Ongoing projects

„Wandel im und durch Recht – Digitale Transformation und Klimawende“

The project, carried out by Prof. Dr. Angela Schwerdtfeger together with Prof. Dr. Roland Broemel, Maîtrise en Droit, and Prof. Dr. Mareike Schmidt, LL.M., is funded by the Volkswagen-Foundation for 2 years in the programme "NEXT – Law between Normativity and Reality".
It analyses how descriptions of reality from other disciplines are methodically processed in law. Two fundamental and complex changes in reality, the digital transformation and climate change, serve as contrasting analytical foils for the study. On the one hand, a comparative analysis of the legal handling of these processes of change is intended to reveal overarching methodological approaches that go beyond sector-specific special dogmatics to incorporate complex and divergent bodies of knowledge from other disciplines. On the other hand, the comparison is intended to sensitise for specifics, especially for the medial transformation of the application of law itself through legal tech as well as for legislative processes in view of uncertain (causal) relationships in measures to reduce greenhouse gases. In addition, the digital transformation primarily brings about a change in the law through changes in the subject areas and the media framework conditions, while climate change calls for social change through law. By analysing the methodological handling of these challenges across different areas of law, impulses for dogmatic methodology and its rational handling of structural social change will be developed. Based on a description of the change in reality, three methodological dimensions will be analysed: legal doctrine, the methodology of applying the law and legislative theory. These are supplemented by teaching concepts that address the resulting need for change in law studies.

Wissenschaftliche Begleitung der Entwicklung des Rechtsschutzes in Umweltangelegenheiten auf europäischer, internationaler und nationaler Ebene in der 20. Legislaturperiode

The scope and area of application of the "Umweltverbandsklage" in Germany is determined by European and international law. By signing the Aarhus Convention, Germany has committed itself to implementing the legal protection and participation guarantees granted therein. The implementation of these obligations under international law in national law, specifically in the existing system of administrative legal protection, has been criticized as insufficient by the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Aarhus Convention bodies on several occasions in the past. On behalf of the BMUV and the UBA, Prof. Dr Angela Schwerdtfeger, together with the Independent Institute for Environmental Issues (UfU) and other cooperation partners, is investigating unanswered questions on legal protection in environmental matters, in particular on representative actions. One focus of Angela Schwerdtfeger's research in the project is on legal developments at the level of European Union law, in particular the Aarhus Regulation and the Renewable Energy Directive (RED III).