What does freedom mean to you?
For me, freedom means self-realization as well as self-limitation. Basically, it means the power to govern oneself. However, it is not conceivable as unrestricted self-government. Part of the essence of freedom is that autonomy and independence are not possible without restriction, submission and support.

How does freedom feature in your work?
Law, especially criminal law, which is my field of research, cannot be discussed without reference to freedom. Law presupposes autonomy, consent, guilt. Law is about my freedom and the freedom of others; if I violate it, I can be deprived of my freedom to a certain extent. Law enables freedom by restricting it.

What project(s) are you working on during your fellowship at the Forum Basiliense?
In my research project, I want to discuss phenomena of digitalization in connection with questions of personality and self-determination from a criminal law perspective. In the digital network, individual and collective interests are particularly at risk from destructive dynamics that elude the autonomy of the individual. My project focuses on the question of how criminal law can react to contextual supra-personal dynamics without self-determination losing its significance as a central prerequisite for legal attribution and without leading to unjust or one-sided attributions of responsibility (“over-attribution”) with regard to the person of the perpetrator.