Empirical Legal Research: The Gap between Facts and Values and Legal Academic Training

Leeuw, Frans L.

doi:10.18352/ulr.315

Cited by 30 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 11 publications

(11 reference statements)

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“…Reflections so far considered suggest seeing the scientific investigation of social dynamics as a strategic knowledge in assessing rules and policies' effectiveness, encouraging legal science to move from a traditional dogmatic perspective to an empirical one [57] that includes an evidence-based analysis of society and its complex phenomena. The discussion is ongoing: the number of empirical studies on legal rules, institutions, and behavioural systems is growing, as suggested by the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, along with researchers from social, legal and political sciences that stress the need for deepening the non-linear mechanisms of social systems in order to tackle the complex challenges of society [58][59][60].…”

Section: The Role Of Evidence In Rule-makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The GDPR beyond Privacy: Data-Driven Challenges for Social Scientists, Legislators and Policy-Makers

Vestoso

2018

Future Internet

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While securing personal data from privacy violations, the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) explicitly challenges policymakers to exploit evidence from social data-mining in order to build better policies. Against this backdrop, two issues become relevant: the impact of Big Data on social research, and the potential intersection between social data mining, rulemaking and policy modelling. The work aims at contributing to the reflection on some of the implications of the 'knowledge-based' policy recommended by the GDPR. The paper is thus split into two parts: the first describes the data-driven evolution of social sciences, raising methodological and epistemological issues; the second focuses on the interplay between data-driven social research, rule-making and policy modelling, in the light of the policy model fostered by GDPR. Some theoretical reflections about the role of evidence in rule-making will be considered to introduce a discussion on the intersection between data-driven social research and policy modelling and to sketch hypotheses on its future evolutions.

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Section: The Role Of Evidence In Rule-makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The GDPR beyond Privacy: Data-Driven Challenges for Social Scientists, Legislators and Policy-Makers

Vestoso

2018

Future Internet

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“…Obviously, what is being proposed here is not simply an a priori adhesion to a not yet completely defined scientific and methodological perspective. As highlighted in [7], "the more empirical legal research is a 'growth industry', the more important it is to understand and discuss epistemological problems of this field of study". A great deal of work will have to be done to tackle with fundamental issues including how to operationalise legal concepts, where to find data (stored, but also Big Data) and, above all, how to link empirical (including causal) evidence to the normativity of legal arrangements and legal scholarship.…”

Section: Legal Computational Empiricismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The design of new scientific tools for various reasons is looming on the horizon within today's debate about the aims and methods of legal studies. Two emerging research fields, Empirical legal studies (ELS) [1][2][3][4] and Computational legal science (CLS) [5][6][7][8][9], are indeed pushing forward discussions involving not only scientific issues such as the definition of scope and object of legal science, but also methodological questions concerning how and with which instruments law can be studied. The call for a closer integration of empirical analyses into legal scholarship and practice characterising ELS-the latest in a series of empirically flavoured schools of thought going from Law and Economics, to Sociology of law and Legal Realism-inevitably results into the quest for tools enabling a deeper understanding of the factual dimension of the legal universe [1,[10][11][12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ex Machina: Analytical platforms, Law and the Challenges of Computational Legal Science

Lettieri¹,

Altamura

Giugno

et al. 2018

Future Internet

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Over the years, computation has become a fundamental part of the scientific practice in several research fields that goes far beyond the boundaries of natural sciences. Data mining, machine learning, simulations and other computational methods lie today at the hearth of the scientific endeavour in a growing number of social research areas from anthropology to economics. In this scenario, an increasingly important role is played by analytical platforms: integrated environments allowing researchers to experiment cutting-edge data-driven and computation-intensive analyses. The paper discusses the appearance of such tools in the emerging field of computational legal science. After a general introduction to the impact of computational methods on both natural and social sciences, we describe the concept and the features of an analytical platform exploring innovative cross-methodological approaches to the academic and investigative study of crime. Stemming from an ongoing project involving researchers from law, computer science and bioinformatics, the initiative is presented and discussed as an opportunity to raise a debate about the future of legal scholarship and, inside of it, about the challenges of computational legal science.

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“…Empirical legal research has grown significantly(van Dijck et al, 2018). However, critical voices have also emerged about its limits in terms of its production of knowledge about law(Leeuw, 2015).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Escaping the Ivory Tower: Legal Research on Human Rights from a Critical Perspective

Taramundi

2019

TAHRJ

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This article aims to address some of the criticisms that have been made of human rights research, especially of human rights research conducted by legal scholars. It argues that a conscious and critical approach to the limitations of the 'ivory tower' of legal scholarship on rights is becoming increasingly necessary in a research context marked by the convergence of multiple disciplines, the ever-growing contestation of human rights, and the complexity of the international regime for the protection of human rights. This article outlines three strategies that could be useful for legal scholars to escape from the ivory tower and make a significant contribution to multidisciplinary human rights studies.

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Empirical Legal Research: The Gap between Facts and Values and Legal Academic Training

Cited by 30 publications

References 11 publications

The GDPR beyond Privacy: Data-Driven Challenges for Social Scientists, Legislators and Policy-Makers

The GDPR beyond Privacy: Data-Driven Challenges for Social Scientists, Legislators and Policy-Makers

Ex Machina: Analytical platforms, Law and the Challenges of Computational Legal Science

Escaping the Ivory Tower: Legal Research on Human Rights from a Critical Perspective

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