Report on adapting methods for legal analysis of emerging technologies

The report outlines a revised general approach for legal analysis of emerging technologies. It elaborates and adapts the original approach developed in the SIENNA methodological Handbook which was applied to SIENNA legal studies in human genomics, artificial intelligence and robotics and human enhancement technologies. The proposed approach consists of four general steps: (1) specification of scope of legal analysis; (2) identification of legal issues; (3) analysis of international, regional (including EU) and national legal norms relevant for the identified issues and (4) identification of gaps and challenges in the existing legal frameworks with regard to the identified issues. The annex of the report includes two brief legal case-studies on three-dimensional printing and augmented reality technologies, illustrating how the major points of the revised approach could be applied to emerging technologies.