Legal concepts regarding personhood, privacy, and private life

In many societies, voluntary sterilization is seen as problematic. Reservations manifest themselves in cultural and religious taboos, in ethical objections, and ultimately in state laws. But how do legal systems today defend the position that the genuine and self-reflected intention of an individual is insufficient to legally justify sterilization? With this comparative research project, we aim to illustrate the ways in which legal systems regulate voluntary sterilization. more

Physical self-determination is understood as a human right. Nevertheless, physical self-determination has never been an equal right enjoyed by all people; rather, it is a right with gradations. To this day, the right of physical self-determination is different for children and recipients of care than it is for ‘normal’ adults. more

The research project understands applied guardianship law to also be a manner of coding behaviour. This conclusion rests on the premise that law and medicine use similar structures to classify behaviour and thus make it assessable for each system. The aim is therefore to compare coding practices in guardianship law with those of medical coding. In particular, the aim is to describe and analyse – by means of an interdisciplinary approach – the goals pursued in coding systems. more

Human rights comprise rights to which people are entitled solely by virtue of their humanity. Guaranteeing them is one of the legal ideals of modernity. Human rights are not static; rather, they are based on communication processes and require interpretation as well as enforcement. Examining cases addressing Art. 8 ECHR, we wish to explore how human rights affect the discourse in national law and our attempts at legitimation. more

In German law, a number of references are made – somewhat mysteriously and perhaps with a deeper meaning – to that which is “highly personal” (höchstpersönlich). In this research project, the peculiar nature of the “highly personal” label is to be assessed in the entire legal system and explored in more detail for individual areas of private law. more

In family law scholarship, many authors take it for granted that an essential function of the family is ensuring a place of private life. Privacy is thereby considered a value of the family as well as of family law. At the same time, however, it is emphasized that the guarantee of privacy is more than the shielding of a space from regulation. The issue quickly becomes complicated at that point when the law seeks to formulate and embrace a fitting concept of privacy as the concept is one as fundamental as it is contentious and controversial. more

The project makes the assumption that societies attribute different values to individualism and autonomy and understand them in different ways, which in turn influences a society’s perception and appreciation of privacy. At the same time, the comparative analysis undertaken will consider the effectiveness of available legal mechanisms protecting against violence in the respective jurisdictions and examine potential societal, cultural, and intra-legal hindrances. more

A solidifying body of academic work and changing social views indicate that the legal vocabulary of subject and object no longer adequately reflects the human-animal relationship, also suggesting that a fundamental reorientation of the legal status of animals is imminent. But what form might the future legal position of non-human animals assume in concrete terms? And can the law ever be successful in leaping over its own anthropocentric shadow? more

The project aims to place legal subjectivity on a conceptual foundation, to apply it to potentially novel candidates for legal subject status (nature, animals, organisms, robots, artificial intelligence, social collectives, works of art), and to question whether it remains appropriate – now and in the future – to divide the world into subjects and objects. more

In private law, it is common to distinguish between persons and property. This line is also drawn in succession law: succession law governs the fate of assets, whereas the fate of the person and personhood are determined outside succession law. It is not the heirs who decide on what happens to the organs, corpse and memory of the deceased, but persons who are determined according to other legal rules and who are vested with a wide variety of legal powers. more

This research project examines how well the human rights guarantees found in the Self-Determination Act have been implemented. Do the in part restrictive provisions of the new procedure mesh with the statutory goal of fully detaching the assignment of legal gender from third-party assessment and strengthening the self-determination of the person concerned? In addition, the inquiry will look at the application of the new self-determination law in legal practice. more

The idea of nature as a holder of rights is no longer far-fetched; rather, it occupies a broad position in legal discourse and is being put to the practical test in individual jurisdictions. While Christopher Stone was still thinking of tortious protection in his pioneering article “Should Trees Have Standing?”, a constitutional perspective is now often in the foreground. The question of whether rights of nature can also be contractual in character has, however, not yet been examined in detail. more