Monateri on Political Sublime and the Exotic Birth of European Sovereignty.

Political Sublime. 

Heterodoxy and Jurisdiction at the Origin of Modernity

The aim of this paper, held at the meeting of the Harvard International Group for Law and Politics (IGLP), is to show the demonological origin of modernity, which entails a "sublime" aspect of the political exceeding the words by which we try to capture its nature.
My paper proceeds using the lexicon of the Italian Theory (Agamben and Esposito) to analyse the parallel between King James I and Jean Bodin. Both authors developed the modern conceptions of political sovereignty and both were engaged in witch-trials, writing extensive treatises on the matter. This parallel locates the question of heterodoxy/orthodoxy in the very threshold of modernity.
My tentative conclusion is the possibility of a link between the politicization of the magic world and the genealogy of modernity, reversing, in a way, the standard approach of political theology in favour of a demonological archeology of modern European concepts of law and politics.

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La Tragedia del Liceo Darwin e i Danni Aggravati dalla Condotta

Nota a sentenza sulla decisione del Tribunale di Torino destinata a "Danno e Responsabilità", Ipsoa.

l'A. osserva adesivamente come la sentenza commentata abbia dato rilevanza alle circostanze del caso per la valutazione del danno subito dalla vittima, e conseguentemente applicato un moltiplicatore ai valori tabellari.


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Monateri on Calvino's Memos

Lo scopo di questo saggio è di ridiscutere il famoso "memo" di Calvino ai giovani dal punto di vista:

1. della "visibilità" della legge
2. di alcune ambiguità essenziali dell'opera narrativa e critica di Calvino
3. di ciò che oggi tutto ciò può significare, in pesenza, come siamo, di una sorta di "Calvino Reinassance"

Nel far ciò in questo saggio mi avvarrò della metodologia di analisi di "Legge  Letteratura", definita come l'applicazione delle tecniche della critica letteraria a testi non giuridici al fine di una riflessione sulla legge stessa come loro contenuto.
In questo senso il mio approccio a legge e letteratura si identifica volontariamente con quello di Wigmore, e del suo "pictorial method" quale pietra essenziale della stessa comparazione giuridica.

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Methods in Comparative Law: An Intellectual Overview (Russian)

The article is intended to be a brief summary of the basic tenets of this kind of approach to Law, in order to introduce the reader to the steps to be followed in using this method. In this sense, the Author will apply the formant approach with the aim both to dismantle the ideological substrate veiled by conventional views and to discover the deeper potentialities of Comparative Law. This kind of «aletheic» operation, meant as the generative source of the interpretative tradition, allows to discuss and to reassess three main issues: 1. the nature of comparative law as academic discipline and its aiming to provide tools for global governance of the legal field in today’s world; 2. the process of definition of Legal Origins and law reforms made by the World Bank; 3. the Jurisprudential implications of this approach.

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Understanding the Civil Law

Abstract:      

This a brief sketch of the Civil Law Tradition. Conceived mainly for teaching purposes, it lays out the historical background of Civil Law and its two main versions: the French and the German. Finally it outlines few notes on the difficulties to compare Civil and Common Law, and it includes major standard references on the topic.

Anyway the main purpose of this writing is to question the relevance of legal origins as stated by the World Bank and the movement of Law and Finance.

My theory is that the major differences between common law and civil law are due to political modernity and not to romantic distant origins.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 14

Keywords: Civil law, common law, english law, french law, german law, legal history, comparative law, roman law, sources of law, legal theory, legal origins, world bank

working papers series 

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Diritto e Letteratura. "Apocalypse Now" tra lo Stato di Eccezione e l'analisi letteraria

Il paper analizza la rappresentazione della Legge in Apocalypse Now. L'intero film è infatti costruito su problemi legali e intorno ad una trama in cui si ripiegano in modo nuovo gli ovvi riferimenti a Conrad, che ne sostengono la storia. In questo modo la trama stessa finirà per mostrarsi nella produzione del proprio senso grazie al ‘lavoro della citazione’ che apre dei link , molto rigorosi, verso altri autori, restituendo non già una dispersione del senso, ma anzi una sua definita chiusura rispetto alle molteplici letture possibili del lavoro su cui si basa. Quello che potremmo chiamare ‘effetto Coppola’ appare quindi come una torsione barocca, necessaria per dare un significato preciso alla legge, e specialmente ai diritti umani, quale tipica ‘ossessione americana’ con riferimento alla guerra e alle situazioni di eccezione...

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Il Riccardo di III di Ian McKellen e l'Angelo dell'Anomia

The aim of this paper, written in Italian, is to uncover the subtle links created by McKellen's relocation of Shakespeare's drama in the context of Nazism, passing through the varying political theories on Tyranny, Dictatorship and Despotism, to show how much this work of art anticipated the oncoming debate on the state of exception as the black hole around which the whole of the western legal tradition has been built and crafted.

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RULES V. OUTCOMES: NEW RADICAL APPROACHES TO THE INCOSISTENCIES OF PROPERTY RIGHTS ANALYSIS

Abstract:  the aim of my paper is to show that a consistent economic analysis brought to its logical conclusions should destroy any theory of property rights, and as such it is inconsistent with its own premises, and especially with the ideological presuppositions of quite all of its folloers. The suggested alternative here is a kind of “reversed” Hayek: I mean an active use of historicism and institutional analysis from a political stendpoint that is preciseply contrary to the right wing approach that has been sponsorized by Hayek.

My conclusion is then that maybe we must start afresh from the Scottish Enlightment, which founded the basis of the present analysis of ownership and ownerhip economies, following the Austrian School of Economics toward  radically very different political positions.

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Judges as an "Elite": The Case of Italy

Abstract:      

In the last decades, several factors have transformed the morphology of Italian legal system, so to create a perceptible different assess of the equilibrium among powers and formants and to mould, in a renovated way, the overall relationship between Law, Politics and Justice. The Italian judiciary (magistratura) has been re-organized along lines radically dissimilar to those followed in common law systems.
After examining all the data: the number of judges in office, the percentage of represented genders, the amount of cases and the overloading of the legal system, the aim of this paper is to show that a major characteristic of the legal professions in Italy is the almost complete lack of lateral movement among personnel. Career decisions must be made early; for example, applicants for the judiciary must be no more than thirty years of age. Promotion of judges, prosecutors, and state’s attorneys is largely dependent on seniority.
My theory is that the unwanted result of all this has been both a Judicialization of Italian Legal System and a politicization of the judiciary through the CSM as a peculiar Italian institution, re-defining the Italian Legal Style

Presented at the Proceedings of the International Academy of Comparative Law

this paper may be download at SSRN

The Ontology of Non Peculiary Losses

Author follows the Supreme Court evolving cases in delineating a real 'ontology' of non pecuniary losses and damages, distinguishing pure moral and physical injuries from 'existential' suffering, as a damage to the Person, and not to her Body, recoverable per se, when her fundamental rights are infringed.


L'autore condivide e apprezza l'opera di chiarificazione effettuata dalla Corte di Cassazione nel delineare le differenze ontologiche tra danno morale, biologico ed esistenziale, consentendo la risarcibilità di quest'ultimo in modo del tutto autonomo e scganciato da ogni riferimento al biologico. Si tratta non solo di un'operazione giuridicamente corretta, ma di civiltà : impedire la riduzione della Persona al suo corpo.

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Monateri on Tobacco Litigation in Italy

P.G.Monateri commenting the Italian Supreme Court decision 

Author tries to show that the case in favor of tobacco producers strict liability is very feeble,and its adoption would insulate Italian Law from world developing theories on tort law and its functions.


"L' autore non condivide il precedente di Cassazione che applica l'art. 2050 alla produzione e smercio di sigarette. Si tratta di una decisione unica nel mondo nel senso di rivolgersi alla 'strict liability' in casi regolati dalla colpa o da dolo (i punitive damages cases negli USA). 
Non vi sono ragioni per ricorrere alla responsabilità oggettiva, questa è costraria al diritto europeo, e isola l'Italia dal resto del mondo."

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