This paper examines the historical development and contemporary landscape of Islamic financial law in Central Asia. Rooted in Sharia principles such as avoiding riba (usury), gharar (uncertainty), and maysir (gambling), Islamic finance has evolved into a sophisticated framework that promotes equity, transparency, and social welfare. In Central Asia, a predominantly Muslim region shaped by diverse cultural influences, Islamic financial jurisprudence reflects a unique blend of traditional practices and modern regulations. The growth of Islamic finance in this region is driven by increasing awareness, regulatory support, and integration with global markets. Key principles like the prohibition of interest, risk-sharing, and asset-backed financing underpin the operations of Islamic financial institutions.

Case studies from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan illustrate successful implementation strategies. The paper concludes by emphasizing the potential for Islamic finance to drive sustainable economic development in Central Asia and the need for ongoing research, collaboration, and policy support to navigate the complex dynamics of this evolving field.

Young people with intellectual disability (ID) frequently have challenges with self-regulation that impact their success and participation in daily life. As they often require additional support with self-regulation, it is important to consider regulatory function and skill development within the context of co-regulatory interactions with caregivers. This scoping review aimed to identify factors associated with improved self-regulation and co-regulation in young people with ID. The review was conducted using Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) framework, with 142 full-text records reviewed and critically appraised. The diverse factors that affect regulatory function in young people with ID fit within the five categories identified in the model of factors contributing to self-regulation enactment — biology, skills, motivation, caregiver support, and environmental context — highlighting the relevance of this model to regulatory function for this population. This review’s findings allow this model to be refined further for young people with ID, identifying the unique factors contributing to self-regulation enactment for this population and intervention characteristics that may support regulatory function for these individuals.

The Australian debate over Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) sharpened in 2023 because Australian mining billionaire Clive Palmer, having previously registered his mining company in Singapore, has claimed to be a Singaporean investor. He is using ISDS provisions in the 2012 ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement and the amended 2017 Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement to sue the Australian government for a total of A$410 billion in three separate claims. This article uses Cox’s critical theory framework developed by Schneiderman to explain the historical development and power dynamics of ISDS, the contest between its business supporters and social movement critics, and the impact of this contest on governments. It then analyses the Palmer claims and explores the global debate about ISDS, including its increased use by fossil fuel companies against government regulation of carbon emissions, which has led to increased resistance from social movements and governments. ISDS is also being reviewed by the United Nations and World Bank institutions which provide arbitrators for its tribunals and by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The conclusion assesses the debate over whether ISDS can be reformed and its future viability.

Currently, scholars hold that the government’s principal contribution to the California wine industry’s recovery from Prohibition in the 1930s was to get out of the way, freeing entrepreneurs to conduct business properly; according to this interpretation, the United States only taxed the product and impeded progress. But this article argues that in the areas of regulation, promotion, and protection of the wine industry, the federal government provided a framework for California winemakers to succeed and that, moreover, it often did so at their request and in cooperation with them. Though New Deal laws and regulations did not benefit all stakeholders equally, they did work to bring economic recovery to an industry that suffered from both Prohibition and the Depression.

Trust between constituent actors within the European Union (EU)’s multilevel regulatory regimes is decisive for regulatory success. Trust drives information flows, increases compliance, and improves cooperation within these regimes. Despite its importance, systematic knowledge regarding the drivers of trust within regulatory regimes is limited. This paper inquires whether trust in regulatory agencies is influenced by their affiliation with the national or EU governmental level, as well as by their performance. While existing literature predominantly focuses on why citizens place their trust in governments or regulatory agencies, this paper presents original insights regarding the formation of trust among elites within the regulatory regime, including politicians, ministerial officials, agency officials, interest groups, and regulated entities. We employ data obtained from a large-scale vignette experiment conducted in six countries involving 752 decision-makers from relevant organizations. The experimental results suggest that both public and private elite actors’ trust assessment of regulatory agencies does not hinge on cues associated with the governmental level, but rather depends on agency performance. Accordingly, belonging to the national or EU governmental level does not create a difference in trust assessment of regulatory agencies in itself. It, however, shows that particularly elite actors are rather sensitive in terms of the performance of a regulatory agency.

Farmers struggle to combat uncertain climate issues while encountering pressure on conventional farming practices that lead to carbon emissions, water and soil pollution, and other environmental harms. A growing body of literature investigated circular economy and sustainable practices to support environmental-friendly agriculture activities while providing opportunities for farmers to improve their farm income. Therefore, a study synthesizing previous literature while identifying actual policy to boost farmers’ implementation of sustainable agriculture is worthwhile. Using the Systematic Literature Review analysis, this paper aims to identify farmers’ views on climate change adaptation and mitigation, challenges in implementing circular economy and sustainable practices, and policies to support farmers’ transition toward sustainable agriculture in developed and developing countries. We found that (1) farmers’ awareness of climate change, knowledge and skills are prominent for adapting and mitigating climate change in both types of countries, (2) farmland size, risks of income loss, and training and extension services influenced farmers’ adaptation and mitigation strategies for climate change in developing countries, (3) farmers in both types of countries experienced uncertainty in economic profits and legislative issues when adopting sustainable practices, while farmers in developing countries issued significant up-front expenses to acquire technology to adopt sustainable practices, (4) financial access and incentives through policy can be valuable to develop sustainable livelihoods, especially for farm households.

This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities in accessing data to improve workplace relations law enforcement, with reference to minimum employment standards such as wages and working hours regulation. Our paper highlights some innovative examples of government and trade union efforts to collect and use data to improve the detection of noncompliance. These examples reveal the potential of data science as a compliance tool but also suggest the importance of realizing a data ecosystem that is capable of being utilized by machine learning applications. The effectiveness of using data and data science tools to improve workplace law enforcement is impacted by the ability of regulatory actors to access useful data they do not collect or hold themselves. Under “open data” principles, government data is increasingly made available to the public so that it can be combined with nongovernment data to generate value. Through mapping and analysis of the Australian workplace relations data ecosystem, we show that data availability relevant to workplace law compliance falls well short of open data principles. However, we argue that with the right protocols in place, improved data collection and sharing will assist regulatory actors in the effective enforcement of workplace laws.

Cybersecurity of medical devices has become a concrete concern for regulators and policymakers in the European Union and United States. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in cyber-attacks on critical healthcare infrastructures and their IT systems, which have suffered service disruptions and put patients’ health and safety at risk. The increase in cyberattacks on healthcare infrastructure, including medical devices, exacerbated by the growing digitalisation of healthcare services in the EU and the US, has led legislators and regulatory bodies to pay more attention to cybersecurity. Cybersecurity of AI-based medical devices requires the assessment of three areas subject to evolving regulatory approaches: medical devices, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and cybersecurity. Although they may appear distinguished in regulatory matters, the existence of AI-based medical devices and their possible cyber vulnerabilities makes clear that the three are intertwined and deserve closer attention from a regulatory point of view. Few scholars have devoted attention to AI and cybersecurity together. Even less, in our understanding, few comprehensive and EU/US comparative pieces of literature reflect on this specific issue. This paper aims to fill this gap and address the main implications of different regulatory approaches toward AI medical device cybersecurity in the EU and the US. The research stems from the assumption that regulation of medical devices in the EU has been historically inspired by regulatory trends in the US, although with the different cultural, societal, and legal traditions that made them adapt to the specificities of the territory. The paper observes that the US is a rule-based system reflecting a “command-and-control” approach, while the EU system is a principle-based one. While they share the main characteristic of being risk-regulation-based systems, their differences impact how AI-enhanced cybersecurity is regulated.

Extant research often assumes that the letter of labour codes is an adequate proxy for effective regulation. This paper empirically shows that such an assumption makes little sense for Senegal. We collect new objective measures of private and public labour enforcement, including workers’ awareness of their rights, access to the judiciary, penalties, and labour inspection resources and activities. We document that Senegal, as well as other countries in Francophone West Africa, is characterised by a combination of protective/stringent in-form labour codes and little enforcement efforts. Furthermore, we show that labour inspections target large and registered firms, while labour violations are more prevalent in small and unregistered firms, implying that the problem is substantially more complex than a lack of public inspection funding. We speculate it is mostly about the lack of effective representation of vulnerable workers in the policymaking process.

Regulatory impact assessment (RIA) is an appraisal tool to bring evidence to bear on regulatory decisions. A key property of RIA is that is corrects errors in reasoning by pushing regulators towards deliberative thinking to override intuitive judgments. However, the steps for regulatory analysis suggested by international organisations and governmental handbooks do not handle two sources of bias and barriers that are well documented in the literature on behavioural insights. First, bias enters the process via knowledge production during the analytical process of assessment. Second, bias affects knowledge utilisation when regulators “read” or utilise the results of RIA. We explore these two pathways by focusing on drivers of behaviour rather than lists of biases. The conclusions reflect on the limitations of current practice and its possible improvement, making suggestions for an RIA architecture that is fully informed by behavioural analysis.