The frequent use of video-links in criminal hearings has changed courtroom dynamics, replacing physical presence with virtual participation. While financially efficient, this shift raises concerns about the defendants effective participation. This interdisciplinary study will explore the conditions under which effective participation can be achieved in a virtual setting, focusing on the impact on communication, engagement, and legal requirements for presence. Using a human-centered approach towards law, I will collect data through interviews and courtroom observations, emphasizing defendants perception of fairness. Anchored on socio-legal scholarship, the study provides an evidence-based analysis towards the right to effective virtual participation.

RegTech4AI aims to bridge the gap between AI regulation and practical implementation. Using expertise in law and computer science, the project will develop a number of essential regulatory technologies to aid agencies tasked with enforcement of regulation and businesses with the implementation of laws like GDPR and the forthcoming AI Act.

Students in non-technical fields, like law, often struggle to engage with AI and technology regulations due to a lack of experience with machine learning. This project addresses the gap by creating a no-code platform that lets non-technical students train and test machine-learning models. By using this tool, law students can better understand AIs potential and limitations, equipping them to participate in ethical and legal debates about AI. The platform will follow FAIR principles, making it accessible to universities across the Netherlands and beyond, and it will be integrated into Maastricht Universitys educational programs, benefiting hundreds of students annually.

Professor Baykal’s visit aims at contributing to the ongoing research projects under guidance of Professor Ott and the Maastricht Centre for European Law. Firstly, Professor Baykal participates in the Jean Monnet Nova-EU project and two of the four workshops organized in 2020 to 2021. Professor Baykal will contribute to the second workshop on Migration and EU Borders: Mobility v. Security? in March 2020. Her contribution aims at exploring the methods and tools adopted as well as the legal, normative and practical premises and impact of the Turkey-EU Refugee Deal of 2016 in the broad context of EU’s migration and asylum policies and its foreign policy and external relations. Moreover, Professor Baykal will also contribute to the third workshop in autumn 2020 addressing the internal and external dimension of sustainable Europe. The social dimension of EU’s external policies and the sustainable development component of EU’s values and objectives of its external policies will be tested within the framework of the agenda for the upgrading of the Customs Union between EU and Turkey. Thirdly, Professor Baykal will take part in the research of the edited volume on the Internal market. In this volume, one chapter addresses third countries within the EU’s internal market. Among the regions analysed will be the European Economic Area but also Turkey. Professor Baykals academic and public sector expertise and knowledge will be valuable in developing new perspectives in that area. Professor Baykal who is one of the leading legal experts in Turkey on EU-Turkey relations will contribute to this research projects with her unique insights gained during work for the Turkish administration Finally, Professor Baykal will also be conducting research on the Turkey-EU relations from the external differentiated integration perspective with a view to mapping out legal and normative constraints and opportunities. This topic is one of main research topics addressed by the Maastricht Centre for European Law over the last twenty years, Maastricht scholars have published since 2001 groundbreaking research on the issue of differentiation. In 2001 Bruno de Witte, Dominik Hanf and Ellen Vos edited the leading book “The many faces of differentiation” which was complemented by the recent edition by Bruno de Witte, Andrea Ott and Ellen Vos on “Between Flexibility and Disintegration” (Edgar Elgar Publishing, 2017). Professor Baykal is currently working on the impact of the Turkey-EU Statement on migration and the upgrading of the Customs Union between parties to ascertain what would be the proper functional, institutional and legal framework of cooperation or external differentiated integration that would also be instrumental in the projection of EU’s values and enhancing its security through stabilising Turkey.

The proposal aims at a comparative legal-historical study of access filters at the Supreme Courts in European and American jurisdictions. After studying the roles these courts were meant to fulfil according to their mainly 19th century origins, their changing roles in modern societies will be focused on within the context of the various mechanisms and theories on access to the supreme court. These mechanisms and theories will be evaluated from the perspective of a society under the rule of law. The research project not only aims at increasing academic knowledge but also at providing recommendations for reform projects