Chapter 6: Introduction to a Theory of Legal Change

These flashcards cover the primary vocabulary and concepts regarding legal change, normative patterns, and the evolution of environmental and digital law as presented in Chapter 6.

Basic Normative Pattern

A recurring way in which norms are organized within the legal system, used to explain how legal rules arise and change during interactions between social systems and the lifeworld.

The Right of Ownership (Freedom Side)

One of the two inherent, competing sides of ownership rights that emphasizes the owner’s absolute freedom to use their property.

The Right of Ownership (Restraint Side)

One of the two inherent, competing sides of ownership rights that emphasizes restraint in instances where the effects of property use touch or impact others.

The Institution of Immission

A legal route used to stop or fundamentally reshape activities producing harmful effects by focusing on concrete effects crossing property boundaries rather than abstract rights of use.

The Institution of Tort Law

A legal route used to impose duties and consequences for harm through compensation, providing decisions and remedies once harm has appeared.

Intervening Rules

Specific norms generated by the legal system that concern broader public interests, speaking simultaneously to individual actors and public authorities while requiring formal infrastructure for enforcement.

Reproductive Function

The function governing the structure and task of the legal system, necessitating mechanisms for stability, consensus, and the resolution of conflicts.

Societal Development

A constantly changing, progressive horizontal progression that occurs through core technologies and paradigm changes over time.

Legal Development

A movement on a vertical dimension that swings like a pendulum between bipolar opposites, such as substantive justice versus procedural justice.

Phase 1 (Digital Society)

The stage of legal development in the digital society dominated by extreme pendulum swings between freedom and self-regulation.

Phase 2 (Digital Society)

The stage where legal development shifts toward regulation in the form of 'game rules' and moves toward a global level.

Cognitive Challenge

A difficulty in regulating new technological phenomena that arises because a lack of experience and knowledge makes it unclear what needs to be regulated or how to do so.