The course focuses on Global-South legal systems, as well as on their interrelations with Euro-Atlantic constitutionalism.
It also course aims to make students capable of assessing the several issues arising in a globalised world, where economic, legal, as well as political factors interact.
Firstly, the course will consider the concept of tradition, which governs constitutional narratives in the different legal systems of the world. Secondly, it will assess how non-Western constitutional narratives resort to Western concepts and institutes in order to confer legitimisation to constitutional and legal changes. Thirdly, the course will examine the relationship between Western law and non-Western legal tradition through the contact lectures will shed light on the non-Western legal tradition by examining the sources of law, the frame of government, and the protection of minorities.
The course will be divided into three parts:
1. Comparative method and constitutional legal studies. The concept of legal tradition. Assessing of the Eurocentric classifications: the legal systems of the world. Legal systems, legal families, ethnocentrism and Euro-Atlantic constitutionalism: mutual interferences and legal borrowings. The functions and forms of the constitutional designs in non-Western legal systems: protecting, overriding and legitimising the legal tradition.
2. Legal change and legal systems: colonisation, numerical comparative law, terrorisms.
2. African Law. Mixed jurisdictions. Islamic Law. Hindu Law. Hebrew Law. Far Eastern legal systems. The Russian area.
Bibliography
Students that will attend the lectures must study:
1) Lecture notes;
2) Mathias Siems, “Numerical Comparative Law: Do We Need Statistical Evidence in Law in Order to Reduce Complexity?,” Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law, 13.2 (2005): 521–540;
3) Mathias Siems, “Maliscious Legal Transplants,” Legal Studies, 2018, 1–17.
4) H. P. Glenn, Legal Traditions of the World, 5th edn, Oxford, O.U.P., 2014 (1 chapter on a specific tradition).
Students that will not attend the lectures must study:
1) Mathias Siems, Comparative Law, 2nd edn Cambridge: C.U.P., 2018, capp. 4, 7, 8, 9
2) one of the following books:
2a) Matteo Nicolini, L’altra Law of the Land. La famiglia giuridica “mista dell’Afrca australe, Bologna, BUP, 2016;
2b) Anna Ciammariconi, Prospettive del costituzionalismo lusofono. Dalle radici comuni al processo di integrazione degli ordinamenti di lingua portoghese, Bologna, BUP, 2018;
2c) Domenico Amirante, Lo Stato multiculturale. Contributo alla Teoria dello Stato dalla prospettiva dell’Unione Indiana, Bologna, BUP, 2014.
| Author | Title | Publisher | Year | ISBN | Note |
| Mathias Siems | Comparative Law (Edizione 2) | Cambridge University Press | 2018 | per non frequentanti: capp. 4, 7, 8, 9 | |
| Matteo Nicolini | L'altra Law of the Land. La famiglia giuridica "mista" dell'Africa australe (Edizione 1) | Bolonia University Press | 2016 | in alternativa | |
| Patrick Glenn | Legal Traditions of the World (Edizione 5) | Oxford UP | 2014 | Una tradizione a scelta | |
| Domenico Amirante | Lo Stato multiculturale. Contributo alla Teoria dello Stato dalla prospettiva dell’Unione Indiana | Bologna University Press | 2014 | in alternativa per studenti non frequentanti | |
| Anna Ciammariconi | Prospettive del costituzionalismo lusofono. Dalle radici comuni al processo di integrazione degli ordinamenti di lingua portoghese | Bologna University Press | 2018 | in alternativa per non frequentanti |
For students not attending the course, there will be an oral examination; for students attending the course, there will be a written test.
ERASMUS students are invited to contact professor Nicolini (matteo.nicolini@univr.it) at the beginning of the course in order to set teaching methods and assessment tests.
programma e testi consigliati (ita/ingl)
(docx, it, 21 KB, 02/08/18)
