Ass.-Prof.in Caroline Voithofer as co-editor of "Handbuch Sorgearbeit, Sorgebeziehungen und das Recht - Caring and the law"
After an intensive author workshop at the beginning of March, the handbook Care Work, Care Relations and the Law - Caring and the law will be published in open access by Springer at the end of this year 2023.
|
An author workshop sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation was held in Geneva on March 2-3, 2023. In the course of this workshop, the contributions for the handbook |
(Caroline Voithofer, Michelle Cottier, Kirsten Scheiwe) |
Commentary on the "Supply Chain Due Diligence Act" by Prof. Malte Kramme
The brand-new commentary on the Supply Chain Sourcing Obligations Act (LkSG) by Dr. Daniel Berg and Univ.- Prof. Dr. Malte Kramme has been published! Read more here.
|
Since January 1, 2023, large German companies have been required to comply with certain human rights and environmental due diligence obligations along their supply chains. This is intended to counteract serious human rights and environmental violations at supplier companies. What this means for German (and indirectly also for Austrian) companies is explained in a practical way in the brand-new commentary on the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz - LkSG) by Dr. Daniel Berg and Univ.- Prof. Dr. Malte Kramme. |
 |
Inter- and Multidisciplinary Perspectives and Gender Studies – Innsbruck Gender Lectures IV
The fourth volume of the Innsbruck Gender Lectures (IGL) has been published. This time edited by Caroline Voithofer from the Department of Legal Theory and Future of Law together with Kordula Schnegg, Julia Tschuggnall and Manfred Auer. The editors take up the idea of the first three volumes and make selected lectures of the Innsbruck Gender Lectures series available in book form (published by iup) as well as online open access.
The volume comprises six contributions that offer insights into current debates on women’s and gender studies as well as queer studies. This includes papers on digitalisation, flexible forms of organisation, family law, politics and history. All text question the usefulness and necessity of gender and queer theoretical approaches in order to be able to meet socio-political and scientific challenges in a socially just and fair way – free of discrimination and violence.
In future, the CGI wants to set annual focal points for the Innsbruck Gender Lectures. Thereby the Innsbruck Gender Lectures volumes will also be united by a thematic bracket and current issues will be examined from inter-, multi- and transdisciplinary perspectives.
All those interested are invited to read the volume and to listen to the previous Innsbruck Gender Lectures in the broadcast archive.
Contact:
University of Innsbruck
Department of Legal Theory and Future of Law
Ass.-Prof.in Dr.in Caroline Voithofer
Innrain 15, A-6020 Innsbruck
E-Mail caroline.voithofer@uibk.ac.at
1st Austrian Digital Law Day 2023
The role of European digital law in the global Internet
Focus topic: The role of European digital law in the global Internet: EU regulation of digital services, markets, data and algorithms as a driver or challenge of digital law against the backdrop of global digital governance reforms.
Preliminary program: for scholars* conducting research in digital law in the early stages of their careers, in advance of the Digital Law Day (Monday, March 27, from 9.00-12.00).
Organization: Faculty of Law of the University of Innsbruck in the context of the focus area Internationalization and Digitization.
The preliminary program can be found here.
Read all information at www.digitalrechtstag.at
Monday, March 27, 2023, from 09:00 a.m. | Tuesday, March 28, 2023, from 08:30 a.m., in the auditorium, 1st floor, Innrain 52 (main building).
Registration at: Registration form. Registration is requested by 15.03.2023.
New PhD Student at our department
Andrea De Coppi is a law student at the University of Udine in Italy. He is writing his master thesis on international transfers of personal data under GDPR. In December 2021 he did a presentation about the Italian Covid-19 contact tracing app Immuni in the seminar "Legal and economic implications of Covid-19", organized with the University of Klagenfurt. In July 22 he participated in an Erasmus program titled "Work and technology in the EU" in Jaca, Spain, with students from the universities of Udine, Zaragoza and Toulouse.
Call for Papers - Fifth Congress of the German-speaking Sociology of Law Association, 21-23 September 2023, Leopold-Franzens-University Innsbruck
Researchers from all disciplines are invited to present and discuss their empirical research results and theoretical perspectives in the context of the conference's theme. The conference is divided into nine thematic tracks. In principle, any topic with interdisciplinary legal relevance can be submitted within a thematically suitable track or in the "General Papers" track. Contributions that relate to the conference theme in terms of content have a better chance of being considered, provided that they are of equal quality. Proposals for papers can be submitted now. We are also open to alternative formats in all tracks, such as book presentations, "author meets critics," roundtables, "fishbowls" with short statements by researchers on a topic from the perspective of their work, interviews or short discussions with guests, film screenings, or artistic interventions.
Proposals (maximum length 1500 characters) can only be submitted online via our conference management system.
Instructions for your submission can be found here: download
In addition to individual papers, entire panels/sessions (with up to four papers) can also be submitted. We are particularly welcoming international/comparative panels.
Instructions for panel submissions (please follow the general instructions firts):
- the conveners of the panel make an entry under their name for the panel with a short abstract containing the names of the participants. The word "Panel:" must be prefixed in the title.
- the authors of all presentations in the panel submit their contribution separately. The abstract must contain the note "Belongs to Panel "<Title>" by <Conveners>" so that the entry can be correctly assigned.
The deadline for submissions is 16th January 2023.
Call for Papers as download
New Book studies how law influences our digital future – and how digital developments shape the law
More private, more code-linked, more territorial: law influences digitality, and the digital transformation impacts the future of the law
The law of global digitality is influenced by private orders, embedded in the design of digital services and markets, code-based and geographically more fragmented than a global medium like the Internet would suggest. Law is embedded in the design of our digital futures
A new anthology co-edited by Innsbruck Internet law expert Prof. Kettemann and published Open Access with Routledge shows that the digital transformation is having a strong impact on law, but also that law can influence the digital transformation and - if law is set smartly - stabilize important social values vis-à-vis digitization processes.
The Internet is not an unchartered territory. In the Internet, norms matter. They interact, regulate, are contested and legitimated by multiple actors. But are they diverse and unstructured, or are they part of a recognizable order? Is there a global law of digitality?
This collected volume - the first serious effort across legal disciplines and across continents to describe the interaction of law and digitality - explores these key questions while providing new perspectives on the role of law in times of digital transformation. The book compares six different areas of law that have been particularly exposed to digital developments, namely laws regulating consumer contracts, data protection, the media, financial markets, criminal activity and intellectual property law. By comparing how these very different areas of law have evolved with regard to cross-border online situations, the book considers whether the law of global digitality is indeed special and, if so, what its characteristics are across various areas of law.
The law of digitality is made up of many private orders. Firstly, the law of digitality, in particular on a cross-border, global scale, is largely a product of private ordering, that is, the establishment of rules by private parties within primarily private settings in which terms of service are prima facie the “law of the land”. Private orders are only corrected by public values and public-interest interventions in exceptional cases and are thus of paramount importance.
The law of digitality is embedded in the design of digital services. A second, closely related characteristic of the law of global digitality is that it is, to a large extent, standardised across jurisdictions, based on standard terms and conditions and enforced transnationally via code. This phenomenon can be observed in most areas studied in this book, namely in IP, data protection, consumer contract, media, and financial market scenarios. The emerging answer of the law to this standardisation challenge is that legal norms are implemented deeply in the design of the online service at stake. Law transforms from an external, non-digital force into an order embedded in the digital.
Code-based law of digitality supports global digital capitalism. A third insight provided by this collection is that the private, contract, and code-based law of digitality can be conceived of as a function of global digital capitalism.
The law of digitality is more territorial than can be expected. The digital world is legally fragmented. There, is no uniform global law of digitality. Many online services continue to be directed to certain local markets and recipients primarily for business reasons (price discrimination) and because of linguistic diversity and divergent consumer habits. Few if any legal questions are completely harmonised on a worldwide scale. National approaches persist in particular in the areas of consumer contracts, data protection/privacy and media law, for which the contributions to this book document fundamental differences between European and U.S. approaches. Even in an area as extensively and deeply harmonised as copyright law, hard cases at the borderline between infringement and lawful uses such as the liability of sharing platforms are still handled on a national, territorial basis.
Editors: Matthias C. Kettemann, LL.M. (Harvard), is Professor of Innovation, Theory and Philosophy of Law at the Department for Theory and Future of Law at the University of Innsbruck. Alexander Peukert is Professor of Civil and Commercial Law at the Faculty of Law at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Indra Spiecker gen. Döhmann, LL.M. (Georgetown University) holds the chair of Public and Administrative Law, especially Information Law, Environmental Law and Legal Theory at the Goethe-University of Frankfurt/Main in Germany.
Short link: https://bit.ly/DigitalityBook
Click here for the hardback book and here for the Open Access book.
Governing Information Flows During War
A study on European media governance during the war against Ukraine
Russia's attack on Ukraine also had consequences for media law and media governance. A study co-edited by Prof. Kettemann examines how the media dimension of the war played out in 29 states, including 18 EU members, how platforms and policymakers dealt with disinformation and what long-term developments are emerging. The study was presented live with the Estonian Foreign Minister on 19 April.
Ensuring resilient digital democracy after the pandemic: A new project at the Department for Theory and Future of Law
Together with 13 other universities, the University of Innsbruck has been awarded a €3 million project to research the big question of how Europe's societies can become more resilient after the pandemic. Click here for more information on this project.
22.6.2022
Together with 13 other universities, the University of Innsbruck has been awarded a €3 million project to research the big question of how Europe's societies can become more resilient after the pandemic. Prof. Kettemann, head of the Department of Theory and Future of Law, and his team will analyze how the use of digital communication tools and forums can be leveraged to make political processes fit for the future and shape digital democracy in a way that is sensitive to human rights and promotes participation. The project is led by Dr Piero Tortola from the University of Groningen (NL).
In addition to the immediate health crisis, the COVID 19 pandemic also presents itself as a political and social crisis: The rise of disinformation, populism and extremism threaten liberal democracy in the EU member states. The REGROUP project (Rebuilding governance and resilience out of the pandemic) aims to assess these risks in more detail and provide the EU with concrete paths forward for necessary reforms.
There is much to do, confirms project leader Dr. Piero Tortola from the University of Groningen: "We will look at the socio-political developments since the beginning of the pandemic and evaluate the legal measures to combat COVID 19". The recommendations for action to the EU will also focus on the major challenges of the 21st century with climate change, digitalisation and the reform of the economy towards more sustainability.
Prof. Kettemann and his team at the Department for Theory and Future of Law will lead a work package that focuses on the use of digital tools and platforms to promote the resilience of democratic society in postpandemic times. Prof. Kettemann: "We will trace the transformation of law into an instrument of future-oriented justice and social cohesion using the example of post-pandemic private and public governance of communication flows. Especially the regulation of (social media) platforms as important mediators of public debate play a major role here, so we will focus on fighting disinformation and promoting participation".
Dr Piero Tortola from the University of Groningen (NL) leads a consortium of 14 partner universities from 11 European countries. Besides Groningen and the University of Innsbruck, these are: European University Institute (IT), LUISS Guido Carli (IT), Institut Jacques Delors (FR), Barcelona Centre for International Studies (ES), Dublin City University (IE), European Policy Centre (BE), University of Cyprus (CY), Uniwersytet Jagielloński (PL), Istituto Affari Internazionali (IT), Europa-Kolleg Hamburg (DE), Universitetet i Oslo (NO), and Universität Passau (DE).
The project is scheduled for three years and will start on 1 September 2022. Funding is provided by the Horizon Europe funding line of the EU Commission.
This is Prof. Kettemann’s third project fourth project to start this year. He also leads projects on democratizing platform rules, developing an open source database to analyze cybersecurity incidents, and on the impact of the social media on the way young people develop their identities.
Press enquiries:
University of Innsbruck
Department for Theory and Future of Law
Prof. Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann, LL.M. (Harvard)
Professor for Innovation, Theory and Philosophy of Law
Innrain 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Phone +43 512 507 81605
Mobile +43 676 378 76 25
E-Mail: matthias.kettemann@uibk.ac.at
uibk.digital kettemann.tirol @MCKettemann
A New Resource Against Cyber Operations: Evidence-Based Analysis for Europe and the World
For the German version, please vitit our German homepage.
по-русски
en français
The German Foreign Office provides €1.2 million over three years to support the development of an open-source database on global cybersecurity incidents, the European Repository on Cyber Incidents (EuRepoC), at the Universities of Heidelberg and Innsbruck and SWP Berlin.
Whether cyberattacks against Ukraine, online extortion of hospitals or spying campaigns against civil society groups: Cyber space not only holds a lot of potential, but also some real dangers that can come from states and non-state actors alike. But who are the most dangerous players online? To which states can attacks be attributed? How can cyberattacks be contextualiized politically? And which technical tools are used in which attacks?
These are the questions that guide the work of EuRepoC - the European Repository on Cyber-Incidents, which has now received funding of €1,2m from the Coordination Staff for Cyber Foreign Policy of the German Foreign Office. The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs also supports the project financially; further funding from other EU states is to follow.
The program, which aims to democratize knowledge about cyber incidents, is led by the Institute for Political Science at the University of Heidelberg (as consortium administrator; HD), the Department for Theory and Future of Law at the University of Innsbruck (UIBK), and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP).
"Current issues related to malicious cyber operations show that these very operations are increasingly becoming a problem for our global society," emphasizes Prof. Sebastian Harnisch (University of Heidelberg). "Cyberattacks have become a common tool to sabotage, extort, harm and spy not only on states but also on individuals," he adds. "They concern and worry us all," adds Dr. Annegret Bendiek (SWP), "but how can we comprehend the growing number and diverse nature of global attacks and find an appropriate response in the European Union to them?"
"This is the gap that the project fills," explains Dr. Matthias Schulze (SWP): "The project aims to bring transparency to the global cyber conflict landscape and systematically record cyber incidents, also to make them more comparable politically, technically and legally. Not an easy task given the difficulty of attribution of authors." The project also aims to tackle the attribution problem: various attributions of responsibility by states and from industry are to be bundled and analyzed. "The goal is a manageable, practical and, above all, scientific tool for easy classification of cyber incidents that can be freely used by the public for quick as well as more sophisticated analyses," explains Kerstin Zettl (University of Heidelberg), who worked on the Heidelberg cyber conflict dataset on which the project is based. "Of great importance in cyber incidents," says Prof. Matthias C. Kettemann (UIBK), "is the analysis of the legal framework under international law. The project will address highly topical issues, such as whether recorded cyberattacks against states can be classified as an act of war, and in the latter case, what options the European Union has to counter them. However, the focus on spying attacks against individuals is also an added value of the project. This will lead to a humanization of cybersecurity research."
Prof. Harnisch (HD) sees a lot of potential: "The goal is to create for the first time an open, scientific, and pan-European situational picture to strengthen EU cyber diplomacy and civil society resilience."
The project will start on 15.3.2021. Currently, lawyers, engineers and political scientists are being sought at various locations.
EuRepoC is currently funded by the Foreign Office's Cyber Foreign Policy Staff and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Other European project partners and funding institutions are expected to strengthen and expand the project in later phases.
EuRepoC is coordinated by the Institute for Political Science at the University of Heidelberg (as consortium administrator). The Institute for Theory and Future of Law at the University of Innsbruck and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Berlin are the other founding members.
Project Team:
University of Heidelberg, Institute for Political Science
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Harnisch
Kerstin Zettl
University of Innsbruck, Institute for Theory and Future of Law
Prof. Matthias C. Kettemann, LL.M. (Harvard)
Science and Politics Foundation
Dr. Annegret Bendiek
Dr. Matthias Schulze
Press inquiries:
Prof. Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann, LL.M. (Harvard)
University of Innsbruck
Department for Theory and Future of Law
matthias.kettemann@uibk.at.at
+49 176 817 50 920
@MCKettemann
Have democracies successfully mastered the challenges of the pandemic? How has the coronavirus impacted democratic principles, processes and values? At the heels of the worst public health crisis in living memory, this book shines a light on the sidelining of parliaments, the ruling by governmental decrees and the disenfranchisement of the people in the name of fighting COVID-19.
Pandemocracy in Europe situates the dramatic impact of COVID-19, and the fight against the virus, on Europe’s democracies. Throughout its 17 contributions the book sets the theoretical stage and answers the democratic questions engaged by health emergencies. Seven national case studies – UK, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Hungary, Switzerland and France – show, each time with a pronounced focus on a particular element of democracy, how different states reacted to the pandemic.
Bridging disciplines and uniting a stellar cast of scholars on democracy, rule of law and constitutionalism, the book provides contours and nuances to a year of debates in political science, international relations and law on the impact of the virus on democracies.
The open access edition of this book is available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on www.bloomsburycollections.com.
Book: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/pandemocracy-in-europe-9781509946365
Open access: https://bit.ly/PandemocracyOA
On the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
Conditions for implementation in Germany
The report shows: Germany has already taken first important steps in some fields to regulate AI in a way that is human rights-compliant and oriented towards the common good, but in other fields there is still a great need for action. The UNESCO AI Ethics Recommendation provides a framework for this.
The study was prepared by Prof. Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann and others together with Institute members Philipp Jaud and Lisa-Maria Riedl on behalf of the German Commission for UNESCO.
How to save the emancipation of the internet?
New essay by Prof. Kettemann in the Global Media Journal:
Katharina Mosene, Matthias C. Kettemann: Noch einmal kurz die Welt retten: Machtkritische Perspektiven auf digitale Emanzipationsgewinne, Global Media Journal – German Edition (2022) (Bd. 11 Nr. 2 (2021): Herbst/Winter 2021), Special Issue: Global Digital Media from Intersectional, Queerfeminist and Post- and Decolonial Perspectives, https://www.db-thueringen.de/receive/dbt_mods_00051031