Prof. Dr Angela Schwerdtfeger’s research covers the broad field of public law, including European law and public international law. She focuses in particular on legal issues relating to the interaction between public international, European and national constitutional and administrative law. She collaborates with academics and practitioners from other disciplines. The thematic focus is on the following areas:

-           Environmental and climate law

-           Public participation

-           Legal protection

-           Legislation

-           Law and crisis

-           Protection of fundamental rights in the multilevel system

A list of Angela Schwerdtfeger’s publications can be found here.

Angela Schwerdtfeger is co-leading the project „Change within and through law – digital transformation and climate change“

The project, led by Prof. Dr Angela Schwerdtfeger together with Prof. Dr Roland Broemel, Maîtrise en Droit, and Prof. Dr Mareike Schmidt, LL.M., is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation as part of the programme “NEXT – Legal Sciences between Normativity and Reality”.

The project examines how descriptions of reality from other disciplines are methodologically incorporated into the law. As contrasting analytical frameworks for the study, the digital transformation and climate change serve as two fundamental and complex shifts in reality. A comparative analysis of the legal approach to these processes will, on the one hand, highlight overarching methodological approaches that go beyond area-specific special dogmatics to incorporate complex and diverse fields of knowledge from other disciplines. On the other hand, the comparison aims to raise awareness of specific features, particularly the media-driven transformation of the application of law itself through legal tech, as well as legislative processes in the face of uncertain relationships regarding actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, the digital transformation primarily changes the law through shifts in its subject areas and the media-related operating conditions, whilst climate change demands social change through the law.