Het publiekrecht (bestuursrecht) kan op verschillende wijzen doorwerken in het privaatrecht, onder meer via privaatrechtelijke open normen en het behartigen van publieke belangen door private entiteiten. Beide nemen een grote vlucht. Dat creëert nieuwe uitdagingen in het grensgebied tussen het (internationale en nationale) publiek- en privaatrecht.

The theme of governing anti-social behaviour and incivilities in the public space became more important on the policy and research agenda over the last twenty years. This article describes the law on incivilities in Belgium, namely the ‘administrative communal sanctions’ (GAS). This law is studied in a broader context of contemporary crime control and its organizing patterns. The development of the politics of behaviour can be explained by different characteristics of the period referred to as the late modernity. In the dissertation ‘A culture of control?’ (Devroe 2012) we studied the application and the concrete strategies behind the governance of incivilities on a national and on a city level. The incivility law broadened the competences of the Mayor and the city council especially in the completion of anti social behaviour and public disorder problems in his/her municipality. Instead of being dealt with on a traditional judicial way by the police magistrate, the Mayor can, by this law; himself lay on fines until maximum 250 euro. We mention ‘city republics’ as this punitive sanction became a locally assigned matter, which means that one municipality differs from another in their ‘incivility policy’. Due to the split up of competences of the Belgian state arrangements of 1988, each municipality finds itself framed in different political and organisational executive realities. In this view, Mayors can be called ‘presidents’ of their own municipality, keeping and controlling the process of tackling incivilities as their main responsibility and determining what behaviour had to be controlled and punished and what behaviour can be considered as normal decent behaviour in the public space. Problems of creating a ‘culture of control’, creating inequality for the poor, the beggars and the socially ‘unwanted’ can arise, especially in big cities.

Private administration of justice is an online and offline reality. In this article the reality of online dispute resolution (ODR) is explored, using the example of eBay (60 million conflicts taken on each year). The issue of jurisdiction in online cases is clarified and an analysis is made of the causes of the propagation of ODR. Finally the new phenomenon of online dispute prevention (ODP) is examined. This leads to the conclusion that ODR started as an alternative form of dispute settlement, but more and more becomes a substitute for the public administration of justice.

Changing public safety problems as well as an increasing societal demand for public safety made way for new policy approaches. During the 1990s, the so called ‘integral safety approach’ was introduced in the Netherlands. This approach manifested itself mainly on the municipal level where the mayor is being held responsible for managing public safety and order. The central question raised in this article is: what are the consequences of an integral approach to public safety problems for the mayor when managing local order and public safety? We will demonstrate that ‘integrality’ is no clear cut concept. Careful inspection of the concept learns that it has multiple meanings. Of these various meanings, especially the ambition to address public safety problems by means of ‘new alliances’ characterized the actual implementation of integral policies. However, working together within these new alliances uniting various more or less independent actors from both the public and private sector, seemed to be hampered by a lack of coordination and control. In that sense, the introduction of the integral approach had consequences for steering and control of public safety policies. These consequences have to be addressed, especially by the mayor who is accountable for local order and safety. The mayor had attributed to him – first in practice, soon by law as well – the role of director of public safety policy on the municipal level. However, as we will demonstrate in this article, the mayor lacks an important trait needed for effective directorship: decisive powers. Therefore the mayor is not able to realize effective cooperation between partners within the new alliances of the integral approach to public safety problems. As a potential solution, we will describe the characteristics of a ‘model of anticipation’ granting the mayor a certain level of decisive powers to be used as an ultimum remedium.

The last decade the wearing of face hiding clothes has come up as a rather new phenomenon in the Netherlands and surrounding countries. Although not that many people wear them, a rather wide aversion exists against this phenomenon and is directed especially against the Islamic burqa. A rather intensive public and political debat is going on concerning the allowance of those clothes. In different countries, among which the Netherlands, France and Belgium, the legislator is drafting laws which aim to forbid the wearing of these clothes. This article gives an overview of the debate on this issue in especially the aforementioned countries and reflects upon it, with a special focus on the freedom of belief and religion.

De Nederlandse overheid ziet met lede ogen aan dat consumenten via internet en zonder tussenkomst van medisch specialisten of andere deskundigen hun genenkaart laten ontcijferen. Dit onderzoek gebeurt door bedrijven die in andere landen zijn gevestigd, dan wel gebruik maken van de diensten van elders gevestigden. De consument krijgt aldus informatie over de kans op het krijgen van erfelijke aandoeningen. Deze onlineverkoop staat op gespannen voet met de Nederlandse wetgeving. Vandaar ook deze ‘buitenlandroute’,waarmee consumenten én bedrijven de Nederlandse regels betrekkelijk eenvoudig kunnen omzeilen. Deze bijdrage onderzoekt de ruimte van Nederland als EU-lidstaat om het aanbod van commerciële genoomanalyse te reguleren. De Nederlandse wetgeving wordt tegelijkertijd langs de Europese meetlat gelegd en blijkt niet EU-proof te zijn.

Dit artikel beschrijft wat inspectiediensten verstaan onder systeemtoezicht en hoe zij dit toepassen. Er blijken grote verschillen te zijn in zowel de gebruikte definities als in de praktische toepassing. De toezichthouder kan met behulp van systeemtoezicht, mits juist toegepast, ervoor zorgen dat grote bedrijven maatschappelijke belangen borgen in hun organisatie. De toezichthouder moet hierbij enerzijds niet te goedgelovig zijn en altijd fysieke controles blijven doen. Anderzijds moet hij ervoor waken niet overmatig te controleren waardoor de voordelen van systeemtoezicht weer teniet zouden worden gedaan. Systeemtoezicht en bestraffing verdragen elkaar slecht doordat bestraffing het leereffect negatief kan beïnvloeden.