Alexandra Rengel, Privacy in the 21st Century, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2013, xii + 268 pp, hb £98.00.
| Author | Nicholas Clapham |
| Published date | 01 July 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12141 |
| Date | 01 July 2015 |
from law schools and about the strengths and weaknesses of the various new
tools available to teachers in educating students (such as MOOCs, video games
and digital course books). On the other hand, we could modernise the law
school curriculum by experimenting with the outcomes of this research.
Something similar might apply to legal research: why do we not investigate
more systematically how lawyers think and which methods they apply, for
instance, with regard to the searching, selecting, analysing and synthesising of
legal sources or with respect to different forms of theory-building in various
fields of law? This could enable us to make our implicit methods more explicit
and increase our credibility for other disciplines.
The final message that Stolker has for law schools is: do not wait for change
to come by itself:
There is much that has to be treasured, and there is much to be done. Left to their
own devices, law schools do appear to change, but slowly. Unfortunately, it appears
that real change in our education and research requires external drivers, such as
rankings, outside examinations and accreditations. This in itself is a painful realisa-
tion, because you would expect, particularly from an organisation of professionals,
that they would shoulder this responsibility. Perhaps we are part of the problem
ourselves to some extent, being lawyers. We do not much like change (387).
This is why leadership is required, not only from law school deans, but also from
publishers, editorial boards, associations of legal scholars, and so on. A totally new
legal world is developing right under our noses; we legal scholars should be
leading the process of change instead of following it. This is what Rethinking the
Law School is about.
Rob van Gestel*
Alexandra Rengel,Privacy in the 21st Century, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2013,
xii + 268 pp, hb £98.00.
In the 21st century the battle for privacy is fiercely contested. The contest is
fought on at least two fronts: privacy versus security and privacy versus com-
mercial interest. The defence of privacy is made harder by its abstract nature, its
qualified legal status and the strength of the forces that oppose it. Numerous and
widespread terrorist attacks mean that necessity arguments often favour security
over privacy. The everyday, often unquestioning, use of internet services such as
Google and Facebook has made them essential to many. In return, much private
information has already been given over to commercial interests and utility
dictates that this will continue. It can be argued that the greatest challenge to
privacy comes not from its opposing forces but from the technological environ-
*Tilburg Law School.
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© 2015 The Author. The Modern Law Review © 2015 The Modern Law Review Limited.
720 (2015) 78(4) MLR 695–726
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