Law

The democratic value of law. Hans Kelsen on the theory and praxis of relativism

The Pure Theory of Law means the guarantee of a science, which is neutral with respect to subjective values and the elaboration of a scientific analysis of law. The principle that no values should prevail over others means primarily that all of them must be afforded the same opportunities to enter into comparison and competition with each other. Each value thus has a dignity that is equal to all others, because here value-freedom means relativism. Relativism, therefore, does not mean an indifference to values, but an alternative to the two extremes of dogmatism and scepticism.

Whither the state? On Santi Romano’s The legal order

This essay foregrounds the relevance of Italian jurist Santi Romano’s theorizing to today’s political and legal debates on the relation between state and non-state laws. As Romano’s classic book L’ordinamento giuridico (1917–1918) has finally been translated into English, the Anglophone readership can take stock of one of the most enlightening contributions to institutional thinking in the last centuries.

The politics of juridification

The Politics of Juridification offers a timely contribution to debates about how politics is being affected by the increasing relevance of judicial bodies to the daily administration of Western political communities. While most critical analyses portray juridification as a depoliticizing, de-democratizing transferral of political authority to the courts (whether national or international), this book centres on the workable ambivalence of such a far-reaching phenomenon.

The legacy of pluralism. The continental jurisprudence of Santi Romano, Carl Schmitt, and Costantino Mortati

How should the state face the challenge of radical pluralism? How can constitutional orders be changed when they prove unable to regulate society? Santi Romano, Carl Schmitt, and Costantino Mortati, the leading figures of Continental legal institutionalism, provided three responses that deserve our full attention today. Mariano Croce and Marco Goldoni introduce and analyze these three towering figures for a modern audience.

Romano, Santi

Santi Romano was born in Palermo, Sicily on January 31, 1875. His origins had a notable impact on his legal training, as Palermo was the cradle of a host of renewed legal studies that changed once and for all the way of approaching public law in Italy. His teacher, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, was both a leading statesman and an innovator of the notion and practice of public and administrative law.

Family (law) assemblages: new modes of being (legal)

This article advances a new model for family law to address emerging non-conventional family formations, particularly between parents and children. We contend that the conventional model of kinship categories as static, predefined statuses should be replaced with a model whereby the state accommodates kinship categories the law users themselves produce within their fluid and nomadic family assemblages and that they actively revise when negotiating state recognition. We claim that this model would better reflect and govern the emerging kinship system.

Political Parties and Political Foundations in Italy. Their Changing Landscape of Structure and Financing

This book, published with research funds from the University of Rome La Sapienza, aims at disseminating knowledge about the Italian system of political parties and political foundations among non-Italian scholars, in the light of the recent legislative reforms in this field. Due to their nature as free associations of citizens under art. 49 Cost., political parties are supposed to enjoy a full autonomy in determining their own purposes, internal organisation and financial management.

A homeland for ‘tribal’ subjects. Revisiting British colonial experimentations in the Kolhan Government Estate

The interplay between local and imperial perceptions was a driving force behind the gradual evolution of the Indian empire. An important contribution to the full understanding of this process may come from enquiries into the nature of the British administrative policies, along with their inspiring ideologies and notions, in connection with the tribal community of the Hos of Singhbhum, a district in the erstwhile Chotanagpur Division of Bengal Presidency.The changing notions of rule and subjecthood naturally had a distinct impact upon the adivasi people.

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