Project Details
Projekt
AUTO-MIN: Autonomous Decisions of Minors in Digital and Analogue Spheres: A Comparative Study of the Legal Capacities of Minors in the EU
Subject Area
Private Law
Term
since 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 546814365
The aim of the AUTO-MIN project is to comprehensively explore the legal framework for autonomous decisions by minors in the European Union on the basis of comparative legal studies and to develop perspectives for the further development of the law in the European Union. The key question is how much national diversity is required in view of legal-cultural differences and divergences in the conditions under which children and young people grow up, and how much unity is desirable or even necessary in order to effectively guarantee the realization of children’s fundamental rights in the EU internal market. Analogue and digital spheres will be considered together as part of a multidimensional comparison. At present, there are considerable differences in the decision-making standards for autonomous actions by minors, both depending on the context and across legal systems, which are partly based on their age and partly on their capacity to understand, and which grant them joint or sole responsibility. In digital spheres, which are more often than not transnational, traditional actors limiting the autonomy of minors, such as parents and the state, are increasingly joined by private providers of digital services and products, which in turn find themselves in a position having to consider EU Regulations as well as family and contract law. In the context of children's rights and media, and thus in digital spheres, there are particular challenges of modern risk and empowerment management, which are analyzed in the project together with analogue spheres. The focus here is on the extent to which the varying decision-making standards of national regulations, developed with a view to analogue spheres in areas of law such as family and contract law, but also data protection law, inheritance law or art copyright law, comprehensively realize children's rights to autonomy. The multidimensional comparison is based on comparative research in 11 selected EU Member States, supported by national experts. Also, the current EU legal framework for the autonomy of minors in digital and analogue contexts will be analyzed. The results of this work will make it possible to explore the potential for realizing children's rights by autonomously shaping their legal relationships in the EU internal market, taking into account the legal and factual basis. Recommendations on the potential, mechanisms and limits of harmonizing the legal autonomy of minors will be developed and written down in the form of a book publishing the project results.
DFG Programme
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