Challenging the limits of legal research

December 12-13, 2016 - Aarhus University, Department of Law

Oplysninger om arrangementet

Tidspunkt

mandag 12. december 2016, kl. 10:30 - tirsdag 13. december 2016, kl. 17:00

Sted

Aarhus University, Department of Law

Arrangør

Aarhus University


Purpose

Either because of the chosen research topics, the applied methods, or the utilized sources a large part of contemporary legal scholarship challenges our traditional understanding of legal research as purely ‘the stringent application of legal research methods on sources of law to answer legal questions’.

First of all, in the complex and increasingly globalized world legal research questions can increasingly contain other than legal considerations, e.g. economic, sociological, psychological just to name a few. These new considerations make it necessary to go beyond the interpretation of legal sources and pertain to, for example, the effects of soft law sources, the use of non-legal considerations in law-making, or the use of an interplay between semi-legal instruments and social or market mechanisms in regulation.  Secondly, some legal questions may be better answered using less common legal methods or methods borrowed from other academic areas.  Finally, when we speak of sources of law, it is presumed that we have a clear idea about what law is. However, with the transnationalization of personal and business relationships, among other things, the access to different sources of information online, and the trend towards legal pluralism, the definition of law, and thus also delimitation of legal sources becomes blurred.

The course will thus focus on expanding the boundaries of legal research through considering research questions on or beyond the limits of legal research, through applying less common research methods on traditional legal questions, and through using non-traditional sources of law and information to augment legal research.

The purpose of this course is to:

  • engage in an academic discussion and challenge the students’ ideas about the limits of legal research and assess the participants’ projects in relation to those limits;
  • introduce the participants to some of the research methods and sources less commonly used in legal research that can help students approach research topics on the limits of legal research and beyond, or that can enhance the quality of their legal research;
  • help PhD students to fine-tune and nuance their research questions in the light of what is possible using different traditional and less common methods and sources of law and information;
  • help the students make methodological choices that facilitate answering their research questions while maintaining a sound research framework.

Learning objectives

After participating in the course, the students will be able to:

  • explain whether and how their projects challenge the limits of traditional legal research;
  • choose appropriate methods and sources for projects at the limits of legal research;
  • justify the methodological choices they make to answer their research questions; and
  • assess the relevance and legal validity of different sources of law and information used in their projects.

Preparation

The participants are required to send a max 3 page summary of their research project by 1st December 2016. As part of the summary students are required to analyze whether and how their project challenges the limits of legal research, the description of the chosen (or contemplated) research methods and justification of those methods.

Ca. 200 pages of reading material will be assigned for the course, including specific questions to some of the readings. These will be discussed in the different sessions.

The students are required to read all the project summaries and the selected reading materials. Each participant is required to analyze and comment on the summary of a peer assigned to them.


Programme


ECTS

3 ECTS

Registration

Please register with Cita Kristensen by e-mail cita@law.au.dk before November 18/25, 2016.

In case you have questions regarding the content and assignments of the course please contact the course coordinators.

Course organisers

International and Transnational Tendencies in Law (INTRAlaw), Department of Law, Aarhus University (http://law.au.dk/forskning/forskergrupper/intralaw/)

Corporate Social Responsibility Legal Research Network (http://law.au.dk/forskning/projekter/csr-lrn/)

Course coordinators

Daniel Gergely Szabo, Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Law, Aarhus University, dgs@law.au.dk

Katerina Peterkova, Postdoctoral fellow/assistant professor, INTRAlaw, Department of Law, Aarhus University, katpe@law.au.dk

Lecturers

Beate Sjåfjell, Professor, Department of Private Law, Oslo University

Thomas Neumann, Associate Professor, Department of Law, Aalborg University

Daniel Gergely Szabo, Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Law, Aarhus University, dgs@law.au.dk

Katerina Peterkova, Postdoctoral fellow/assistant professor, INTRAlaw, Department of Law, Aarhus University, katpe@law.au.dk