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POSTS BY Christoph Winter
19 August 2022
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In Dubio Pro Futura

This post introduces a proposal to promote the long-term interests of humanity and to avert existential and other catastrophic risks, such as those resulting from extreme climate change, pandemics and unaligned artificial intelligence, through the adoption of a novel legal decision rule: in dubio pro futura. In the face of legal indeterminacy, when the law does not provide a single correct answer but a range of several acceptable answers, courts should choose the one most favorable to the future of humanity. Continue reading >>
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09 August 2022
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Is Legal Longtermism Common Sense?

The past decade has seen a growing interest in protecting future generations from risks associated with climate change, pandemics, artificial intelligence, and other potential threats. Philosophical theories have developed in parallel, and those associated with the view that one should be particularly concerned with ensuring that the long-run future goes well have been referred to as longtermism. In the context of law, these theories form the basis for legal longtermism, the set of views associated with the claim that law and legal institutions ought to protect the far future. Based on a pair of recent empirical studies we show that legal experts and laypeople alike believe that the law should protect the long-term future much more than it currently does; that legal experts believe that the law can predictably and feasibly protect the long-term future; and that these beliefs hold true across major demographic subgroups. Continue reading >>
17 June 2019
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Of Chicks and Men

Mit Urteil vom 13. Juni 2019 hat das Bundesverwaltungsgericht im Revisionsverfahren um die rechtliche Zulässigkeit der millionenfachen Tötung von Eintagsküken entschieden: Das Töten männlicher Küken ist tierschutzrechtlich „nur noch übergangsweise“ zulässig, bis „voraussichtlich in Kürze“ ein marktreifes Verfahren zur Geschlechtsbestimmung im Ei zur Verfügung steht. Obschon die Begründung noch nicht im Volltext vorliegt, sollen im Folgenden einige Schlaglichter auf dieses, aus tierschutzrechtlicher Sicht kritikwürdige, Urteil geworfen werden. Continue reading >>