In the recently published Normative Orders Working Paper “Alternativloses Klimaschutzstrafrecht? Climate catastrophism and the exceptionalization of criminal law as drivers into an imaginative dead end”, Finn-Lauritz Schmidt (Goethe University, research initiative “ConTrust”) examines the recent debate on a criminal law for climate protection from the perspective of the sociology of the future and criminal law.<\/p>\n\n
At the heart of the article is the thesis that it is precisely the combination of catastrophic visions of the future – here explored via the key future sociological concept of imagination and descriptively and analytically referred to as “climate catastrophism” – and exceptionalizing readings of criminal law that proves to be a driver of punitivity. According to Schmidt, it corresponds to the noble tasks of criminal law scholarship to anticipate these developments prospectively, to clarify them and to turn them critically – especially with regard to the countercurrent and fragility of social developments or the contingency of a criminal law read as political. A finalized version of the article will be published in 2024 in an anthology edited by Burchard\/Schmitt-Leonardy\/Singelnstein\/Zabel (“Alternatives to Criminal Law”). <\/p>\n\n