ABSTRACT
According to Mireille Hildebrandt, the ‘challenge facing modern law is to reinvent itself in an environment of pre-emptive computing without giving up on the core achievements of the Rule of Law’. The compact represented by the Rule of Law hinges on reciprocal constraints—first, constraints on the way in which the power of the Law is exercised by its institutions, its officers, and its agents; and, secondly, constraints on citizens who are expected to respect laws that are properly made. The problem with appeals to human dignity is that, as with appeals to the Rule of Law, the concept is contested and it is subject to many competing interpretations. The Rule of Law should open by emphasising that the protection and maintenance of the commons is always the primary responsibility of regulators. Where technologically managed places or products operate dynamically, making decisions case-by-case or situation-by-situation, then one of the outcomes of the public debate might be that the possibility of a human override is reserved.
