A new Max Planck Law Initiative, ‘Security and Law,’ has just been established, offering a platform for collaboration on security-related topics amongst our researchers. Initiatives such as this one are created and led by PhD and postdoctoral scholars within the Max Planck Law network, promoting cooperation in areas of shared academic interest.
The ‘Security and Law’ Initiative is designed to unite early career scholars focusing on security from legal and interdisciplinary perspectives. It addresses security in its broadest sense, reflecting on how globalization and digitalization influence security and its regulation across national, transnational, European, and international levels. By facilitating informal meetings, talks, and workshops, the Initiative aims to create a forum for exchanging ideas and methodological approaches with respect to security and law.
Inspiration for the Initiative emerged during the Max Planck Law Annual Conference 2024, where researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and the Max Planck Institute for Crime, Security and Law connected over their shared academic interests. ‘It was at the Annual Conference that we realized there was no initiative focusing on security, despite its growing relevance in legal and societal debates,’ one organizer reflected during a recent interview. The idea took shape amidst discussions that ranged from international conflicts to domestic security challenges, highlighting the need for a dedicated platform to explore these pressing issues.
The Initiative’s inaugural event is scheduled for 17 February 2025, focusing on the complex legal balance between safeguarding democratic freedoms and countering anti-democratic threats. Drawing on German constitutional law, particularly Article 21 of the Basic Law, the session will examine the ambivalent role of political parties—how the law simultaneously protects their freedom and guards against anti-constitutional activities.
The Initiative seeks to bridge the gap between different security perspectives, reflecting both external security issues, such as international conflicts, and internal matters like policing and surveillance. The organizers noted that between MPI-Heidelberg and MPI-Freiburg, ‘some researchers focus more on European or international law, while others concentrate on internal security law; and it’s valuable to look at security in a broad sense, from these different angles.’
At its core, the ‘Security and Law’ Initiative is a response to contemporary global and national security challenges. The organizers were keen to emphasize that ‘we have this broad concept of security—it can be right-wing extremism, international terrorism, organized crime, or the effects of international conflicts on domestic security’. Moreover, reflecting on the Initiative’s scholarly ethos, they added, ‘our Initiative is a forum to rationalize the discussion, taking into account all the various perspectives and to understand the stakes discursively’.
Visit the webpage of Security and Law and get in touch.