The Research group on Technology Law at FDEF aims to foster the knowledge and develop further the regulatory approaches to technology-oriented issues. With great success: the paper “Regulating Pornography from a European Human Rights Perspective: Positive obligations for States and the limits of regulatory action in light of ECtHR jurisprudence” by Ph.D. candidate Nils Langensteiner and former post-doctoral researcher Arron McArdle has been awarded the BILETA-EJLT Prize at the 39th Annual Conference of the British & Irish Law, Education and Technology Association (BILETA) held at Dublin City University from 17 to 19 April.
The top 3 papers submitted to this prize were presented in a Q&A session, during which each paper was briefly introduced by the author, discussed by a member of the BILETA Executive, and subsequently subject to questions from the audience.
The paper, which was supervised by Prof. Mark D. Cole, deals with the question of how pornography can and should be regulated in view of the facilitated access and dissemination of this type of content due to technological advancement.
BILETA inter alia promotes research projects, provides information on technology in law developments including comparative perspectives, and supports relevant research publications such as the European Journal of Law and Technology. The BILETA Annual Conference aims to foster critical and topical discussions on the future of law, technology and legal education. Members of the FDEF’s Research group on Technology Law have regularly presented papers in the past with previous successes: in 2011 and 2022, Sandra Schmitz-Berndt has also been awarded best paper prizes.
The 2024 conference was hosted by the Dublin City University’s Law and Tech Research Cluster in partnership with the Law Society of Ireland and with the support of the Erasmus Mundus Master in Law, Data and AI (EMILDAI) and the ADAPT Centre for AI-driven Innovation.