Legal Safety Lab is now Legal Association of Just Technologies.

The name has changed. The work has not. For the past two years, Legal Safety Lab (LSL) has advanced a single proposition: that existing law already contains the instruments to reduce the catastrophic risks of emerging technology, and that an organisation must be prepared to apply them. That work now continues under a name built to carry it further, JUST, the Legal Alliance of Just Technologies.

The reason for the change

LSL was a point of departure. It allowed us to build an initial body of legal analysis, establish relationships across the sector, and demonstrate that legal intervention on catastrophic technological risk is a practical instrument rather than a theoretical one. Over the same period, our founder, Laurens Prins, has become a recognised voice on how existing law applies to frontier AI and biotechnology.

LSL was, however, a vehicle for a limited set of activities. What follows requires more: greater legal capacity, a wider network of partners, and an institutional structure capable of acting when it matters, across cases, jurisdictions, and disciplines. JUST provides that structure. It is an alliance rather than a single lab, and a professional home for the lawyers, academics, funders, and policymakers who already understand that existing law applies and who seek a partner prepared to see a matter through.

What JUST does

Policy moves in years. Technology moves in months, sometimes weeks. Existing law can be applied today. The distance between what technology is capable of and what the law already permits is the space in which JUST operates.

Where others advocate for new legislation, JUST applies the frameworks already in force. Where others publish, JUST enforces. Where others convene, JUST builds the capacity to act, and is prepared before a crisis rather than after it. Litigation remains a measure of last resort, but it is always available.

This is not a campaign against scientific or technological progress, nor is it driven by alarm. It is a matter of ensuring that progress is matched by the legal capacity, governance, and readiness required to guide it responsibly.

What changes, and what remains

The mission is unchanged: to apply and enforce existing legal frameworks in order to reduce the catastrophic risks of emerging technology. The rebrand broadens the aperture. Under JUST, the same rigour extends across a wider alliance and a fuller range of interventions, from the vetting and preparation of cases, to compelling regulators to act, to standing ready for rapid intervention.

The precedent is instructive. Climate litigation barely existed twenty years ago; by 2023, roughly 2,500 cases had been recorded worldwide. That movement began when a single organisation decided to go to court. AI and bio safety are developing considerably faster, and to date no European organisation has been dedicated to applying existing law against catastrophic technological risk. JUST is established to occupy precisely that position.

Where to find us

Our work now resides at just-technologies.org. The existing archive from legalsafetylab.org will migrate over the coming weeks.

For any lawyer, academic, funder, policymaker, or industry leader who accepts that policy alone is not sufficient, JUST is the partner for the period before it is too late.

The law, activated.

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