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• Editorial Board 2024.

Table of Contents

• Editorial Board 2024.

The Rights of Minority Women Before the European Court of Human Rights: Critical review in light of the practice of the UN Human Rights Comitee and other international human rights bodiesWomen from ethnic, national, religious, and cultural minorities face distinct legal challenges in their struggle for gender equality. They are at constant risk of multiple discrimination as minority women, particularly with regard to their identity and religious rights. This is evident in matters of inheritance, wearing religious items in public, and issues related to sexual and domestic violence. International approaches to this problem are fragmented, with the ECtHR, UN HRC, and other international human rights bodies taking different approaches. This article will critically discuss the status of minority women’s rights in the jurisprudence of the ECtHR and will reflect on what the Court could learn from the practices of the UN HRC and other international human rights bodies.

• Ivana Jelić [ Judge of the European Court of Human Rights, Section President and Vice President Elect ]

Artificial Reason and Artificial Intelligence: the Legal Reasoning Capabilities of GPT-4Despite the widespread adoption of generative transformer large language models and the interest of the global legal community, discussions about the models in philosophy of law mainly have been focusing on what LLMs cannot do. In making the first steps towards a philosophical analysis of the capabilities of AI models in the field of law, we follow the basic idea of Turing’s „imitation game“. Proceeding from the frequently raised characterization of legal reasoning as „artificial“, the paper identifies the undisputed minimum core of the „artificiality“ thesis and asks to what extent it can be imitated by artificial intelligence. To answer this question, we test the legal reasoning capabilities of ChatGPT, the most advanced, up-to-date LLM version of artificial intelligence. The conclusion is that in all relevant types of activities usually associated with legal reasoning – fact-finding, interpretation, qualification, and decision making – ChatGPT can generate outcomes as if it reasons legally.

• Bojan Spaić [ University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, Serbia ]
• Miodrag Jovanović [ University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, Serbia ]

Intersex Rights in the Western Balkans And GreeceIn 2022 Greece became the fifth country in the world to ban harmful interventions and treatments on intersex infants and children. Previously, Malta, Portugal, Germany and Iceland also legally banned harmful interventions on intersex persons. A crucial difference between Greece and the rest of the aforementioned countries is that it is a Christian Orthodox country located in Southeastern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Drawing from a contextual approach to law, in this comparative analysis the authors will use „contextuality“ to explore the meaning behind legal developments that took place in Greece regarding intersex rights and how they could potentially impact the overall situation of intersex rights in the Balkans. In addition, with this paper the authors seek to relocate the dominant focus of intersex rights from Western and Northern Europe with the aim to boost awareness of intersex issues in the Western Balkan region, especially Serbia.

• Nikoletta Pikramenou [ University of Warsaw Krakowskie Przedmieście, Poland ]
• Jelena Simić [ Union University School of Law Belgrade, Serbia ]

Comparative View of Public Promise of Reward A public promise of reward occurs when an individual publicly promises a reward to an unspecified number of people, achieving a certain outcome. Nevertheless, further discussion is limited without considering the applicable law. Legislators address in different ways the arousal of promisor’s obligation, its nature, and the mechanisms of protection for the performer’s interests. The cause of these drastic differences lies in the legislator’s (dis)approval of a unilateral declaration of intent as a source of obligation. If it is acknowledged that a unilateral declaration of intent can obligate the declarant, a public promise of reward is considered a unilateral legal act. This interpretation is upheld in Germanic, Swiss, and Italian law. Conversely, in legal systems where this view is not accepted, the public promise of a reward is treated as an offer to form a contract. Notable examples of such legal systems are the English and French law.

• Ksenija DžIPKOVIĆ [ University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, Serbia ]

Elements of Statehood of the Independent State of Croatia (1941–1945)The historical phenomenon of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) is subjected to a basic legal theory analysis, which showed that this Nazi creation, at least to a minimal extent, possessed all the elements of statehood. On a large part of its territory, the Ustasha regime had a monopoly of physical force and was able to implement its basic political purposes. In this regard, the organization of terror against a large number of its inhabitants, which implied a completely new legislation, the formation of new judicial, police and other authorities, the organization of the camp system and railway transport, etc., proves a sufficient measure of the efficiency and regularity of the actions of the NDH state government. Such action produced wartime chaos, which eventually resulted in the loss of elements of statehood, with the creation of a new Yugoslav state in its territory.

• Miloš Zdravković [ University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, Serbia ]

Decision on the election to the judicial function and its review by Constitutional court The paper explores the review of decisions on the election to judicial functions. The candidate may file an appeal on the decision on the election to the judicial function to the Constitutional Court within 15 days from the day of the publication of the decision in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, which excludes the right to submit a constitutional appeal. Appeal to the Constitutional Court suspends the enforcement of the decision, which means that the elected candidate cannot take office before the appeal is decided. The scope of the Constitutional Court review has been limited to proper execution of powers by the High Judicial Council, following procedure provided for in the Law on Judges and the quality of reasoning in decisions on the election to the judicial function. So far, all appeals submitted to the Constitutional Court have been dismissed as manifestly ill-founded.

• Nikola BODIROGA [ University of Belgrade Faculty of Law ]

Hershovitz, Scott. 2023. Law Is a Moral Practice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 256.

• Kenneth Einar Himma [ University of Zagreb Faculty of Law, Croatia ]

Kertzer, David I. 2022. The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler. New York: Random House, 788.

• Boris Begović [ University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, Serbia ]