MASTER OF LAWS

Course Code: LAW 604

Course Title: LAW AND THE TECHNOLOGIES OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Instructor: Roger Brownsword

Title: Professor

Email:

Date Submitted: December 28, 2011

Pre-requisite/CO-REQUISITE/MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE cOURSE(S)

Elective (No Pre-Requisites)

COURSE specialisation

Elective

Grading BaSIS

Graded

Course UNIT

1 CU

FIRST offering term

Academic Year: AY2013/2014

Academic Term: Term 2 (August 2013)

COURSE DESCRIPTION

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

  • Present a rounded opinion on whether a new technology or its application needs to be regulated and, if so, how it should most adequately be regulated.
  • Present a rounded view on the issues that arise where new technologies (including code, design, and architecture) are used as regulatory instruments.
  • Write about legal interventions in a way that reflects a broader and deeper appreciation of (i) the limits of law and (ii) the way that law fits within the larger regulatory environment.

Pre-requisite/ CO-REQUISITE/ MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE cOURSE(S)

No pre-requisites

Recommended Text and Readings

There are three recommended texts as follows:

1. Roger Brownsword and Morag Goodwin,Law and the Technologies of the Twenty-First Century (1st edition),

(Cambridge University Press, 2012: Law in Context series)

2. Roger Brownsword, Rights, Regulation and the Technological Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2008)

3. Roger Brownsword and Karen Yeung (eds), Regulating Technologies (Hart, 2008)

In the Course Schedule (below), these texts are abbreviated as, respectively, LTTFC, RRTR, and RT.

The following readings are also recommended:

(A) Roger Brownsword and Han Somsen, “Law, Innovation and Technology: Before We Fast ForwardA Forum for Debate” (2009) 1 Law Innovation and Technology 1-73

(B) Roger Brownsword, “Regulating Human Enhancement: Things Can Only Get Better?” (2009) 1 Law Innovation and Technology 125-152

(C)Roger Brownsword, “Regulating the Life Sciences, Pluralism, and the Limits of Deliberative Democracy” (2010) 22 Singapore Academy of Law Journal 801-832

(D) Roger Brownsword, “Lost in Translation: Legality, Regulatory Margins, and Technological Management” (2011) 26 Berkeley Technology Law Journal 1321-1365

(E) Roger Brownsword, “Regulating Brain Imaging: Questions of Privacy and Informed Consent” in Sarah J.L. Edwards, Sarah Richmond, and Geraint Rees (eds), I Know What You Are Thinking: Brain Imaging and Mental Privacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 223-244

(F) Roger Brownsword, ‘The Shaping of Our On-Line Worlds: Getting the Regulatory Environment Right’ (2012) 20 International Journal of Law and Information Technology 249-272

In the Course Schedule (below), these readings are indicated, respectively, by ‘reading A’, ‘reading B’, ‘reading C’, ‘reading D’, ‘reading E’, and ‘reading F’.

Assessment Method

Class participation: 20%

Seminar presentation: 30%

Individual research paper: 50%

INSTRUCTIONAL MethodS AND EXPECTATIONS

(Class Participation (20%): Everyone is expected to read the given case or articles assigned for class room discussions. Creative thinking and peer learning is expected through open sharing from real work situations.

Grading criteria is not solely based on the frequency of participation but quality of meaningful inputs in the discussions.)

Important: Academic Integrity

All acts of academic dishonesty (including, but not limited to, plagiarism, cheating, fabrication, facilitation of acts of academic dishonesty by others, unauthorized possession of exam questions, or tampering with the academic work of other students) are serious offences.

All work (whether oral or written) submitted for purposes of assessment must be the student’s own work. Penalties for violation of the policy range from zero marks for the component assessment to expulsion, depending on the nature of the offence.

When in doubt, students should consult the instructors of the course. Details onthe SMU Code of Academic Integrity may be accessed at

COURSE SCHEDULE

Session / Topic / Readings (tba)
1 / Introduction: the patentability of biotechnological inventive processes and products. / 1. LTTFC Ch 1; RRTR Ch 1; and reading A
2 / Regulating technologies and regulating technologies.Regulatory environments: UK Biobank and the EGC / 2. LTTFC Ch 2 and reading F
3 / Four regulatory challenges: regulating performance enhancing technologies / 3. LTTFC Ch 3; reading B
4 / Technology as a regulatory tool: the Marper case / 4. LTTFC Ch 4; RT (Bowling et al)
5 / Regulatory prudence: nanotechnologies / 5. LTTFC Chs 5-6; RT (Somsen)
6 / Regulatory legitimacy: class discussion of the Brüstle case at the European Court of Justice / 6. LTTFC Chs 7-10; RRTR Chs 2-4; and reading C
7 /
Regulatory effectiveness
/ 7. Chs LTTFC 11-14
8 / Regulatory connection: class discussion of the Austrian IVF case at the European Court of Human Rights / 8. LTTFC Chs 15-16; RRTR Ch 6
9 / Regulating by design: code as law / 9. LLTFC Ch 17; RRTR Chs 8-11; RT (Yeung); and reading D
10 / Neuroscience and the law; seminar presentations / Reading E

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