Akadēmiskais centrsTraditionally, every two years the Faculty of Law of the University of Latvia organises a large-scale international scientific conference with a wide range of participants. The 8th International Scientific Conference “New Legal Reality: Challenges and Perspectives” of the Faculty of Law of the University of Latvia took place at the end of 2021. For the first time, due to the spread of Covid-19 and the ensuing restrictions, the conference was held remotely, with participants and attendees gathering online on the Zoom platform.
Although the 7th International Scientific Conference, which was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Faculty of Law of the University of Latvia was one of the largest conferences in 2019, the 2021 conference, despite its digital format and the presence of pandemic in society, was also extensive and took place over two days, attracting participants from different continents around the world.
Over the two days, nearly 80 scientific papers were presented and in excess of 30 posters discussed, bringing together scientists from more than 30 universities and 20 different countries. Thanks to the close contacts and cooperation forged and sustained by the members of the Faculty of Law of the University of Latvia with universities in other countries, the conference and the papers, ideas and theses presented at it will have a lasting impact on the legal science and its development both locally and internationally.
The thematic framework of the 8th International Scientific Conference was related to the new challenges the world is facing, and they do not concern solely the pandemic that has broken out all over the world, but also involve digital change, the new era of social networks and technologies that will change the fabric of society, and possibly even national policies. In keeping pace with these global changes, the science of law must also evolve and provide solutions for new challenges. The conference papers covered current and dynamically changing areas such as the challenges ahead in higher education, current issues in European Union law and private international law, public law and human rights, as well as the place and role of law in the rapidly changing digital world. All of the topics discussed above were undoubtedly aimed at finding an answer to the ever-present question of how to properly balance the interests of the individual, society and the state.
This collection of conference papers will provide an in-depth insight to any theoretician, practitioner or student into the current issues of law in Latvia and the world of the 21st century. I wish everyone to find new considerations in this collection of articles and hope that it serves as a source of inspiration for the further intellectual self-development of each reader.
Professor, Dr. iur. Jānis Kārkliņš