How is the authority of law challenged by digital technologies? Is the digitisation of law an appropriate means to achieve legal impartiality? This book provides an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the impact of the ongoing digital transformation of legal systems.
Digital law differs from traditional law in that it relies on decision-support software and networked databases. Such mechanisms must be understood not only in technical terms but also in their social and historical dimensions: the computational foundations of digital law should be situated within the long history of the mechanisation of writing. Digitalisation constitutes a graphic revolution which, in the legal domain, transforms the very conditions of impartiality. Whereas the legality of traditional legal systems is grounded in territorial sovereignty, digital law is no longer anchored in a sovereign territory. It not only increasingly transcends established borders, but also dispenses with the spatial embeddedness that has underpinned legal authority. Digital legality must therefore be reconceptualised to consider how automated systems may be integrated into the social space within which law operates.
