Dinner Speech - Ralf Poscher

Civil Security Law is emerging as a new comprehensive area of legal studies. The talk explores the causes of this development, systemizes different tendencies and addresses the challenges of this development. One of the causes for the civil security becoming a central issue also in the legal discourse can be traced back to a connection between a heightened sense of vulnerability, the ever more networked character of contemporary societies and the informational technologies which drive this development. The resulting tendencies are the internationalization and centralization of civil security measures as well as the blurring of several institutional and legal boundaries. These developments pose challenges for our collective and individual autonomy, which public civil security law has to continue to protect.