In China, algorithms have been increasingly used in many different sectors to facilitate analysis of massive data and optimise the decision-making process. While this approach brings significant benefits, the complex design of algorithmic models and the large scale of data involved pose serious challenges to the existing regulations. In response, China has gradually established a regulatory regime covering many areas of law, such as rules governing personal information protection and algorithm recommendation services, to oversee the development and use of algorithmic decision-making. However, China’s regulatory regime is not without its limitations. Drawing on the regulatory experience of overseas jurisdictions, including the EU, the US, the UK and Singapore, this paper makes some suggestions for improving Chinese regulations. It is worth considering formulating specific requirements for data used in algorithmic decision-making and complementing the existing regulatory regime with algorithmic audit mechanisms. China is also advised to strengthen private and public enforcement and incorporate the code of ethics into the governance structure of algorithmic decision-making.

In Nagaenthran, the Court of Appeal reasoned in obiter that legislation ousting judicial review on grounds of illegality, irrationality, or procedural impropriety will ordinarily be unconstitutional. The precise logic employed here is unclear. Four interpretations have been offered, but they either do not reflect the court’s actual remarks, or complicate other aspects of administrative law doctrine. This article offers a fifth interpretation, which largely avoids these difficulties. Ouster clauses are ordinarily unconstitutional because they usually extend power-conferring provisions beyond the purposes Parliament intended them to serve.

Last year, the then-Minister for Education intimated that in Singapore, research by university researchers in the fields of social science and humanities should not be evaluated and recognised based on the same metrics as for research in the STEM fields. This article seeks to expand on the Minister’s points by focusing on the specific context of research in the field of law by: firstly, explaining what is so different between the nature of law research (generally, and specifically in Singapore) and the nature of STEM research; secondly, elaborating on why we should not evaluate and recognise law research by Singapore law academics generally based on the same metrics as for STEM research; finally, offering some modest suggestions on how we might better assess whether a piece of law research from a Singapore law academic is good research and whether it translates into tangible outcomes for the good of Singaporeans.

The papers published in this special issue were initially presented at the inaugural meeting of The Research Forum on Basic Legal Positions held in Lisbon in September 2023. The Research Forum on Basic Legal Positions has been established as a joint venture by Lisbon Legal Theory (a research cluster within the Lisbon Public Law Research Centre in the University of Lisbon) and the Centre for Legal Theory (Faculty of Law in the National University of Singapore). Its aim is to promote the investigation of elements common to all legal systems at the level of individual legal positions, where a party’s conduct is normatively regulated by the law. The analysis of such positions clarifies practical legal problems, informs a scientific understanding of law, and illuminates normative controversies over the status individuals should enjoy under the law. The forum provides a collaborative environment in which civilian and common-law scholars can address theoretical issues of fundamental concern to all contemporary legal systems.

The idea of “inalienability” is normally thought of as providing the strongest level of protection that a right (and hence its right‑holder) can possibly enjoy. Whereas an “ordinary” fundamental right is supposed to be protected first of all against the State (“vertical” protection), and secondly also against other private citizens and entities in general (“horizontal” protection), some rights are supposed to be so important that they are protected, it seems, even against the choices and decisions of the very right‑holder. While the idea of an inalienable right is well known in legal, moral, and political philosophy, it is not entirely clear what it means for a right to be inalienable — and whether an inalienable right is really a right after all. By using a Hohfeldian conceptual framework, this essay tries to provide an analytical inquiry into the concept of an inalienable right, and to explore under what conditions it is conceptually possible to talk of inalienable rights.

Many theorists aim to argue for certain moral or human rights on the basis that they protect something of great value or a weighty interest. What I argue here is that this type of argument cannot justify the kind of right that its proponents often envisage, ie, a human right with a certain peremptory force. More specifically, I argue that, on this view, rights are not deontic relations between two parties that hold regardless of the circumstances; they are best seen as goals to be aimed at, which may or may not give rise to specified duties on others. Moreover, rights, on this view, cannot have the degree of peremptoriness required to distinguish them from mere reasons for action; cashing them out as exclusionary reasons may offer a distinctive account but it should be noted first, that this is at odds with the picture of rights as goals and second, with their grounding in (prudential) value. Given these implications of the argument, it becomes unclear why one might want to invoke rights in the first place rather than simply argue for the protection of interests.

In Shopee Singapore Pte Ltd v Lim Teck Yong [2024] SGHC 29 and MoneySmart Singapore Pte Ltd v Artem Musienko [2024] SGHC 94, the Singapore High Court struck down two non-competition clauses for being unreasonably wide, once again casting the enforceability of non-competition clauses into the legal limelight. This paper reviews the relevant case law since the seminal case of Man Financial (S) Pte Ltd v Wong Bark Chuan David [2008] 1 SLR(R) 663 to clarify the ambit of an enforceable non-competition clause, as well as highlight several uncertainties regarding the restraint of trade doctrine in the employment context. In particular, this paper points out that: (a) it is unclear whether an employer is required to protect its interest in maintaining a stable and trained workforce exclusively via a non-solicitation clause; and (b) it is unclear whether the narrower scope of a broader clause may be pleaded and enforced.

In “Legal Reasons, Sources and Gaps”, Joseph Raz points out that statements of reasons – mainly, conclusive legal reasons – are the most basic category of legal analysis. The conceptual importance of statements of legal reason implies that legal philosophers must use them to explain other legal concepts. In this sense, Raz claims that conclusive reason is a useful analytical tool for dealing with a classic problem of legal philosophy: gaps in the law. Raz defends a particular form of indeterminacy of law, which are ordinary gaps produced by the imprecision of the concepts used in the formulation of legal norms (when the law speaks with an uncertain voice) or by specific conflicting legal reasons (when the law speaks with many voices). In such cases, judges have discretion to resolve legal disputes. However, he denies that the law can have genuine gaps (when the law is silent) and, in those cases, judges lack discretion. In this paper, I criticise Raz’s arguments for denying the existence of genuine gaps in the law and suggest an alternative which partially preserves Raz’s intuitions but does not compromise with their implausible consequences.

Unlike rights in personam, which are held against a limited number of people (paradigmatically, one), rights in rem are held against everyone else in the world. Among other things, “everyone” denotes a dynamic collection of persons. However, in Wesley Hohfeld’s analysis of rights, every right is a relation between exactly two people. For Hohfeld, a right in rem must therefore be analysed as an aggregate of rights, where each relation in the aggregate features the right-holder at one pole and one other person in the world at the other. Even for aficionados, this is one of the oddest aspects of Hohfeld’s account — which he crowns with a curious label to boot, “multital” right — and critics have had a field day with it. For example, Penner (2020) criticises Hohfeld’s multital analysis on the grounds that its information costs are too high. In this paper, I show how Hohfeld’s treatment of rights in rem can be amended to avoid Penner’s critique.

Singapore’s Debt Collection Act 2022 (DCA) and Debt Collection Regulations 2023 (DCR) mark a significant shift in the governance of informal debt collection, introducing licensing and conduct requirements to a previously unregulated industry. While existing laws – such as the Moneylenders Act and Protection from Harassment Act – already addressed abusive practices, the DCA primarily seeks to professionalise debt collection rather than establish substantive consumer protections. This article critically evaluates whether the new framework enhances regulatory coherence or exacerbates fragmentation, drawing on doctrinal analysis, case law, and empirical insights. Findings reveal a persistent reliance on criminal deterrence, enforcement gaps, and regulatory blind spots, questioning the DCA’s effectiveness in curbing abuse. By situating Singapore’s model within global regulatory trends, this study highlights the tensions between industry legitimacy, legal oversight, and debtor protection, offering reflections on future policy directions.