3.2.1 Introduction
The Rule of Law and positive law are united by a common history during the course of which they have woven a strong conceptual relation. The dynamic and productive substance of such concepts is proven by their capacity to adapt and provide a vocabulary adequate to express and address the evolving needs of different historical and political sensitivities. At the same, they have preserved an essential core: as a tradition, they have generated continuity in discontinuity.
In the following sections we will outline how the mutually constitutive mode of existence of such concepts both relies on and is in its turn productive of different affordances. The analysis will be oriented by the concept of legal protection. The central role that such concept plays within the framework of the rule of law and positive law, indeed, helps bringing to the fore the most salient features of the latter, bonding together the affordances which depend on the linguistic nature of law and the meaningful interactions through which the latter comes into being and exerts its normative force.
Such approach aims at contributing to the fine tuning of a vocabulary through which grasping and making intelligible the changes which legal practice might encounter once the interactions which sustain the Rule of law and positive law are mediated by information and communication technologies the use of which is likely to have repercussions of conceptual, methodological and practical character.