Online Colloquium – Digital Sovereignty and Normative Interdependencies
The ForTech Research Center in Bonn and the Institute of International Law, Intellectual Property and Technology Law at the TUD Dresden University of Technology invite you to an online colloquium on December 7, 2026, on the topic “Digital Sovereignty and Normative Interdependencies.”
Strengthening Europe’s digital sovereignty is a central goal of European digital policy. But how can this be achieved in light of diverse normative interdependencies? European regulation intersects with national, foreign, and international legal systems, which influence one another and, in some cases, compete with one another.
The online colloquium “Digital Sovereignty and Normative Interdependencies” uses three examples from the fields of platform regulation, artificial intelligence, and data law to examine how European regulatory goals and values can be effectively implemented under these conditions.
- Platforms:
European Fundamental Values and Out-of-Court Dispute Resolution With the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European Union has created a uniform legal framework for online platforms.But what normative standards apply to the alternative dispute resolution bodies that rule on conflicts related to the moderation of online content? What role do the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights play in this context?
Prof. Dr. Ruth Janal, LL.M., examines the extent to which out-of-court dispute resolution bodies can act as guardians of European fundamental values in content moderation. Her paper illustrates how European platform law is intertwined with fundamental and human rights guarantees and what significance this has for the enforcement of European values in the digital space. - Artificial Intelligence:
Copyright Law Between Territoriality, the International Convention for the Protection of Authors’ Rights (ICPR), and Foreign Law. The tension between digital sovereignty and normative interdependencies is also evident in copyright law. While copyright law generally follows the principle of territoriality, the legal framework conditions for the use of copyrighted works for training and developing artificial intelligence differ significantly. In particular, the U.S. “fair use” doctrine and European regulations on text and data mining are based on different regulatory approaches. At the same time, German courts may also be called upon to apply foreign law in the context of cross-border copyright disputes. What are the implications of this for European AI regulation? To what extent can non-European legal concepts influence the framework conditions for AI in Europe?
Dr. Pascal Sierek examines the practical and doctrinal challenges of these normative interconnections—and their significance for Europe’s digital sovereignty—by analyzing the application of the fair use concept in German courts. - Data:
igital Sovereignty at the Intersection of Data Protection and Data Use A third example is provided by European data law. With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Act, the European Union pursues different yet interconnected regulatory goals: the protection of personal data on the one hand, and the promotion of access to and use of data on the other. This gives rise to complex, single-market-related normative interdependencies, particularly when data access and data use rights intersect with data protection requirements. These also have spillover effects beyond the EU.
Dr. Ruben Plum-Schneider analyzes the interplay between data protection and data use with a focus on Europe’s digital sovereignty.
All interested parties are cordially invited!