The research focus area ‘Technology, law and justice’ is an open invitation for researchers at Leiden Law School and Leiden University to contribute to this dynamic field of great societal importance, to strengthen collaborations, and to advance impactful legal scholarship.

Balancing risks

New technologies, such as AI, robotics and legal tech, are developing rapidly and have become an integral part of our society. They bring major potential benefits to people and societies through increased productivity and tailored solutions. At the same time these new technologies can also pose significant potential risks in terms of inequality, insecurity, injustice, and attacks on democracy. This research focus area aims to contribute to reaping the benefits of technologies while preventing or mitigating their risks. It provides a platform for researchers at Leiden Law School to collaborate on the interaction between people and technology.

Cross-border and cross-disciplinary

This research focus area builds on extensive research expertise on the interaction between technology, the law and justice. Leiden Law School is characterised by a high quality of both monodisciplinary and multidisciplinary research on this topic, through theoretical and practical analysis and empirical studies. Our researchers are increasingly collaborating with others. New technologies involve a great variety of different legal ramifications, and as such are not limited to one specific legal discipline.

Comprehensive

This research focus area comprises cutting-edge research conducted at Leiden Law School in this field. Examples of ongoing and future research topics, addressing aspects of technology, include:  privacy, autonomy and social justice (the role of power dynamics, human vulnerability, administrative justice, accountability mechanisms, social media and the protection of democratic values); governance and regulation of technology (compliance, risk management and enforcement, also in the field of robotics); private law aspects of new technologies (contracts through AI, responsibility and liability for AI); eHealth (legal and ethical aspects); firms and financial and insurance markets (blockchain technologies (smart contracts and cryptos) and quantum applications); consumers and product markets (e-commerce and online platforms); the labour market (differences in the impact of technology on different groups of workers and firms), and innovative air mobility.

Links with education

Research in this research focus area also closely links to our teaching. The theme plays a key role in: compulsory courses (e.g. contract law; property law), elective courses in the current (e.g. law and AI; technology and private law; privacy and data protection) and new Bachelor programmes in Leiden (philosophy of technology and law; technology and innovation by firms; technological revolutions) and The Hague (cybersecurity and cybercrime), the minors (e.g. AI and society; internet law), courses in the new Bachelor Economics and Society and new Master Public Sector Economics, as well the advanced LLM Law and Digital Technologies.

Links to strategic plans

This research focus area strongly links with Leiden University’s Strategic Plan (Innovating and Connecting - 2022-2027), the SSH Sector Plan cross-cutting theme ‘Prosperity, participation, and citizenship in a digital world’, and the university theme ‘AI for humans, society and science’ (under development).

Contact

If you have questions you can send an email to: tech@law.leidenuniv.nl

Share on Facebook Share by Bluesky Share on LinkedIn Share by WhatsApp Share by Mastodon