Associate Professor Kaisa Huhta at the University of Eastern Finland Centre for Climate Change, Energy and Environmental Law, CCEEL, has received an ERC Starting Grant for developing the general doctrine of energy law.
ERC grants are among the most prestigious and competitive in Europe. Intended for promising researchers and groundbreaking projects, approximately 13 per cent of ERC Starting Grant applications are successful. Huhta’s ERC Starting Grant spans five years and amounts to 1.5 million euros.
Led by Huhta, the INTEL project will identify and analyse the concepts and principles of energy law, developing the general doctrine for the discipline. A general doctrine consolidates the foundations of a legal discipline and guides legislators, courts and lawyers in identifying, valuing and interpreting legal norms.
“Unlike other legal disciplines, energy law doesn’t have a general doctrine of its own. However, in light of the energy crisis and the energy transition, there is an urgent need for a general doctrine to bring coherence and predictability to this legal discipline,” Huhta says.
INTEL makes use of machine learning
The INTEL project will develop the general doctrine of energy law through a novel methodological combination. The project will combine jurisprudence, interviews, co-creation and machine learning to generate new knowledge on the interpretation of sources of energy law, and on how legislators, judges and lawyers perceive energy law.
“I have especially high hopes for the machine learning component of the project. Thanks to its novel combination of methodologies, the study has potential for significant breakthroughs not only in energy law, but also in legal scholarship more broadly. We will gain new insight into how the general doctrines of different legal disciplines have formed and developed, and how they can be constructed. I’m also curious to see whether machine learning approaches can, to some extent, even replace traditional legal interpretation. If yes, it will have far-reaching consequences for the development of legal scholarship,” Huhta says.
The project builds on cooperation with a broad European and global network of energy research, the members of which include, e.g., the Florence School of Regulation at the European University Institute, where Huhta holds a part-time professorship. At the University of Eastern Finland, the project will be conducted by the Law School and the School of Computing. Key collaborators at the School of Computing are Associate Professor Mohammed Saqr and Academy Research Fellow Sonsoles López Pernas.
Huhta is a member of the Sustainable Resource Society: Circular Economy, Energy and Raw Materials research community, RESOURCE, at the University of Eastern Finland.
For further information, please contact:
Associate Professor Kaisa Huhta, tel. +358 50 594 7271, kaisa.huhta(at)uef.fi, UEF Connect