This volume explores the multi-layered connections between "community" and "law" and questions their relevance to burning issues in our societies today. After a look at the history of the concept of community and its links to law, the contributions deal with systematic connections between community formation and normativity. In addition, exemplary social communities and their legal systems are examined: for example, in analyses of forms of normative communitisation in the Islamic world, in pre-colonial Nigeria or in the European Union. Finally, new forms of legal community are discussed, which are linked to the transformation and crisis experiences of the present - for example, with the process of digitalisation, the approaching climate catastrophe or pandemics.

Prof. Dr. jur. Dr. h.c. Werner Gephart is a legal scholar, sociologist and artist. He is Senior Professor for sociology at the University of Bonn and Founding Director of the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities "Law as Culture". Dr. Daniel Witte is a sociologist and Research Coordinator of the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities "Law as Culture".