understanding law, but also to teaching law.

The aim of the present research was to gain insight into the topic of ‘task-related rule-breaking behavior’ (TRB) among Dutch police officers. TRB is a more refined alternative for the concept of noble cause corruption and has been defined as: police officers breaking rules or formal agreements for the purpose of acting in a manner that contributes to the lawful police task. Qualitative research has been conducted within one of the ten regional police forces in the Netherlands. Results show that TRB appears to be a relatively common phenomenon during policework. Behaviors are categorized in sixteen categories and five overarching outlines. In addition, attention is given to several important factors that could be related to TRB being distinguishable between police officers’ individual responsibility and organizational factors. To handle TRB, it is recommended to pay attention to the police officers’ approach of judging and rationalizing their own behavior, their level of knowledge, and social skills. Furthermore, organizational structure (i.e., spam of control) and police leadership may, among other factors, play an important role in encouraging TRB. Especially the way supervisors deal with police officers’ professional autonomy needs specific attention in order to reduce TRB. Autonomy needs guidance in the form of clear orders followed by feedback and coaching. Also, an active form of ethical leadership is needed. An action framework is presented that could be helpful to supervisors to judge and thereby reduce forms of TRB.