Heads of project: Valerij Zisman, Ivó Coca-Vila What role does the relationship between the state and its citizens play for criminal law theory? A number of influential scholars assume that criminal law must be founded on a bond of citizenship between the offender and the state that reinforces the legitimacy of criminal punishment. If this is the case, how does this assumption affect the state’s standing when it punishes non-citizens or “semi-citizens”?
Head of project: Konstanze Jarvers The phenomenon of domestic and gender-based violence against women is widespread and affects all social classes and all countries. In 2014, for example, 33% of women in the EU between the ages of 18 and 74 had been victims of physical or sexual assault at some point in their lives.
Head of project: S. Katharina Stein Decisions are fundamental to law, whether in its creation, application, or disputation. Decision-making is so closely linked to law, that law is inconceivable without it. While previous research has focused on decisions and decision-making processes, autonomy, and options, this post-doctoral research project addresses a vital but previously neglected aspect of decision-making by examining the textual opposite of a decision—viz, the non-decision.
Heads of project: Philipp-Alexander Hirsch, Elias Moser The aim of the project is to address the issue of rights in criminal law: Who holds and who should hold a right not to be wronged by others? And is it the violation of rights – rather than the causing of harm – that grounds a prima facie reason for criminalization?
Heads of project: J. Rinceanu, R. Stephenson, P. Granata, F. Zufall The Internet and social media have triggered a radical shift in our digital media environment. Discourse production in society has moved onto a new medium and changed its structure and dynamic. The most fundamental features of this new environment have been, first, a shift from an offline “broadcasting” to an online “participatory” communication model and, second, the rise of dominant, privately owned digital intermediaries, the so-called “Big Five”.
Head of project: Rafael Giorgio Dalla Barba The interdisciplinary project in legal philosophy examines the relevance and impact of metaethics on the legal indeterminacy debate. The first chapter (A.) shows the widely accepted argument that, in the so-called hard cases in which the application of legal materials is even for experts highly controversial, the law is indeterminate.
Head of project: Sabine Gless Are programmers the new lawmakers, as Joseph Weizenbaum insinuated back in the last century? And will they remake the criminal justice universe? Certainly, AI systems will continue to replace human decision-making at various points within the criminal justice system. Today’s prominent examples of such replacements include risk profiling and assistance in sentencing.
Heads of project: R. Poscher, M. Herdegen, J. Masing, K. F. Gärditz The Handbook of Constitutional Law is co-authored by 24 German professors, and supported by 15 international academics from Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia. Edited by Professors Herdegen, Masing, Poscher, and Gärditz, the Handbook’s main purpose is to foster transnational constitutional dialogue.
Head of project: Valerij Zisman In the past, theorizing in criminal law was seen as a primarily philosophical and legal enterprise. Recently, scholars have begun trying to combine research from moral and social psychology, which investigate what drives people to impose punishment, with the normative literature on punishment theory.
Head of project: Morten Boe Guilt is the focal point of (German) criminal law: it is a prerequisite of punishment, is guaranteed by the constitutional principle of guilt, and is the epitome of the general systemic decision to adopt a culpability-based criminal law.
Head of project: Jakob Mutter This project addresses the growing convergence between modern police work and security intelligence directives. Besides softening the ‘iron limits’ of concrete danger and initial suspicion as vital law enforcement intervention thresholds, state responses to terrorism and international organised crime have expanded police powers and their technical surveillance capabilities to record and evaluate complex threat scenarios.
Heads of project: Philipp-Alexander Hirsch, Markus Abraham, Martin Brecher The aim of this interdisciplinary research project is to evaluate from today’s perspective the dispute regarding whether punishment ought to be justified on retributive or on preventive grounds – a dispute that has been ongoing in Germany since the end of the eighteenth century and whose most influential protagonists were Kant, Fichte, and Hegel.