Three-Country Seminars

Background

All people should be able to use the internet to share information and communicate with others online without abuse and violence. However, the reality in the online sphere is often different: Both children and adults can be victims of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, harassment, stalking and blackmail by perpetrators from different parts of the world. This cybercrime is associated with great harm to the victims. The adverse effects can even be irreversible. For this reason, appropriate legal, technical and societal measures are needed at the national, regional and international levels to counteract, address, respond to and prevent these interpersonal cyber crimes.

Objectives

In this seminar, which consists of an online phase and a presence phase in Szeged, the participants will learn the methodology of comparative criminal law and carry out such a comparison between German, Hungarian and Turkish law under the influence of European law in the context of cybercrime.

Before the online phase

One participant from each partner university will choose one of the following topics

1. cyberstalking, cyberharassment and so-called dox(x)ing on the need for demarcation

2. hate postings and depictions of violence on the internet

3 Verbal Sexual Harassment (Catcalling) on the Internet - On the Need for Criminal Law Regulations?

4. upskirting and downblousing online: On the Necessary Adaptation of Criminal Law also for Revenge porn and Thrill Videos  

5 Online prostitution versus online pornography and criminal law   

6. on the criminal liability of so-called "sexting" - the acquisition of youth pornography content

7. #MeToo - Gathering and Use of Evidence from Social Media Posts in Criminal Proceedings

8. digital punishments

and prepare a brief report on the national legal situation.

During the online phase

Participants who have chosen the same topic meet and get to know each other and discuss the main features of a possible legal comparison based on their short report. This takes place through independent e-mail communication and online team meetings with low-threshold support from a mentor.

During the physical phase

After a personal introduction followed by an intercultural exchange programme, a teaching unit on comparative law methodology takes place. Building on this, the individual topics will be discussed before the respective team carries out a legal comparison on its topic in group work. The result of this legal comparison is presented in a full-day workshop in a joint presentation and discussed with the other students, mentors and lecturers.

A programme of the physical phase is available here.

Here you will find an introduction to the entire Speaker Team.

Target group: All participants of the seminar "Criminal Law and Digitalisation” (Datafication, sexual offences in virtual space)

Examination: Presentation and subsequent discussion

Language of instruction: English

Course credits: Participants will receive 3 ECTS

Göcek (Turkey)

The Three-Country Seminar 2022 took place in Göcek (Turkey) on the topic of "Digitising Criminal Proceedings". It concluded the seminar trilogy under the overarching theme of "Digitalisation and Criminal Law".

Various innovative formats were used to discuss and work on problem areas of criminal procedure law, from undercover online investigations and access to data to the possible use of artificial intelligence in decision-making.

Göcek (Turkey)

During the second Three-Country Seminar in the trilogy on the topic of "Digitalisation and Criminal Law", the focus was on “Specific criminal offences with regard to new forms of crime resulting from digitalisation". The seminar took place in Göcek (Turkey) from 09.10.2021 to 16.10.2021.

The topics ranged from cryptocurrencies and online demonstrations to SocialBots and eSports betting to the justification of a data protection law. The phenomena of hate speech, fake news and the use of combat drones to fight terrorism were also examined from a criminal law perspective.

Online-Seminar

Due to the impact of the Corona pandemic, the three-country seminar had to be postponed from 2020 to 2021 and took place as an online event. It opened the seminar trilogy on "Digitalisation and Criminal Law" and took a look at the "Challenges of Digitalisation for General Criminal Law Dogmatics".

Criminal liability in the use of artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, cloud applications and the operation of darknet platforms were discussed. In addition, the focus was also on the criminal application law in the use of digitalised aids.

Konstanz (Germany)

From 07.07.2019 to 11.07.2019, the Three-Country Seminar with the topic "Democracy and Criminal Law" took place for the first time at the University of Konstanz. The participants discussed the democratic legitimacy of criminal law in the different legal systems of the individual countries.