Auswahl der wissenschaftlichen Literatur zum Thema „Smart social contract“

Abstract Smart contracts nowadays start being widely used in various areas of economic and social life. In most cases smart contracts are somehow related to legal contracts: the former may constitute part of a legal contract, an entire contract, or be used to automate a contract performance. Meanwhile, a question whether modern contract law is applicable to smart contracts is rather debatable, since smart contracts initially were designed to rely only on technical rules embedded in blockchain and considered as self-sufficient instruments capable of addressing various issues which may emerge in practice. However, practice has shown that technical regulation does not often cope with the problems one may face when using smart contracts, which confirms the need for legal regulation. Although smart contracts have many technical peculiarities, they do not make application of contract law provisions totally impossible. Thus, what the modern contract law needs is a set of special rules applicable to the practice of smart contracting.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to model blockchain-based smart contracts specifically for the insurance industry. The authors introduce the concept of smart contracts and further discuss the implementation of a decentralized insurance marketplace, namely Etherisc, using smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain platform. Design/methodology/approach The authors employ three methods in this paper. The first one is a design illustration of a live application, namely, Etherisc. The second one is an economic model using demand–supply and equilibrium economics. The third one is an illustration using principal–agent modeling using constrained optimization. Findings The findings illustrate the following: in the design discussion, the authors demonstrate the architecture of a live Ethereum-based smart contract system. In the economic model, the authors illustrate how decentralized smart contract systems can increase social welfare by shifting demand and supply by reducing transactional costs. In the principal–agent model, the authors show how both the principal and agent are positively benefited by various mechanisms. Originality/value The paper is an original contribution and can be used as a reference model to study insurance or other similar marketplaces and the underlying economic transformations happening therein.

This paper critiques blockchain-based “smart contracts,” which aim to automatically and securely execute obligations without reliance on a centralized enforcement authority. Though smart contracts do have some features that might serve the goals of social justice and fairness, I suggest that they are based on a thin conception of what law does, and how it does it. Smart contracts focus on the technical form of contract to the exclusion of the social contexts within which contracts operate, and the complex ways in which people use them. In the real world, contractual obligations are enforced through all kinds of social mechanisms other than formal adjudication—and contracts serve many functions that are not explicitly legal in nature, or even designed to be formally enforced. I describe three categories of contracting practices in which people engage (the inclusion of facially unenforceable terms, the inclusion of purposefully underspecified terms, and willful nonenforcement of enforceable terms) to illustrate how contracts actually “work.” The technology of smart contracts neglects the fact that people use contracts as social resources to manage their relations. The inflexibility that they introduce, by design, might short-circuit a number of social uses to which law is routinely put. Therefore, I suggest that attention to the social and relational contexts of contracting are essential considerations for the discussion, development, and deployment of smart contracts.

Social distancing has been imposed to prevent substantial transmission of the COVID-19 outbreak, which is presently a global public health issue. Medical healthcare providers rely on telemedicine to monitor their patients, particularly those with chronic conditions. However, telemedicine faces many implementation-related risks, including data breaches, access restrictions within the medical community, inaccurate diagnosis, fraud, etc. The authors propose a transparent, tamper-proof, distributed, decentralized smart healthcare system (DSHS) that uses blockchain-based smart contracts. The authors use an immutable modified Merkel tree structure to hold the transaction for viewing contracts on a public blockchain, updating patient health records (PHR), and exchanging PHR to all entities. It is verified by a performance evaluation based on the Ethereum platform. The simulation results show that the proposed system outperforms existing approaches by enhancing transparency, boosting efficiency, and reducing average latency in the system. The proposed system improves the functionality of the SHS environment.

The subject and the aim of the study. The article analyzes the approach to smart contract technology, which is reflected in the scientific literature and legislation of Russia and foreign countries, formulates the advantages and disadvantages of a smart contract that affect the implementation and protection of certain constitutional rights, including freedom of contract, the right to protect, the right to manage personal data.Methodology. Guided by formal dogmatic and comparative law methods in research, the author formulates approaches to the concept of a smart contract that has been developed in the practice of foreign countries and deduces how each of the approaches affects the implementation of constitutional human rights. The paper notes that the use of a smart contract based on the federal blockchain does not allow the full implementation of such rights as freedom of contract, the right to self-defense, and the right to manage personal data. In addition, the transnational nature of smart contracts usage, their pseudonymity and failure to unified concept of legal regulation create obstacles to the effective implementation of the right to judicial protection.The main results. The practice of legal regulation of smart contracts in foreign countries, aimed at minimizing the negative consequences of the use of technology is considered. Some countries follow to the concept of recognizing a smart contract as a form of contract (Italy, United States, Republic of Belarus) and a way of guaranteeing fulfilment of obligations (China, Italy, Republic of Belarus, Russian Federation). The second concept is considered as being the most restrictive for digital progress from one side but being able to guarantee protection of human rights such as right to judicial protection or freedom of contract. The first concept which shows smart contract being a type of contract carries additional risks associated with conclusion of a treaty - inconsistency of the smart contract with the actual will of the parties. The third concept considered smart contract as a type of contract is accepted in the Republic of Malta. The Republic of Malta regulated procedure of voluntary certification for smart contracts that allow to eliminate such threats as violation of human rights and the use of smart contracts for criminal purposes. The experience of legal regulation of smart contracts in the Republic of Malta is recognized as reasonable and effective, however, it is concluded that certification will achieve its goals only if it will be implemented in the legal system of wide range of the countries.Conclusions. It is concluded that despite the fact that the smart contract technology has high potential for its implementation in various fields of social and economic life, the effective implementation of smart contract technology in various spheres of society requires the formation of general legal principles for their application, the definition of areas in which the use of smart contracts is prohibited, as well as the development of international standards for their safe execution.

Smart contracts are computer protocols that self-enforce encoded terms. They arguably allow for individual freedom and increased sovereignty from inconveniences. The enthusiasm goes as far as foreseeing that smart contracts will make contractual legal oversight obsolete. However, whereas contract law theory evolved to acknowledge the importance of flexibility and relationality, smart contracts activists defend the opposite direction, arguing for contractual rigidness and denial of social norms supporting complex transactions. This paper departs from this paradox to argue that (i) smart contracts based on existing technology are unlikely to thrive in complex contractual settings, and (ii) contextual analysis is important for LawTech’s propositions. Smart contracts, blockchain, system’s theory, social norms, transaction cost, flexibility, relationality, trust, co-operation, contractual governance

This study examines the two important aspect of latest technology issues in Islamic finance that related to artificial intelligence (AI) and smart contract. AI refers to the ability of machines to understand, think, and learn in a similar way to human beings, indicating the possibility of using computers to simulate human intelligence. Smart contract is a computer code running on top of a block-chain containing a set of rules under which the parties to that smart contract agree to interact with each other. The main objectives of this article are to evaluate the operations of AI and smart contract, to make comparison between the operations of AI and smart contract. This article concludes that AI and smart contract will have a huge impact in future for Islamic Finance industry.

The subject of the research is legal norms aimed at regulating by law relations in the field of concluding and executing smart contracts, including issues of protecting the rights of the parties to such contracts, including consumers. The object of the research is social relations arising in the process of creating, concluding and executing of smart contracts. Particular attention is paid to the theoretical and practical aspects of the definition of the concept of “smart contract” and its essence, as well as its legal status. In addition, the article considers approaches to defining the essence of institutions that are closely related to the category of “smart contract”, such as “cryptocurrency”, “digital ruble”, “mining”. The aspects of the protection of fundamental rights of the parties involved in the considered legal relationship, including consumers, are also analyzed. Examples of court decisions regarding the corresponding category of cases are given. The novelty of the research lies in determining the current approaches in relation to the essence, concept and legal status of smart contracts, including the current position of law enforcement practice in relation to this issue. In addition, the novelty of the study lies in considering the practical aspects of the conclusion and execution of smart contracts, including, indicating examples of blockchain platforms on the basis of which smart contracts can function. Ultimately, the study led to the development by the author of some proposals in order to improve the relevant legislation. In particular, the author proposed to consolidate at the legislative level the legal definition of the concept of “smart contract”, indicating the appropriate wording.

The purpose of the present article is to gain an understanding of the opportunities and difficulties created by the introduction and development of the practice of network (smart) contracts. Our research methodology is based on a holistic set of principles and methods of scholarly analysis employed by modern legal science. It uses a dialectical method involving both general approaches (structural system method, formal logical method, analysis and synthesis of individual elements, individual features of concepts, abstraction, generalization, etc.) and particular methods (legal technical, systematic, comparative, historical, and grammatical methods, method of the unity of theory and practice, etc.). We analyze the views of lawyers and other specialists from Russia and abroad, legislative innovations in the field of digital technologies, the practice of blockchain-based smart contracts, and the main risks (whether legal, technological, operational, or criminogenic) of smart contracts for economic activities with a study of their causes. In the present-day situation, it is necessary to move from the legal definition of the smart contract and its legal and technological characteristics, advantages and disadvantages to the implementation of startups in a wide range of areas, especially business, public regulation, and social relations. Scholarly and information support for such processes will contribute to the development of industry, public administration and digital technology applications to improve the life of individual citizens and society as a whole. The introduction of smart contracts does not require the adoption of new laws or regulations. Instead, one should adapt and, possibly, modify existing legal principles at the legislative and judicial levels to pave the way for the use of smart contracts and other new technologies. The system of contract law provides a sufficient framework for regulating transactions without the introduction of any new legal categories. We propose approaches to the legal definition of the smart contract and identify a set of problems that must be solved at the legislative and technical legal levels in order to implement smart contracts effectively in different spheres of life.

La blockchain à travers ses fonctions registres et smart contracts constitue un moteur de la confiance. Le registre blockchain, distribué sécurisé et sans autorité centrale, révolutionne la confiance. Le smart contract, adossé à une blockchain, auto-exécutant et inaltérable assure, lui, l'exécution automatique d'actions prédéfinies. Initialement conçus pour le secteur financier, le potentiel de cette technologie s’étend à la RSE en tant que support de la norme. Les smart social contracts seraient en mesure d’automatiser les processus liés à la RSE, tandis que le registre blockchain renforcerait la transparence et la traçabilité. Un cadre juridique clair reste cependant essentiel pour concilier innovation et protection des droits. Définir le rôle de la blockchain dans une démarche de RSE pourrait transformer les interactions des entreprises avec leurs parties prenantes, renforcer la confiance, la transparence, la réactivité et, plus largement, l’effectivité de norme sociétale
Through its ledger and smart contract functions, blockchain serves as a driver of trust. The blockchain ledger, distributed, secure, and without a central authority, revolutionizes trust. The smart contract, based on a blockchain, self-executing and immutable, ensures the automatic execution of predefined actions. Initially designed for the financial sector, the potential of this technology extends to CSR as a support for standards. Smart social contracts could automate CSR-related processes, while the blockchain ledger would enhance transparency and traceability. However, a clear legal framework remains essential to reconcile innovation with the protection of rights. Defining the role of blockchain in a CSR approach could transform how companies interact with their stakeholders, strengthening trust, transparency, responsiveness, and, more broadly, the effectiveness of societal norms

Les contrats intelligents sont des programmes informatiques qui s’exécutent d’eux-mêmes dès lors que certaines conditions, déterminées au préalable par les parties, sont remplies. Ce type de contrat est récemment entré dans une nouvelle ère suite à la démocratisation des cryptomonnaies, notamment le Bitcoin et sa technologie sous-jacente ; la chaîne de blocs. Celle-ci se définit comme un registre virtuel répertoriant des historiques de transactions, permettant entre autres de réaliser des transferts d’actifs de pair à pair, sans intermédiaire. Désormais, la chaîne de blocs est aussi capable de servir de support au contrat intelligent, ce qui soulève de nouvelles problématiques juridiques. En raison de sa nature, il est possible que le contrat intelligent puisse causer un préjudice en cas de mauvaise ou de non-exécution. Le présent mémoire consiste à déterminer l’applicabilité du régime de responsabilité civile à ce type de contrat, au regard des dispositions du Code civil du Québec et de la Loi concernant le cadre juridique des technologies de l’information.
Smart contracts are computer programs that run on their own when conditions, previously determined by the parties, are met. This type of contract has recently entered a new era following the democratization of cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin and its underlying technology; the Blockchain. It’s a virtual register listing transaction history, making it possible, among other things, to carry out asset transfers from peer to peer without any intermediary. Now, the blockchain is also able to support smart contracts, which raises new legal issues. Due to its nature, it is possible that the smart contract may cause damage in case of bad or non-performance. The purpose of this paper is to determine the applicability of the civil liability regime to this type of contract, in light of the provisions of the Civil Code of Quebec and the Act to establish a legal framework for information technology.

Dissertação de mestrado em Direito dos Contratos e da Empresa
Os Smart Contracts, derivados da tecnologia Blockchain, são uma das suas aplicações mais promissoras. No entanto, como são ainda uma tecnologia muito recente, a incerteza e o medo dos investidores, assim como as várias questões legais levantadas por esta tecnologia, levam a que o seu desenvolvimento aconteça de forma lenta e cautelosa. O trabalho aqui apresentado visa identificar qual a extensão da revolução proporcionada pela Blockchain no processo contratual, explorando o seu potencial; bem como o potencial dos Smart Contracts, através da identificação das principais dificuldades legais que têm vindo a enfrentar. Pretende, ainda, constituir uma análise dos prós e contras destes novos contratos e dos efeitos da sua sujeição a normas jurídicas. Através dessa análise surgirão respostas às questões relativas ao seu cumprimento, natureza e forma, objeto contratual, enforcement e execução, (in) flexibilidade e privacidade. Como o principal objetivo desta investigação é reconhecer a natureza destes novos contratos e determinar quais as suas consequências legais no âmbito do Direito Contratual, serão apontadas várias aplicações práticas, as quais constituem verdadeiros desafios ao legislador, empresas e indivíduos; demonstrando, ao mesmo tempo, a sua potencialidade para revolucionar o status quo dos contratos tradicionais. Para materializar essas pretensões, este estudo basear-se-á na revisão de leis embrionárias já existentes sobre a tecnologia Blockchain ou similar, e na sua comparação com o Direito dos Contratos, com doutrina sobre Smart Contracts, e com algumas decisões judicias inéditas, relacionadas com estas temáticas. Em suma, o presente trabalho versa sobre os novos Smart Legal Contracts, contratos digitais, autonomizados e autoexecutáveis, os quais constituem o começo de uma verdadeira revolução não só legal, mas também tecnológica, social e económica; a qual deve ser antecipada em termos de regulamentação e preparada por profissionais especializados.
Smart Contracts arise from the Blockchain technology and are one of their most promising applications. However, because these contracts derive from a very recent technology, investors’ doubts and several legal issues related to them, make their development slow and cautious. This project seeks to identify the extent of the revolution that becomes possible with the use of Blockchain in the contract process, exploring its potential and that of Smart Contracts by identifying the main legal issues raised by them. It also intends to provide an analysis of the pros and cons of the new contracts, which appear due the application of legal norms to them: Smart Legal Contracts. Through this analysis, we will provide answers to the questions about their compliance, nature and form, contractual object, enforcement and execution, (in) flexibility and privacy. The main goal of this research is to recognize the nature of these new contracts and their legal consequences under Contract Law, and how its several possible practical applications are real challenges for the legislator, companies and individuals; while also showing their potential to revolutionize the status quo of the traditional contracts. To materialize these claims, this study bases itself on the revision of existing embryonic laws about Blockchain and similar technologies, and on their comparison with Contract Law, Smart Contracts doctrine, as well as on some unprecedented courts decisions related to these subjects. In short, this project deals with Smart Legal Contracts, which are autonomous and self-executing digital contracts, and points out the beginning of a revolution, not only legal but also technological, social and economic, which must be anticipated in terms of regulation and be prepared by specialized professionals.

Um contrato inteligente é um protocolo computadorizado que executa cláusulas condicionais inseridas numa plataforma descentralizada. Permite que as obrigações se cumpram de forma económica e eficiente, reforça a confiança das partes no cumprimento, e garante ainda a transparência e a confidencialidade das transações. Esta dissertação estuda as características e o procedimento de formação de um contrato inteligente, e procura responder à questão de saber se este pode ser considerado um contrato civil válido à luz do ordenamento jurídico português, não só como contrato de execução, mas como acordo de constituição das obrigações que executa. Além disso, analisa os problemas colocados pela auto-execução de um contrato inteligente e enquadra o regime jurídico do cumprimento das obrigações que nele se inserem. Propõe, por fim, uma solução que equilibre os custos da inflexibilidade dos contratos inteligentes com os benefícios gerais resultantes do seu reconhecimento.
A smart contract is a computerized protocol that executes conditional clauses introduced in a decentralized platform. As such, it enables the execution of agreements in a costeffective way, enforces the trust between the parties upon the fulfilment of the obligations, whilst ensuring the transparency and confidentiality of the transactions. This dissertation explores the characteristics and procedure of formation of a smart contract, and aims to answer the question whether it can be considered a valid civil contract under Portuguese jurisdiction, not only as a contract of execution, but also as an agreement of constitution of the obligations it executes. Moreover, it analyses the problems posed by the self-execution of a smart contract and establishes the framework for the fulfilment of the obligations it contains. This dissertation proposes a solution that balances the costs of inflexibility of smart contracts with the overall benefits of its recognition.

O surgimento e a repentina expansão das criptomoedas e da tecnologia Blockchain não tem sido acompanhado, no plano legislativo, por soluções constantes ou incontroversas. Apesar de reconhecido o potencial destes fenómenos, a maior dificuldade está, hoje, em saber quais os quadros normativos e as soluções mais adequadas a estas novas realidades. Este problema é igualmente discutido nos vários ordenamentos jurídicos, cujas respostas se têm revelado díspares. Sustenta-se, depois de analisar as características fundamentais dos referidos conceitos e de discutir criticamente as soluções já existentes, a necessidade de criar uma disciplina jurídica inovadora, em virtude da impossibilidade de integrar tal conceito nas figuras existentes na nossa ordem jurídica.
The emergence and the sudden expansion of cryptocurrencies and Blockchain technology has not been accompanied by constant or incontrovertible solutions in the legislative sphere. Although the potential of this phenomena is recognized, the greatest difficulty is now in knowing which normative frameworks are most appropriate to these new realities. This problem is also discussed in the various legal systems, whose responses have proved to be disparate. After analysing the fundamental characteristics of these concepts and critically discussing the existing solutions, we defend the need to create an innovative legal discipline, due to the impossibility of integrating this concept into the existing figures in our legal framework.

This collection provides an in-depth analysis of the intersection between blockchain technology and the law. Covering EU, US, and Asian jurisdictions, it assesses the necessities of and opportunities for the regulation of blockchain technology in a range of key legal fields, such as competition law, securities regulation, corporate, insurance, contract, and data protection law. Instead of postulating the disruptive superiority of distributed ledger technology across potential areas of application, however, the volume offers a nuanced treatment of use cases ranging from early applications in finance to ICOs, alternative dispute resolution platforms, and smart contracts. It takes a distinct techno-social perspective in understanding the legal implications of blockchain technology as a possible new general-purpose technology. The interaction of blockchain technology with the legal system raises key questions concerning governance and government, private order and state authority, and the relationship between different ‘calculative’ spaces for assessing and allocating value. These questions do not only have a long pedigree, they are also acutely relevant to our immediate future. By drawing on technological, political, economic, and legal points of view, the volume shows why blockchain matters for societies, and why the law matters for blockchain.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

ESG is a sustainability framework promoting sustainability and responsible business practices relevant to Petrobras, a major Brazilian oil and gas company. In this sense, blockchain emerged as a technology for trustworthy information storage. This work demonstrates the ESG Token solution, built on top of EVM-compatible smart contracts to address data and process transparency, security, availability, and auditability. RBB (Brazilian Blockchain Network) was used to deploy the ESG Token smart contract, and the pluggable architecture allows for separating the blockchain layer from the business solution. Furthermore, ESG Token integrates with GovBR’s digital signature platform, enabling self-declarations of validated identities to enhance accountability.