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1 Law Innovation & Tech. 1 (2009)

handle is hein.journals/linovte1 and id is 1 raw text is: (2009) 1 Law, Innovation and Technology 1-73 Law, Innovation and Technology: Before We Fast Forward-A Forum for Debate Roger Brownsword and Han Somsen- I. INTRODUCTION It has been claimed that improvements to the human condition tend to be the result of technological innovation rather than legislative or regulatory intervention.' If there is some truth in this view, it implies a rather sad commentary on the law. For, it implies either that law is not the progressive and civilising social institution that we-or, at any rate, some lawyers-take it to be, that the function and contribution of law is rather modest, or that law is an institution that is under-performing. With the launch of this journal, Law, Innovation and Technology, we intend to offer a forum that will afford the opportunity not merely to correct this negative perception but far more importantly to rectify whatever shortcomings there are in the actualities of legal and regulatory performance. In particular, we wish to offer the floor to those who have ideas about how law might engage more productively with technological innovation, whether by more imaginative application of legal and regulatory resources, or by developing synergies between legal and technological instruments of regulation, or by improving institutional arrangements that shape the regulatory environment. In recent decades, there seems to have been a striking acceleration in technological innovation, one development building on another in the way that compound interest accumulates. Famously, Pierre Baldi2 has claimed that: We are witnessing a revolution brought about by scientific and technological advances, one in which change occurs at an accelerated pace. By 1945 we had the ability to destroy life on a large scale. By 2045, only a hundred years later, we ought to be able to create life from scratch, both in real space and in cyberspace. Director TELOS, King's College London. Director TILT, Tilburg University. SSee, eg, Matt Ridley We've Never Had it so Good-and it's All Thanks to Science' Guardian Life, 3 April 2003,8. 2 Pierre Baldi, The Shattered Self(MIT Press, 2002). 3 Ibid, 163. 1

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