Last fall, Prof. Emeritus Martti Koskenniemi visited the University of Graz and sat for an interview with Associate Prof. Benedikt Harzl. He spoke about uncertainty, indeterminacy, and the value of ignorance.
Prof. Koskenniemi emphasized that law is fundamentally indeterminate and therefore always allows for different, even contradictory, lines of argument. It is precisely this openness that constitutes the strength of legal practice. Law can structure political conflicts, but it cannot resolve them definitively. At the same time, he warned against an increasing shift of political decisions to expert committees: expertise is never neutral, but is always linked to specific perspectives and interests. Democracy therefore requires a willingness to take responsibility under conditions of uncertainty.
The interview can be accessed here.