Editors: Prof. Dr. Riikka Koulu (Legal Tech Lab, University of Helsinki, Finland) & Dr. Jörg Pohle (Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Germany)
Technological design is increasingly becoming an object of legal regulation. Recognizing that law is also the process and product of conscious and unconscious design, this special issue adopts a design approach to law. Our objective is to understand law as a reflexive design activity and to improve the methodology of implementing legal values into technological design. Taking into consideration the politics of design, i.e. all design is normative, there is an urgent need for socio-legal and technico-legal research. Our special issue approaches these topics from the perspective of
legal design patterns that can support analysis, problem-solving, and translations between law, technology, and design.
The concept of design patterns was originally introduced by urban design theorist Christopher Alexander as a tool towards better design of interactional physical spaces. Originally, design patterns were defined as reusable problem-solving models that can be employed to classes of recurring design problems. Later on, the concept was adopted by software developers to enhance their problem-solving through collection of functional design solutions. We are motivated by the observation that law is an abstract architecture that regulates social behavior and interaction, and thus resembles technical architectures both in form and in function. This resemblance makes it worthwhile to examine how the concept of legal design patterns can improve law’s problem-solving capabilities.
The contributions in this special issue shall investigate the concept of legal design patterns and apply it as an analytical tool for rethinking the relationships between law, technology, and society. We expect some articles to focus on the theory and methodology of legal design patterns, to provide the foundation for more practice-oriented applications of the approach. Other authors will contribute to the discussion by examining legal design patterns in different fields and at various levels, drawing examples such as proceduralization, legislative techniques, algorithmic impact assessments, and risk mitigation. Together, these contributions draw out the many possibilities of legal design patterns in analyzing the shifts between different legal domains and regimes, between theoretical, empirical, and politico-legal research, as well as between law and technological design.