Law, innovation and technology: fast forward to 2021
Roger Brownsword, Han Somsen
Abstract
This article, introducing a new extended form of the journal, offers some reflections on the changing context in which we now research law, innovation, and technology. Three major changes are highlighted: the evolving landscape of Law 3.0, potentially de-centring both rules and humans from the legal enterprise; the new ‘normal’ of life with pandemics, underlining the vulnerability of humans; and, threading through all of this, the Anthropocene, destabilising a host of baseline distinctions, and a constant warning about the fragility of the global commons and the human condition. In this changing context, the question is whether technology can provide the solutions to our global challenges without involving an irreversible erosion of human agency. With this, we open the floor to our contributors.