Research Centre Robot-Law

Modern technology is developing rapidly in many areas. The law must react to, control and possibly limit these changes. In many areas such as biotechnology and computer law, this is already done quite successfully.


However, the law of robotics has been quite neglected in these efforts, although it appears to become a central field of technological development. The field of application for robots is expanding and the character of devices is changing: their decision-making progress is becoming more and more complex and thus less intuitively predictable. This has implications for issues pertaining to civil and criminal liability, insurance of robots and against damage caused by robots, and the need for new security regulations.


The research and use of machines in the human body is also closely tied to these questions. As of today, there are pacemakers, brain pacemakers, sophisticated artificial limbs – soon there will also be artificial sensory organs, nerves, nanobots, computer chips implanted into the body and much more. This, too, is barely discussed in the legal community. However, such man-machine connections could redefine the limits of human race, bring the need to re-evaluate the criminal liability of mechanized people, and finally lead to the question if legal regulations must be set to limit potentially dangerous further developments.