E. Palmerini

Regulating robotics : A challenge for Europe

Upon request by the JURI Committee, this paper aims at offering an analysis of the interplay between regulation and robotics in the European context. Since robotics represents a technological innovation, which will profoundly modify the societal structure, and a strategic market sector, the need for a legal appraisal and intervention emerge. The European Union is called to design a transparent and carefully tailored regulatory environment so as to influence the development of robotic applications in accordance with its core democratic values.

RoboLaw: Towards a European framework for robotics regulation

Abstract This paper intends to sum up the main findings of the European project RoboLaw. In this paper, the authors claim that the European Union should play a pro-active policy role in the regulation of technologies so as to inform the development of technologies with its values and principles. The paper provides an explication of the rationale for analysing of a limited and heterogeneous number of robotics applications. For these applications, the following issues are addressed: whether robotics deserve a special case of regulation; the direct and indirect role ethics can play in regulating technology; the transformations of both vulnerabilities and capabilities, and the effects of liability law in favouring the socially relevant applications. In conclusion, a reflection on the possibility to generalize some of the RoboLaw findings to other technologies is proposed, with respect to liability and ethics.

Regulatory challenges of robotics: some guidelines for addressing legal and ethical issues

ABSTRACT Robots are slowly, but certainly, entering people’s professional and private lives. They require the attention of regulators due to the challenges they present to existing legal frameworks and the new legal and ethical questions they raise. This paper discusses four major regulatory dilemmas in the field of robotics: how to keep up with technological advances; how to strike a balance between stimulating innovation and the protection of fundamental rights and values; whether to affirm prevalent social norms or nudge social norms in a different direction; and, how to balance effectiveness versus legitimacy in techno-regulation. The four dilemmas are each treated in the context of a particular modality of regulation: law, market, social norms, and technology as a regulatory tool; and for each, we focus on particular topics – such as liability, privacy, and autonomy – that often feature as the major issues requiring regulatory attention. The paper then highlights the role and potential of the European framework of rights and values, responsible research and innovation, smart regulation and soft law as means of dealing with the dilemmas.

A legal perspective on body implants for therapy and enhancement

This paper focuses on the regulation of body and neural implants used in healthcare. The current state of these ICT body implants is outlined, and the adequacy of the relevant legal regime regulating these implants is assessed in light of the ongoing scientific and technological advances in this field. Regulatory gaps are discussed, with a particular emphasis placed on clinical investigations with brain computer interfaces and advanced prosthetics, in order to better understand whether such gaps reduce innovation and act as an institutional barrier that diminishes the opportunities for the development of valuable technologies. Finally, the divide between therapy/treatment and enhancement/augmentation is examined in order to distinguish between the various kinds of body implants, in terms of the rules they ought to comply with and the limits that ought to be set.

The interplay between law and technology, or the RoboLaw project in context

The RoboLaw project – whose full title is Regulating Emerging Robotic Technologies in Europe: Robotics Facing Law and Ethics – intends to investigate the ways in which emerging technologies in the field of biorobotics have a bearing on the national and European legal systems, challenging traditional legal categories and qualifications, posing risks to fundamental rights and freedoms that have to be considered, and more generally demanding a regulatory ground on which they can be developed and eventually launched.1 Building on the perception of a pressing need for a legal framework to accompany the development of robotic technologies, the aim of the research is to outline a comprehensive analysis of the current state-ofthe-art of regulation pertaining to robotics in different legal systems, in order to understand whether new regulation is needed or whether the problems posed by robotic technologies can be handled within the framework of existing laws. Robotics is a wide and multi-faceted domain, which crosses boundaries between disciplines and encompasses biotechnology, nanotechnology, and neuro-technology. The ambition to achieve a thorough overview of the legal implications of robotics therefore