New challenges for teaching, researching and practicing criminal law in the digital age Erasmus Project

Project Title

New challenges for teaching, researching and practicing criminal law in the digital age

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Home and justice affairs (human rights & rule of law)

Project Summary

The unique chance of DIGICRIMJUS is to conduct very important interexchange between the best young law students, from undergraduate to doctoral, coming from three very different criminal legal systems: the Hungarian criminal law with a socialistic history, the Turkish criminal law with an Ottoman tradition and many influences from Italian, French, Swiss, German, and even other influences within the past century, and the very traditional German criminal law with a tradition in philosophical and dogmatical development. While the three different legal systems also share some similarities through their past, differences, especially within the culturally dependent criminal law, prevail. However, they all are challenged by digitalization in similar ways. Artificial intelligence is used anywhere to apply autonomic systems. Likewise, people are using different online systems and applications within the clear, the deep, and as well within its darknet. Some of the users are using the internet to their advantage in illegal ways. Yet criminal laws are not prepared for digital fraud, theft trespassing, and different kinds of digitally trafficking with illegal goods, be it drugs, guns, or child pornography. Last but not least, investigators need to investigate within the internet as well as using digital means. Hereto we need to develop new rules of evidence taking and presenting in court. It is our plan to also use that chance by developing the methods of comparative work and research when challenged by digitalization for future law professionals.
We want to discuss these current challenges within three transnational training seminars together with students of our universities. We will by teaching and learning make those challenges transparent to the public and discuss the need for further research and adoptions of criminal laws in our countries. By comparing our legal systems, we will look out for best practices and the need for change. Secondly, we will develop different kinds of national, comparative, and transnational lectures from the core subjects of the three seminars, a full one-semester specified class on digital criminal law, including online teaching materials; concentrated short and informative video-lectures of different research subjects of the research and including specific challenges to all criminal laws, which are subject of our research; podcasts formats, which will base on deepened case studies and also attract next-generation students. The result will be a very unique, entirely new form of teaching and learning in a multilingual, international and professionally high-quality environment. We plan to set up a knowledge hub for related issues in collaboration with law students.
With the three transnational seminars, we will reach out to at least 90 students (30 from each university within three years). However, with the different class formats developed through the research, in our universities directly and internationally “online” indirectly a large number of students will have the chance to participate in the future (outreach to high school students and students within all years of their law study; to students of other subjects, especially to those of computational science). By including the investigation teams within our states into the program, we will also reach out to different stakeholders, amongst those the International Police Agency INTERPOL.
The program, all in all, functions as a start-up to deepen the relationship between our three universities. It is built on the yearlong relationship of its three leading partners, who since 2006 regularly teach, research, and train at each other’s university. In order to foster the interexchange, we plan to install a very unique Master program between our three universities on digital criminal law, and which will attract many students from all three states within the future.
In total, that will include unique benefits in the long term for we will trigger the modernization of the criminal law curriculum: as part of studies through seminars and lectures and as part of masters with a digital criminal law master of law curriculum. Since our research will base on comparative approaches, it will help to develop a more positive attitude towards the European project and the EU values. Moreover, a comparative approach to digital challenges to criminal law allows facing the biggest challenge of different and conflicting criminal laws as such (mutual trust).
Finally, intellectual outputs of the program address students of law, computational science, and other subjects, as well as the future generation and the interested public. The project will develop skills protecting from crimes like digital theft, computer fraud, or from being involved in illegally trafficking with goods in clear-, deep-, or darknet. In the very long run, this will strengthen (individual) digital human rights in the states, the European Union, and beyond.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 150920 Eur

Project Coordinator

SZEGEDI TUDOMANYEGYETEM & Country: HU

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITAT KONSTANZ
• ISTANBUL UNIVERSITESI