Preventive instruments of social governance

This volume contains contributions to a symposium of scholars from the Nagoya Law School and the Faculty of Law of the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg on the topic „Preventive Instruments of Social Governance“. With the social governance by law and the interplay between substantive legal standards and procedural enforcement the Symposium addressed a topic of both outstanding academic and practical importance. The legal framework is an essential instrument in modern rule-of-law societies for defining standards of societal life. Of course, ways of governance by law may vary between legal systems and cultures, but in the analysis of legal governance instruments, the interplay between substantive standards and their procedural enforcement is always of central importance. In the pursuit of certain political or social goals, a legal system is basically faced with two options: the exertion of influence on the behaviour of its citizens either by means of preventive or of reactive instruments. The relationship of these two regulatory tools is a key element for the analysis and understanding of a legal system.