Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin: Hans-Heinrich Trute, Dr. iur.

Project

Legal Procedure as a Forum of Negotiation Between Science and Society

An den Schnittstellen von Wissenschaft und anderen gesellschaftlichen Teilsystemen werden durch Recht institutionelle Arrangements geschaffen, in denen wissenschaftliche Geltungsansprüche, gesellschaftliche Interessen und normative Ansprüche miteinander vermittelt werden. Recht benutzt und formt dabei zugleich Bilder der Wissenschaft, die über Verfahren - sei es Verwaltungsverfahren, sei es Gerichtsverfahren ( auch das Bild der Öffentlichkeit von Wissenschaft prägen. Anhand von ausgewählten Referenzfeldern, wie etwa dem Risikorecht, soll das Projekt der Frage nachgehen, welches Bild von Wissenschaft durch rechtliche Regeln und rechtsdogmatische Figuren geformt wird, wie gesellschaftliche Interessen und Geltungsansprüche der Wissenschaft normativ behandelt und übersetzt werden, welche Argumente verwendet werden, um die Grenze von Normativität und wissenschaftlichen Geltungsansprüchen zu bestimmen und welche epistemologischen Unterschiede oder Ähnlichkeiten es zwischen wissenschaftlichen und rechtlichen Verfahren der Konstitution von Geltungsansprüchen gibt. Lassen sich diese Erkenntnisse nutzen, um bessere institutionelle Voraussetzungen der Vermittlung von Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit durch Recht zu schaffen?

Lektüreempfehlung
Trute, Hans-Heinrich. Die Forschung zwischen grundrechtlicher Freiheit und staatlicher Institutionalisierung. Tübingen: Mohr, 1994.
-. "Verwaltung und Verwaltungsrecht zwischen gesellschaftlicher Selbstregulierung und staatlicher Steuerung." DVBl 17 (1996): 950-964.
-. "Die Funktionen der Organisation und ihre Abbildung im Recht." In Verwaltungsorganisationsrecht als Steuerungsressource, herausgegeben von Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem und Eberhard Schmidt-Aßmann, 249-295. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1997. Schriften zur Reform des Verwaltungsrechts 4.

Colloquium, 06.04.2004

Democratizing Science? Expertise and Participation in Administrative Decision-Making Processes

Up until now initiatives to increase the public understanding of science have been characterized by a unidirectional attempt to bring scientific enlightenment to a supposedly ignorant public. The alleged loss of trust in science has not of course been reversed through these initiatives. But the new impulse to democratize science is bringing about a change in attitude. The public is to be upgraded to the status of a critical authority and ways are to be sought for a democratic monitoring of science.
Responsibility, transparency, dialogue and participation are only some of the concepts helping to determine the parameters of the debate. These concepts find expression in attempts such as that of the EU Commission to newly define the relationship between science, politics and the public. One of the areas where this is to be institutionally implemented is in the use of scientific expertise for political and legal processes.
I would like to explore these initiatives from the perspective of risk decisions in the hotly contested process surrounding the use of genetically modified organisms. Procedures that issue in risk decisions are distinguished by a close intertwining of politics, law, science and the public, and are therefore a suitable reference point for a subject such as science and the public.
I will first outline the interface between law and science. In so doing, the hazards of the law's de-legitimization and the politicization of science will become clear, these forming the basis of older concepts of law dealing with risk decisions. Law reacts by reestablishing normative criteria, proceduralizing regulation and widening participation: the reestablishment of normative criteria is an answer to the instrumentalization of science, proceduralization is above all a response to uncertainty, and participation is among other things a reply to the problem of legitimation.
Secondly, I will show the basic failure hitherto of attempts at integrating into the decision-making process deliberative arenas such as oral hearings. A possible solution could be the differentiation and recombination of procedures. This includes a clear division between the generation of scientific knowledge and normative risk-management, which is supplemented by sequenced processes. Through the creation of a strategic level between the law and individual decisions, a stabilization of legal regulation can thus be achieved. It also enables the development of greater participation possibilities in the deliberative realm, without being subject (or in smaller measure) to the restrictions of a single process.
The EU's new directive for the release into the environment of genetically modified organisms (2001/18/EC) displays approaches to differentiation and recombination, even if these-in any case, at the level of the EU-remain insufficient. Rather, the present concept fulfills the promise of "due access" to scientific expertise, while not fundamentally excluding further development toward inclusion of the larger public. There is nothing to prevent this model from being used in other areas such as in promoting research, thus fostering public inclusion in a sphere that has stood notoriously aloof from the public but one which is of central importance for "democratization."

Publications from the Fellows' Library

Hans-Heinrich Trute, Dr. iur.

Focus

Project

Legal Procedure as a Forum of Negotiation Between Science and Society

Colloquium, 06.04.2004

Democratizing Science? Expertise and Participation in Administrative Decision-Making Processes

Publications from the Fellows' Library

Trute, Hans-Heinrich (2007)

Trute, Hans-Heinrich (2006)

Trute, Hans-Heinrich (2006)

Trute, Hans-Heinrich (2005)

Trute, Hans-Heinrich (2003)

Trute, Hans-Heinrich (2002)

Trute, Hans-Heinrich (2002)

Trute, Hans-Heinrich (2002)

Trute, Hans-Heinrich (2002)

Trute, Hans-Heinrich (2001)

Yearbook Article

2003/2004