Shaping Utopia Through Law: How does the law (not) provide an answer to societal challenges

In October 2022, the ACCA team of the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) organised the eleventh edition of the Assistentenconferentie/Conférence des assistant.es (ACCA 2022), with “Shaping Utopia Through Law – How the law does (not) provide an answer to societal challenges” as central research theme.

The issues facing society today are vast and diverse, ranging from health, democracy, equal rights, migration, peace and civic participation to climate, sustainability, digitisation and innovation. These challenges make us long for the idea of an ideal society or "utopia"; an image already put forward by Thomas More and others. With its slogan “The world needs you” the VUB encourages everyone to contribute to an “ideal society”. Lawyers and criminologists undoubtedly play a central role therein, although this role raises various (research) questions. What answers can legal studies and the criminological sciences provide to the aforementioned issues and challenges? Is it desirable to address these challenges through a legal solution? Is there such a thing as a law-based utopia?

In this work, several researchers address these aforementioned challenges and questions in different areas of law.