Call for Papers

Law and socio-technical change

We are living amid abrupt technological and social changes. Advances in digital, artificial intelligence, and medical technologies, just to name a few, seem to be on the cusp of fundamentally affecting the social structures of our daily lives, disrupting established patterns of sociality, introducing new risks and opportunities, and forcing us to renegotiate key tenets of how we organize our societies. For example, generative large language models such GPT-4 seem to have attained a maturity that allows for their integration into administrative and business decision-making processes. The models could also disrupt information ecosystems and many existing industries. While the EU Act is still brewing, the models lack a clear regulatory framework.

The Legal Research Network conference invites papers focusing on what happens when law and new technologies collide. We would be happy to receive papers that discuss encounters between, for example, artificial intelligence, social media, robotics, medical discoveries, human enhancement, and law. However, the framing of the call should be understood broadly.

The papers should be article or chapter drafts of 5000 to 8000 words in length (excluding footnotes and references). The deadline for paper submission is 24 August. We will provide further instructions on submission in the email confirming participation.

The paper sessions will run as paper workshops in groups of 6–8 participants where the participants actively discuss the papers and help the authors to improve them. The participants are required to read all the papers discussed in their group. Further information on group composition and on how the papers are distributed will be provided in the email confirming participation.

Enrolment is limited to 20 participants. Participants will be selected based on fit with the call theme.