Since 15 January 2019, Internet law expert PD Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann, LL.M. (Harvard) is head of the research programme "Regulatory Structures and the Emergence of Rules in Online Spaces" at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut. In line with his previous work, he leads a team of doctoral students and researchers who investigate the rules under which new forms and practices of social understanding and self-assurance emerge in digital communication spaces, and especially in social networks.
Matthias C. Kettemann previously led the projects "Crisis of Normativity and Normativity of the Crisis in the Internet" and "The Normative Order of the Internet. Perspectives and Potentials of Internet Governance" at the Cluster of Excellence “The Emergence of Normative Orders” at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. He was a member of the directorate of the Cluster of Excellence, convenor of the Frankfurt Colloquium for Internet Research, co-convenor of the "Norms, Plurality, Critique, Postdoctoral Dialogue Series" and founder and co-lead of the Research Focus "Internet and Society". As the first legal scholar in Germany, Dr. Kettemann has completed his postdoctoral ‘habilitation’ at the Faculty of Law of Goehte University for the subjects "Internet law", international law and legal theory in June 2019. In 2018, Matthias C. Kettemann was also project manager of a project of Stanford University on deliberative democracy at the example of the German Network Enforcement Act.
His research interests include the relationship of states, companies and individuals on the internet; human rights implications of the Internet, in particular the governance of freedom of expression in private and public spaces; Internet Governance and Internet policy; as well as democracy and legitimacy in international law.
Matthias C. Kettemann studied law in Graz and Geneva and was Fulbright and Boas Scholar at Harvard Law School (LL.M. 2010). In 2012, he received his doctorate at Karl-Franzens-University Graz for a thesis on the future of the individual in international law. From 2006 to 2013, he was lecturer at the Institute for International Law and International Relations of the University of Graz, where he continues to hold courses. Since October 2013, he has conducted research as post-doctoral fellow at the Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders" at the University of Frankfurt.
Matthias C. Kettemann has been co-chair of the Internet Rights & Principles Coalition, has done consultative work for the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency, and has acted as expert for several DAX companies and foundations on Internet regulation, cybersecurity and intellectual property law. He is editorial consultant for
jusIT - Journal of Information Law and reviewer (inter alia) for
Policy & Internet and
First Monday. Matthias C. Kettemann is also an affiliate of the Network of Excellence in Internet Science and National Expert of the Internet & Jurisdiction Observatory. From 2015 to 2017, he was ad personam expert member and rapporteur of the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on Internet intermediaries.
He is also an associate researcher at the
Privacy & Sustainable Computing Lab of the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. He cooperates with the director, Ass. Prof. Dr. Ben Wagner in the Seed Money Project (TRex) on the governance of freedom of expression through private platforms using the example of postings of an Austrian quality newspaper and Germany's largest question and answer platform. The project is expected to start in January 2020.
For the winter semester 2019, Matthias C. Kettemann was appointed as interim professor for "Öffentliches Recht, Völkerrecht und Menschenrechte –
Hengstberger-Professur für Grund- und Zukunftsfragen des Rechtsstaates [Public Law, International Law and Human Rights - Hengstberger-Professorship for Fundamental and Future Issues of the Rule of Law]." With this renowned chair at Germany's oldest university, he substitutes for the new German ECtHR judge Prof. Anja Seibert-Fohr, who had previously been the German expert on the UN Human Rights Committee for many years. PD Dr. Kettemann reads international law, international dispute resolution, human rights protection and holds a seminar on law, people and machines.
Matthias C. Kettemann publishes regularly on legal issues of the Internet. He is author and (co-)editor of 16 books, 40 articles in collected volumes and 50 journal articles, including an introduction into the freedom of expression on the Internet that has been translated into three languages. Recent publications include:
- Kettemann / Wagner / Vieth (eds.), Research Handbook on Human Rights and Digital Technologies (Cheltenham: E. Elgar, 2019),
- Kettemann / Benedek, Freedom of Expression Online, in Suusi (eds.), Human Rights, the Digital Society and Law (London: Routledge, 2019),
- Kettemann, Internet Governance, in Jahnel et al. (eds.), Internetrecht (Internet law), 4th ed. (Vienna: Springer, 2019),
- Kettemann, Ensuring Cybersecurity through International Law, Revista Española de Derecho Internacional 2017, 281-290.
You can find more information about his CV, the publications, lectures and events here (in German):
