Change in and through Law:
Digital Transformation and Climate Change

• Duration: 2023–2025
• Funded by the Volkswagen Foundation (line of funding: “NEXT – Law between Normativity and Reality”)
• In cooperation with Prof. Dr. Roland Broemel, Goethe University Frankfurt, and Prof. Dr. Angela Schwerdtfeger, Georg August University Göttingen

This project examines how descriptions of reality from other disciplines are processed in law using digital transformation and climate change as examples of fundamental and complex changes in reality. A comparative analysis of the legal handling of these changes should reveal overarching methodological approaches to integrating complex bodies of knowledge from other disciplines into legal doctrine. Moreover, the comparison should raise awareness of particularities, especially for the transformation of the law itself and its application through legal tech, on the one hand, and the role of law in achieving social change in the face of climate change on the other hand.

Based on a description of the changes in reality, three methodological dimensions will be analyzed: legal doctrine, methodology of the application of law, and legislative methodology. These will be complemented by pedagogical concepts addressing the resulting need for change in legal education.