The subject matter at the heart of the research program is the limits of criminal law. The current shifting of these limits can be seen in the societal, economic, and political changes of the global, information, and risk society, in which crime, criminal policy, and criminal law are in flux. The extent of recent changes in criminal law is readily apparent, for example, in European Criminal Law and international criminal law, where new forms of international cooperation as well as elements of a bona fide supranational criminal law are emerging. Extensive changes are likewise apparent in the effort to control terrorism, an undertaking that challenges the fundamental relationship between the guarantees of security and freedom and dissolves such traditional political and legal categories as those distinguishing between domestic and foreign security, between war and crime, between war and peace, and between repressive criminal justice institutions, preventive police entities, intelligence agencies, and the military.
The goal of the research program is to examine the limits of criminal law with respect to actual changes in security risks and in ways of thinking about security in a changing society as well as with respect to the normative changes undertaken in order to develop new answers to the criminal policy challenges emerging from this development. Hence, the program enables the Institute to concentrate its activities on specific research focuses with specific issues in areas that promise to be particularly rewarding.