JCU Seminar Explores the Geopolitics of Law

Geopolitics of Law

Left to right: Pejman Abdolmohammadi, Alberto Vespaziani, Pier Giuseppe Monateri, Pamela Harris, Lars Rensmann, Luca Muscarà

How do we map legal cultures? Pier Giuseppe Monateri, Professor of Law and Literature & Comparative Law at the University of Turin, addresses this question in his new book, Geopolitics of Law: The Genesis, Government and Dissolution of Political Bodies (out in Italian, La geopolitica del diritto. Genesi, governo e dissoluzione dei corpi politici, Laterza 2013).

The John Cabot University Department of International Affairs and Political Science hosted a seminar on September 26 to discuss this book’s thesis, that different styles of legal systems echo the different political and theological genealogies of European-Continental and the Anglo-American nation-states.

Alberto Vespaziani, Professor of Comparative Public Law at the University of Molise, introduced the book and moderated the discussion. Discussants included Luca Muscarà, Professor of Political Geography at the University of Molise and three John Cabot professors, Pamela Harris, Lars Rensmann and Pejman Abdolmohammadi, who furthered the discussion with insightful questions and critical responses to the book.