Ricerc@Sapienza

The adoption of new environmentally-friendly technologies is becoming a key issue in both public debate and policy arenas. The paper focuses on innovation adoption by wastewater utilities, and investigates why stringent environmental regulations are not sufficient to foster it. The adoption of advanced wastewater treatment technologies is made complex by the sunk nature of highly specific infrastructures, and the consequent exposure of utilities to political and institutional influences.

The essay comments on the decision of the United Sections of the Italian Cassation Court on the matter of surrogacy, trying to identify the strengths and weaknesses of this decision and offering a more general interpretation of this phenomenon in the Italian legal system. It is the occasion for a reflection both on the concept of interactional public order and on the surrogacy. The essay contests the idea that the best interest of the minor can be - as the Cassation says - a counter-limit of the international public order, since the last and the first must interpenetrate and not juxtapose.