Legal science

The methods of legal regulation have evolved a great deal in contemporary societies. The State's position as the regulator is being challenged by the rise of other stakeholders who work on the production of standards. The sources of law are now polycentric and less clearly hierarchical with legal forms continually diversifying. In today’s globalised world, national legal systems are no longer compartmentalised and are instead open permeable systems that continually influence each other. At the same time, our societies express a strong need for law and justice to guarantee the balance of power and the rule of law, regulate economic activities and protect human rights or the environment. In turn this leads to a vast inflation of standards twinned with very fast legal developments. The congestion and volatile nature of standards weaken our legal systems and undermine the accessibility and predictability of legal rules, contributing to a crisis of trust in the law and institutions themselves. Paradoxically, at the same time the law is being reinvested with a role as an instrument of resistance or emancipation and sometimes even forcefully.

The empirical or theoretical, current or historical, national, European or international dimensions of legal science helps explain these changes in the law and the way the law is used and by doing so helps describe, analyse and understand human beings in society. Legal science focuses on a wide range of subjects such as international cooperation and European integration, democracy, justice, human rights, health, the environment, religion, ethics, innovation, digital technology, artificial intelligence, culture, work or company life. It is involved in society's major debates and questions the adequacy of existing rules and their assigned objectives while highlighting the obstacles encountered and how to make them more effective. Legal research is therefore an essential element for many interdisciplinary projects.

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