Events

On 12th and 13th February, 2015, Prof. Dr. Marion Albers organized a workshop on "Data Access and Freedom of Information in the Modern Information Society" within the framework of the network "Welfare State and Globalization (Law, Technology and Innovation). Data access and freedom of information are central elements of the modern information society. In particular, Internet-based access to parliamentary, governmental, administrative and judicial information offers expanding opportunities for democratic participation and influence on the part of citizens (keyword: digital governance). Open Government Data is the new keyword that describes the publication of public sector data on the Internet, free access to this data and its reusability. However, claims to data access and freedom of information are by no means completely clarified in legal terms. On the contrary, they pose a wealth of new problems. Some questions arise both in Brazil and in Germany and are solved partly similarly, partly differently. The workshop addressed some of these questions with lectures that complemented each other on the Brazilian and German sides.

The speakers included Ingo Sarlet, Carlos Alberto Molinaro, Magarethe Schuler-Harms, Draiton Gonzaga de Souza, Martin Eifert, Arnaldo Sampaio de Moraes Godoy, Jörn Reinhardt, Gilmar Mendes, Jens-Peter Schneider, Catarine Acioli, Indra Spiecker gen. Döhmann, Ivor A. M. Hartmann, and Marion Albers.

You can find more information (mainly in German) here.

The digitalization of communication and the Internet are fundamentally changing many fields of our world with increasing speed and dynamism. The public lecture series Recht & Netz, sponsored by the Claussen-Simon Foundation, focuses on particularly striking and current topics.

TIME AND LOCATION

Mondays, 6-8 pm, on 24 Oct, 7 Nov, 28 Nov, 12 Dec, 2016 as well as on 9 Jan 2016 and 30 Jan 2017, ESA 1 W (Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, west wing), room 221.

The topics presented in the six sessions include

- Changes in the world of life through the "hidden" Internet or through health apps

- Visions of the future in the field of extended reality and legal problems of Smart Glasses/Smart Lenses in public space

- Hate Speech on the Internet

- new advertising and financing mechanisms on the Internet and adblockers in response

- Possibilities and limits of combating crime in the Darknet

- new techniques of music production and the resulting copyright issues.

Two contributions from the perspective of science and practice or contributions from different disciplines are presented in each meeting. They complement each other, discuss a topic first in general and then in depth or offer contrary positions. This offers a lot of material for the subsequent discussion with the audience.

In addition, you will find information on individual appointments with brief information and short videos to prepare for the topics. Have a look at the articles, under the press articles posted and in the current case law for these topics! Have fun!

24 Oct, 2016 Changes in the world through new technologies

Hidden Internet

Dr. Michael Friedewald, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, Karlsruhe

Opportunities and risks of health apps

Dr. Urs-Vito Albrecht, Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics, Hannover Medical School

Video: Health apps on the rise

Fitness tracker: opportunities and risks

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7 Nov, 2016 Augmented Reality

The Future of Extended Reality

Prof. Dr. Frank Steinicke, Faculty of Computer Science, University of Hamburg

Legal problems of the use of Smart Glasses and Smart Lenses in public spaces

Dr. Thomas Schwenke, LL.M., Attorney at Law, Dr. Schwenke Law Office, Berlin

Video: augmented reality

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28 Nov 2016 Hate Speech on the Internet

Hate Speech in linguistic analysis

Prof. Dr. Konstanze Marx, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Mannheim; Institute for German Language, Mannheim

Legal questions concerning the use of Hate Speech on the Internet

PD. Dr. Mathias Hong, Faculty of Law, University of Freiburg

Video: Questions about Hate Speech

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12 Dec 2016

Personalised advertising and adblockers: mutual defensive battles

Prof. Dr. Karl-Nikolaus Peifer, Institute for Media Law and Communications Law, Faculty of Law, University of Cologne

Kai Recke, Legal Counsel of Eyeo GmbH, Berlin/ Cologne

Video about Adblockers

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09 Jan, 2017

Fighting crime at Darknet

Prof. Dr. Holger Morgenstern, Faculty of Computer Science, Albstadt-Sigmaringen University of Applied Sciences

Rüdiger Spendel, Public Prosecutor, Justice Hamburg

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30 Jan, 2017

New forms of music and copyrights

PD Dr. phil. Ass. iur. Frédéric Döhl, Institute for Music and Musicology, Technical University Dortmund

Katharina Voigtland, LL.M, Specialist Lawyer for Copyright and Media Law, Kanzlei Rasch Rechtsanwälte, Hamburg

From the contributions of the lecture series, the anthology "Recht & Netz", edited by Marion Albers and Ioannis Katsivelas, was published by Nomos Verlag in spring 2018. Further information on the anthology can be found here.

 

On 16 Jan, 2014 and 17. Jan, 2014, Prof. Dr. Marion Albers organized a conference in the Warburg-Haus Hamburg on the topic "Forgetting on the Internet". Forgetting on the Internet and the right to be forgotten are currently at the centre of public and scientific debates. At its core it concerns a specific dimension of the question of the handling of personal data on the Internet, which is controversial in many respects. In contrast to common forms of access in legal research, which focus on individual legal perspectives and possible claims to cancellation, forgetting on the Internet must be understood as an independent regulatory dimension in which the technical and social conditions of forgetfulness are to be reflected on the Internet. In particular, the cultural, social and information sciences have a high level of expertise with regard to forgetting on the Internet as a socially and technically conditioned process. The conference aims to bring together several perspectives. For legal scholarship, the basics of social forgetting and the special modes of forgetting on the Internet are important in order to open up systematic and appropriate access to legal problems. For social, cultural, information or technological research, insights into the various levels of regulation  on the Internet to be worked out are informative in order to capture and process the legal context of forgetting on the Internet.

The speakers included Gerrit Hornung, Peter Wehling, Aleida Assmann, Karsten Weber, Wolfgang Schulz, Indra Spiecker called Döhmann, Mario Martini, Gerald Spindler, Hannes Federrath, Martin Rost and Marion Albers.

A report on the conference by Anna Schimke can be found here.

Conference: Global Law and the Fight against Terrorist Financing

On December 13 and 14, 2012, the conference “Global Law and the Fight against Terrorist Financing” organized by research assistant Lena Groth, LL.M. (Emory) was held in Hamburg. The financing of terrorism is a global problem which cannot be solved by merely national measures. International (or: global) initiatives as well as national lawmakers face problems such as how to engage private actors and how to manage the broad limitations of liberties or the emerging networks of national and international agencies. What is the relationship between theories of global law and the problem of terrorist financing? Can the fight against terrorist financing contribute to the discussions on global law as a further area of reference? How could the fight against terrorist financing become more effective by implementing new structures of rule-making and supervision of the global level?

Scholars of law, economy and political sciences contributed to an interdisciplinary discussion. Experts from a national Financial Intelligence Unit and from the lawmakers’ side (EU Commission, German Parliament) provided valuable insights into practice. The conference was sponsored by the Körber-Fonds Nachwuchsforschung. It was held in German.

Please find the program and information on the speakers here.

On 22 and 23 November 2012, in the context of the Hamburg Center for Bio-Governance, which was currently being founded, the Chair hosted a conference at the Warburg-Haus Hamburg on the topic of "Bioethics, Biorecht, Biopolitik: eine Kontextualisierung". The aim of the interdisciplinary conference was to clarify and contextualise "bioethics", "bio-right" and "biopolitics" with their backgrounds, their different implications and their characteristics in greater depth, to analyse common key problems - the universalisation of certain basic values, consensus-building processes in value decisions, dealing with knowledge, uncertainty and ignorance, legitimation and legitimation mechanisms - and finally to discuss interdisciplinary approaches in view of the fundamental disciplinary differentiation. Speakers included Marion Albers, University of Hamburg, Johann Ach, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Stefan Huster, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Ulrich Willems, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Silke Schicktanz, Universität Göttingen, Stefan Beck, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Ulrich Gassner, Universität Augsburg, Renate Martinsen, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Petra Gehring, Technische Universität Darmstadt, and Heiner Fangerau, Universität Ulm. The conference was sponsored by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.

Further information on the conference can be found in the flyer. 

Conference reports were published (in English) by Lena Groth, in the German Law Journal 2013, 434, (PDF), (in German) by Anna Schimke, JZ 2013 (PDF), and by Julia Berdin, MedR 2013 (PDF).

Following the conference, Nomos-Verlag published an interdisciplinary anthology on biological law. It is edited by Prof. Dr. Marion Albers:

This interdisciplinary volume combining contributions from ethicists, medical scientists, lawyers and political scientists deals with the entire spectrum of problems in the field of bioethics, biolaw and biopolitics. The contributions discuss the meaning and the subjects of bioethics, biolaw and biopolitics as well as their backgrounds and implications. They comprise deliberations on how disciplines can learn from each other and how convincing inter- or transdisciplinary approaches can be established. Additionally, key issues such as the handling of knowledge, uncertainty and the unknown, appropriate decision-making procedures in case of fundamental value
conflicts or patterns of legitimation with regard to new biotechnological challenges are discussed thoroughly.

With contributions by: PD Dr. Johann S. Ach, Prof. Dr. Marion Albers, Prof. Dr. Heiner Fangerau, Prof. Dr. Ulrich M. Gassner, Prof. Dr. Stefan Huster, Prof. Dr. Renate Martinsen, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Willems

More details on the anthology can be found here.

Is there beauty in law? Or, at least, should there be? What connections exist between aesthetics of law and criticism of law? On the 23rd and 24th of February 2012, the chair of public law, information and communication law, health law and legal theory held an interdisciplinary conference at the Warburg-Haus Hamburg regarding fundamental questions of legal and aesthetic normativity. It was designed and organised by Jörn Reinhardt. Contributors were Jörn Reinhardt (Hamburg), Reinold Schmücker (Münster), Sabine Müller-Mall (Berlin), Andreas von Arnauld (Hamburg/Münster), Eva Schürmann (Magdeburg), Katrin Trüstedt (Erfurt), Emmanuel Alloa (St. Gallen), Francesca Raimondi (Frankfurt a.M.), Fabian Steinhauer (Weimar) and Rainer Maria Kiesow (Paris). 

Further information is available on the flyer (PDF). 

Reports on the meeting can be found in JZ 2012, p. 567 (Anna Schimke) and DVBl 2012, p. 1155 (Lena Groth).

In the summer semester 2015 a lecture series took place on the topic "Bio-Governance - New developments in gene technology, biotechnology and information technology as a regulatory challenge".

Further information can be found here.

Please also visit our website of the Hamburg Center for Bio-Governance for more information about current research and events.

In the context of the XXV. World Congress of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy in Frankfurt am Main (Germany), 15. - 20. August 2011, dealing with the general issue „Law, Science, Technology“, Prof. Dr. Marion Albers, Dr. Thomas Hoffmann, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, and Dr. Jörn Reinhardt have organized and chaired the Workshop "Human Rights and Human Nature". Natural sciences have not only changed our understandig of what the human being is. They have also made it possible to change the very nature of the human. Medical and biotechnical interferences as well as the developments in the life and neuro-sciences are questioning central legal concepts and categories. This applies especially to the human rights discourse. It is obvious that the recourse to human nature as a line of argument becomes problematic if human nature itself is the subject of continual transformation and transgression. The vanishing line between the natural and the artificial challenges common (metaphysical) explanations of human rights as natural rights. Nevertheless, "human nature" is still an attractive argument in contemporary human rights theory. How do the transformations of the human affect the idea of a human right? How do they change our understanding of particular basic and human rights?