Quando si parla dell’accordo sulla Groenlandia, ho l’impressione che si finisca spesso per discutere delle dichiarazioni di Donald Trump più che di ciò che i governi hanno effettivamente sottoscritto. La differenza, in questo caso, non è marginale. Il 13 ottobre, Trump è tornato a parlare della Groenlandia come della «nostra» isola e ha annunciato imminenti
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In 1981, the Police released Too Much Information, a track from their album Ghost in the Machine. That song, and the album as a whole, have always meant a great deal to me. I was twelve or thirteen at the time, and the music has stayed bound up with memories of those years. Listening to it again
Continue reading Too Much Information: Why More Information Doesn’t Necessarily Help Us Understand the World

The Trump administration’s decision to allow Russian diesel imports for a limited period raises a question that goes beyond energy prices or the merits of easing economic pressure on Moscow. Can the executive branch use an administrative license to authorize conduct that Congress has prohibited by statute? The answer requires distinguishing the original executive order,
Continue reading Russian diesel imports: the conflict between a congressional ban and an OFAC license

La decisione dell’amministrazione Trump di autorizzare temporaneamente le importazioni di gasolio russo pone un problema che non riguarda soltanto l’opportunità politica di attenuare la pressione economica sulla Russia. Il punto è se l’esecutivo possa consentire, mediante una licenza amministrativa, operazioni che una legge del Congresso ha espressamente vietato. Per comprendere la questione occorre distinguere tre
Continue reading Importazioni di gasolio russo: il conflitto tra legge del Congresso e autorizzazione dell’OFAC

L’Unione europea ha progressivamente costruito un regime sanzionatorio specificamente rivolto alle attività di destabilizzazione riconducibili alla Russia. Non si tratta soltanto di un’ulteriore articolazione delle misure adottate dopo l’aggressione contro l’Ucraina. Il presupposto delle restrizioni è differente: colpire condotte che incidono sulla sicurezza, sulla stabilità e sul funzionamento delle istituzioni democratiche, anche quando sono realizzate
Continue reading Le sanzioni dell’Unione europea contro le attività ibride della Russia

The Graham Act, Trump’s decision of 9 October 2026, and the politics of sanctions exemptions 9 October 2026 — Legal and policy analysis Barely three weeks after the enactment of one of the most far-reaching US sanctions statutes directed at Russia, President Donald Trump announced an understanding with Vladimir Putin to increase the supply of
Continue reading Sanctioning Russia, Authorising Russian Diesel: The Contradictions of American Economic Coercion

Il Graham Act, la decisione di Trump del 9 ottobre 2026 e la politica delle deroghe 9 ottobre 2026 — Analisi giuridico-politica A distanza di appena tre settimane dalla promulgazione di una delle più incisive leggi statunitensi sulle sanzioni contro la Russia, Donald Trump ha annunciato un’intesa con Vladimir Putin per accrescere l’offerta di gasolio
Continue reading Sanzionare la Russia, autorizzare il gasolio russo: le contraddizioni della coercizione economica americana

Nei programmi informatici tradizionali le operazioni seguono, in larga misura, istruzioni e percorsi definiti in anticipo. Con i sistemi di intelligenza artificiale capaci di agire autonomamente, invece, chi assegna un compito può lasciare al sistema la scelta delle operazioni necessarie per portarlo a termine. La differenza diventa decisiva quando un agente dispone di strumenti per
Continue reading Dai programmi agli agenti: come cambia la natura del rischio

Il 1° dicembre 2025 l’Assemblea generale delle Nazioni Unite ha adottato la risoluzione 80/23 sui «Possible risks of the integration of artificial intelligence into command, control and communications systems of nuclear weapons». Il titolo è già indicativo della specificità dell’intervento: non si tratta, in termini generali, dell’impiego militare dell’intelligenza artificiale, né della questione delle armi
Continue reading Possibili rischi dell’integrazione dell’intelligenza artificiale nei sistemi di comando, controllo e comunicazione delle armi nucleari

La coercizione economica sta diventando una componente sempre più stabile delle relazioni internazionali. Uno studio pubblicato dal Parlamento europeo nel settembre 2026 analizza 41 episodi di pressione economica che hanno interessato l’Unione europea tra il 2018 e il 2026. Il dato forse più interessante non riguarda soltanto il numero dei casi, ma la loro persistenza:
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Chi ha il potere di imporre dazi negli Stati Uniti? Congresso, Presidente ed evoluzione del diritto costituzionale statunitense in materia di politica commerciale I dazi sono tornati al centro della politica economica ed estera degli Stati Uniti. Vengono utilizzati sempre più spesso non soltanto per proteggere le industrie nazionali, ma anche per perseguire obiettivi più
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I dazi vengono spesso presentati come una deviazione rispetto a una condizione “normale” di libero scambio. La storia economica suggerisce però una lettura più complessa. Per gran parte dell’età moderna e contemporanea, le tariffe doganali hanno rappresentato uno strumento ordinario della politica degli Stati: servivano a finanziare il bilancio pubblico, proteggere industrie nazionali, sostenere processi
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From IEEPA emergency tariffs to a multi-statute architecture The U.S. tariff landscape in 2026 looks markedly different from the system constructed during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term. The change is not that tariffs have disappeared. Rather, the legal architecture supporting them has been substantially reorganised. A useful starting point is the
Continue reading After the Supreme Court: How U.S. Tariff Policy Was Rebuilt in 2026

Congress, the President, and the changing constitutional law of U.S. trade policy Tariffs have returned to the centre of U.S. economic and foreign policy. They are increasingly used not only to protect domestic industries, but also to pursue broader objectives involving national security, economic security, strategic competition, supply chains, and relations with major trading partners.
Continue reading Who Has the Power to Impose Tariffs in the United States?

The EU shift from sanctions adoption to criminal enforcement For many years, a structural weakness of EU sanctions policy lay in enforcement. Restrictive measures such as asset freezes, trade restrictions, export bans and prohibitions on services are adopted at Union level, but the criminal consequences of violating them traditionally depended on national law. Directive (EU)
Continue reading Violating EU Sanctions: Directive (EU) 2024/1226 and Italy’s New Criminal Enforcement Regime

The European Union’s sanctions policy has gradually moved beyond the traditional model of restrictive measures directed at particular countries. One of the clearest expressions of this development is the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, established in December 2020 to enable the Union to target individuals and entities responsible for serious human rights violations and abuses
Continue reading EU Sanctions against Serious Human Rights Violations: The Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime

The United States’ tariffs on steel and aluminum under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 have evolved into one of the most significant examples of the growing interaction between trade policy, industrial policy and national security. What began in 2018 as a relatively straightforward system of additional duties on imported steel and
Continue reading U.S. Section 232 Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum: From National Security Measure to Industrial Policy

Security Council resolutions 1267 (1999) and 1373 (2001) are frequently treated as two components of the same international counter-terrorism architecture. That is correct at a functional level, particularly in relation to terrorist financing and asset freezing. Legally, however, the two frameworks operate through substantially different regulatory techniques. The essential distinction is that the 1267 framework
Continue reading The United Nations 1267 and 1373 Counter-Terrorism Frameworks: A Legal Comparison

When lawyers speak of the “Italian sanctions authority”, the expression is convenient but potentially misleading. Italy does not entrust the implementation of international and European Union restrictive measures to a single administrative body. The national system is deliberately fragmented by function. The clearest example is the division between the Autorita Nazionale UAMA at the Ministry of Foreign
Continue reading Who Implements Sanctions in Italy? UAMA, the Financial Security Committee (CSF), and a Deliberately Divided System

The European Union’s sanctions policy has gradually moved beyond the traditional model of restrictive measures directed at particular countries. One of the clearest expressions of this development is the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, established in December 2020 to enable the Union to target individuals and entities responsible for serious human rights violations and abuses
Continue reading EU Sanctions against Serious Human Rights Violations

Cyber operations have become an increasingly important dimension of international security. They may disrupt critical infrastructure, interfere with public institutions, compromise classified information or affect essential services without crossing a territorial border in the traditional sense. For the European Union, this has raised a difficult foreign-policy question: how can malicious cyber conduct be met with
Continue reading EU Cyber Sanctions: From Cyber Diplomacy to Targeted Restrictive Measures

The European Union’s response to Russian hybrid activities has developed into a distinct sanctions regime with an increasingly broad reach. Rather than focusing exclusively on Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, the framework addresses forms of destabilisation that operate across the boundaries between external security, cyber operations, information manipulation, interference with democratic processes and attacks on
Continue reading EU Sanctions against Russia’s hybrid activities

The European Union has developed a distinct sanctions regime specifically directed against the proliferation and use of chemical weapons. Unlike geographically defined sanctions regimes, this framework is thematic: designation depends on conduct connected with chemical weapons rather than on nationality, territorial location or involvement in a particular conflict. The regime was established in October 2018,
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The United States Congress has approved the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, the most significant legislative package of new sanctions against Russia adopted since the beginning of the second Trump administration. Named after Senator Lindsey Graham, who had been one of the principal sponsors of the initiative before his death in
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On 16 September 2026, the General Court delivered its judgment in Gagarina v Council (T-460/24), concerning the inclusion of Russian singer Polina Gagarina on the EU sanctions list relating to actions undermining the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. The judgment is significant for two reasons. First, it confirms that participation in State-sponsored propaganda events may
Continue reading Gagarina v Council: State Propaganda, Artistic Expression and the Limits of EU Sanctions

The document does not treat security as a self-contained policy field. Instead, security functions as a cross-cutting category connecting defence, borders, critical infrastructure, energy, democratic resilience, artificial intelligence, enlargement and economic policy. 1. European security and defence The clearest passage states that, in a more dangerous and uncertain world, Europe must take greater responsibility for
Continue reading Security in the State of the Union 2026 – Letter of Intent

I had been waiting for this one. Case C-67/25 had been languishing on the Court’s docket for months, and for anyone keeping an eye on how the EU enforces its information sanctions against Russia — genuinely enforces them, not just on paper — the preliminary reference out of Germany posed the kind of question that
Continue reading The CJEU Clarifies the Scope of the EU Ban on Broadcasting Russian State-Controlled Media

There is a vocabulary that saturates almost every conversation about education today. Learning outcomes. Skills. Performance indicators. Employability. Assessment. Measurable results. You hear it in faculty meetings, in ministerial documents, in accreditation reports, in the way students themselves describe what they expect from a degree. It is not that any of this is wrong, exactly.
Continue reading What Is Education Actually For?

Calling Ireland a tax haven is a good way to end a conversation before it starts. The phrase is politically loaded, slightly unfair, and — this is the problem — not entirely wrong. Ireland is not the Cayman Islands. It has real factories, real offices, real workers, real universities producing real graduates who go to
Continue reading Ireland, Big Tech and the European Tax System: this is about fairness, not ideology

Germany did not win globalisation in general. It won a particular globalisation — one that handsomely rewarded countries willing to run persistent trade surpluses, hold wages down, starve domestic demand, and ride a real exchange rate that competitors locked inside the euro could not devalue away. The research on this is extensive and, at this point, fairly
Continue reading Germany as Beneficiary and Victim of the Same System — and the Limits of Unilateral Rebalancing

Germany is entering a decisive phase in the reform of its intelligence law. The debate is no longer limited to technical adjustments after constitutional litigation. It now concerns the future institutional role of the federal intelligence services, especially the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), in an environment shaped by cyber operations, sabotage, hybrid threats, and renewed strategic competition. The
Continue reading Germany’s 2026 intelligence reform agenda: operational capacity, constitutional limits, and the future of the BND

1. Structural difference: the JCPOA and the Islamabad Memorandum are not the same type of agreement The 2015 JCPOA was a technical, nuclear-focused, multilateral agreement. On one side stood Iran; on the other, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union. Its object was essentially the limitation, verification, and
Continue reading The JCPOA and the 2026 Islamabad Memorandum: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Legal-Strategic Risks

A recent Bank of Italy paper, China Shock 2.0: Structural Drivers and Implications for the Euro Area, argues that the post-pandemic surge in Chinese exports marks a new phase of competitive pressure on Europe. This is not simply a replay of the early-2000s “China shock” following China’s accession to the WTO. That earlier episode was largely
Continue reading China Shock 2.0: Why Europe’s Competitiveness Challenge Is No Longer About Low-Cost Goods