CYIL vol. 11 (2020)

JAKUB HANDRLICA CYIL 11 (2020) predicting the future design and content of law. 2 An extensive survey on the future of various legal disciplines has been done in the past, under a project entitled “The law of the future and the future of law”, which was conducted by the Hague Institute for International Law. The two books published under umbrella of this project (in 2011 3 and 2012 4 ) addressed future prospects of various fields of law – inter alia civil law, commercial law, constitutional law, environmental law, etc. This study aims to link the scholarship of legal futurism with that of international nuclear law. 5 It understands international nuclear law as a specific branch of international public law, which is very similar to international aviation law, international space law, international environmental law etc. All are products of the scientific and technological developments of the law during the course of the 2 nd half of the last century. 6 However, while the latter mentioned fields of international public law have already been analysed from the viewpoint of legal futurism in legal scholarship, the area of international nuclear law still awaits a more comprehensive analysis. 7 This article aims to reflect this gap in literature. Further, it aims to offer a contribution of the domestic scholarship into the ongoing academic discussion on legal futurism. Two different approaches are being distinguished in the existing scholarship on legal futurism. 8 Firstly, an approach that predicts that the key existing institutes of law 9 will continue to be applicable. Secondly, there is another approach that argues for a replacement of these institutes in the future. This article is based upon the first of these two approaches. 2 For more detailed information on “legal futurism” (or “legal futurology”) see (i) FUNK, David A. “Legal Futurology: The Field and its Literature” (1980) 73 Law Library Journal 625-627, (ii) WIDDISON, Robin “Electronic Law Practice: An Exercise in Legal Futurology” (1997) 60 Modern Law Review 143-156, (iii) TINCANI, Persio “Law and the future of Europe” (2019) 8 Rivista di Filosofia del Diritto – Journal of Legal Philosophy 3, (iv) TRACHTMAN, Joel P. The Future of International Law (Cambridge University Press 2013) 66-84 (see in particular the chapter entitled “The Futurology of International Law”). (v) BEEBE, Barton “Fair Use and Legal Futurism” (2013) 25 Law & Literature 10. 3 MULLER, Sam, ZOURIDIS, Stavros, FRISHMAN, Morly and KISTEMAKER, Laura (eds.) The law of the future and the future of the law (Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher 2011). 4 MULLER, Sam, ZOURIDIS, Stavros, FRISHMAN, Morly and KISTEMAKER, Laura (eds.) The law of the future and the future of the law: Volume II. (Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher 2012). 5 For the terminology (“nuclear law” vs. “atomic law”) see HANDRLICA, Jakub ‘“Atomic Law” or “Nuclear Law”? An Academic Discussion Revisited’ (2018) 5 BRICS Law Journal 135-151. 6 See LAMM, Vanda The Utilization of Nuclear Law and International Law (Akadémiai Kiadó 1984) 20 and more recently HANDRLICA, Jakub “Nuclear law revisited as an academic discipline” (2019) Journal of World Energy Law and Business 52. 7 Some aspects of the prospective future developments in nuclear law were addressed by (i) PELZER, Norbert “Nuclear New Build: NewNuclear Law?” (2009) 2 Nuclear Law Bulletin 5, (ii) REYNERS, Patrick “Underground Nuclear Repositories and International Civil Liability: The Time Factor” (2014) Journal of Risk Research 133, (iii) HANDRLICA, Jakub “Hurdling towards the pyramids of the nuclear age: A study in legal futurism” (2019) 10 Czech Yearbook of Public and Private International Law 285. 8 SMITS, Jan M. “Whither the Future of Law?” in: MULLER, Sam, ZOURIDIS, Stavros, FRISHMAN, Morly and KISTEMAKER, Laura (eds.) The law of the future and the future of the law: Volume II. (Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher 2012) 469. 9 I.e. State as the original source of the jurisdiction to prescribe and of the jurisdiction to enforce, distinction between the public law and the private law, etc.

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