Some people have become disenchanted with modern bureaucratic forms and modern governments, and in their attempts to imagine an alternative, have joined the sovereign citizen counterpublic, a right-leaning movement comprised of loosely affiliated groups rejecting the validity of national laws that are present in the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and other countries. These groups focus their energies on legal systems as they resist modern institutions and have developed a shared semiotic ideology about how legal language works and how legal texts should be interpreted. This semiotic ideology hinges upon a particular form of semiotic determinacy; our article unpacks its implications. Sovereign citizens’ ideology is antithetical to how institutionally entrenched actors understand the interplay of semiotic determinacy and indeterminacy in legal contexts, which leads their logics and historical narratives to resonate with conspiracy theories. We conclude by exploring how this counterpublic re-configures older strands of Enlightenment and Protestant Reformation logics as resistance in this neoliberal moment.

Prominent scholars have complained of inadequate clarity and agreement on what transactions are, and how their costs are measured. This two-part article explores this topic and suggests an alternative approach. This part examines different meanings of transaction cost used by leading scholars in this area, including John R. Commons, Ronald H. Coase, Oliver E. Williamson, Douglas C. North, Douglas W. Allen, and Yoram Barzel. It reveals prominent usages of the term that differ in several important respects. A sharper approach might focus on legal contracts and exchanges of legal titles, as suggested by Harold Demsetz. That option is explored further in Part II.

The tenth anniversary of the publication of Lawrence Gostin’s seminal treatise Global Health Law affords us the opportunity to reflect on his enduring legacy as a preeminent scholar, and one of the field’s founding thought leaders.

In the decade since the first edition of Global Health Law was published, the world has moved incrementally towards global health with justice, at least by one basic metric: life expectancy has edged up globally, with more rapid gains in low- than high-income countries. But to look around the world, global health with justice still seems a distant dream. Health gaps between people in rich and poor countries remain shocking and unconscionable—as do health inequities within countries. The pandemic also gave salience to profound health injustices—from injustices in access to lifesaving vaccines to gaping disparities in morbidity and mortality based on income, race, and national origin. So did the Trump administration’s decision to pause, and then slash, foreign assistance, bringing an end to lifesaving programs around the world. Guided by the overarching theme of justice, these reflections canvass the history of global health law as a field and discuss developments and challenges in the field across four core themes: multilateralism; equitable distribution of the benefits of scientific advancement; global health law for the poly-crises; and human rights and equity.

In this work, I contribute to the debate on the status and legitimacy of principled disobedience in a democratic polity. After introducing the notion, I move to argue that principled disobedience can be framed not only as a moral and political stance but also, and without contradiction, as a legal requirement. As a result, it will be maintained that not only can we engage in principled disobedience without necessarily violating our legal obligations, but these obligations may actually mandate principled disobedience. This framing of the problem of principled lawbreaking makes the proposed discussion distinctive and original in virtue of its claim—namely, that we may have not only a moral justification to disobey the law but a legal obligation to do so, an obligation to break the law on principled legal grounds.

Multiple factors aligning in 2025 implicate challenges to vaccines as a primary public health intervention. Anti-vaccine proponents seek to recast immunization policies in promotion of perceived individual liberties. Recalibrating national vaccine approaches, however, runs counter to long-standing public health laws and policies grounded in a core truth: safe and effective vaccines save lives.

Anosognosia, commonly understood as a lack of insight, renders individuals with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder unable to understand that they are living with a disease, often resulting in a refusal to accept treatment. Typically, to impose involuntary commitment in an effort to obtain treatment, an individual must be a danger to others or themselves. Even if involuntary commitment is imposed, however, an individual may remain competent to refuse medication—despite symptoms of anosognosia and an inability to understand that they are ill. This article examines the existing legal theories of competency and informed consent and proposes a statutory definition of competency that encompasses the specific needs of people with anosognosia, while considering the significant interests at stake when taking away an individual’s right to choose or refuse treatment.

Kant’s position in analytical jurisprudence has not been sufficiently explored. This paper aims to remedy this shortcoming. The main issue in this paper is to which extent Kant’s legal theory is an instance of natural law theory or legal positivism. Robert Alexy is one of the few philosophers who addressed this issue. Alexy believes that Kant defends a version of natural law theory that puts moral limits on legal validity. I show that Alexy’s interpretation is unsuccessful. I argue that Kant defends the positivist separability thesis that norms need not meet moral requirements to qualify as legal norms.

Academics and policymakers alike have identified data taxes as a possible response to the emergence of the data economy. This essay aims to distill the two possible goals of a data tax. A data tax could serve as a Pigouvian tax, reducing data collection and the accompanying harms of datafication. Alternately, a data tax could serve as a new tax base, allowing for more effective revenue-raising and redistribution of the economic value being created in the data economy and preventing the concentration of economic power in the hands of digital companies. Which of these two is the primary goal of a data tax not only informs important design choices but also illuminates critical issues surrounding the political economic response to datafication. Therefore, advocates of data taxes must first consider the underlying goal of a data tax before calling for specific reforms.

A core issue for media outlets and politicians since the assassination of Abe Shinzō has been monetary transactions between religious organizations and their current or former members. Anxieties surrounding religion's role in the public sphere have informed legal arguments about consumer issues. A category of fraud called “spiritual sales” has become a particular concern. In this article, I describe how interpretations of consumer law have been instrumental in dealing with spiritual sales and I discuss reasons why problematic consumption practices associated with religions that have attracted intense criticism have led the Japanese government to comprehensively revise regulatory protections as they reassess consumer vulnerabilities.