ABSTRACT
This chapter paves the way for a more nuanced approach to technology-enabled private enforcement by depicting law as a system of legitimising coercion that interacts with the social uses of information and communication technologies (ICT). The emerging social system can be found in the communicative social interactions, where the context of using ICT creates meaning and this use relays communication as a communicative act. The legal system maintains stability by creating and maintaining normative expectations. In simple terms, one may trust that the law is on one's side and the more often other people's similar expectations have been fulfilled by the courts, the stronger one's expectation of legal protection can and should be. For Niklas Luhmann, all self-description of the legal system is based on paradoxes, there can be no normative criteria similar to Kelsen's Grundnorm, or even the concept of justice on which law could be grounded.
