9 THE ITALIAN LAW JOURNAL NO. 2 (2023)

 

HISTORY AND PROJECT

Toward Transformative Private Law: Research Strategies

by M. Bartl

In this paper, I propose a way to study private law for change by showing a variety of legal alternatives to the neoliberal dogmas, through history, comparative research and the ‘diverse economies’ frameworks. Using these three scholarly approaches can help decentre the overwhelming necessity of neoliberal capitalism in private law thinking and renew private legal imagination. [...]

 

ESSAYS

The Historical Background to Unjust Enrichment in Italy and in Europe

by A. Albanese

In Europe, restitution rules are the result of a circulation of models. Historical-comparative investigation can help to trace the order lines of restitution and examine contamination and influences around the three great juridical models of the contemporary age: the Roman-French one, the Roman-German one and the English one. [...]

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Gender and Comparative Forms of Government. 
A Possible Crypto-Type?

by D. di Micco

Even today, even in the most modern Western democracies, female Heads of State are very rare. Many of these democracies, such as Germany, Portugal, Italy, and France, have indeed never had a woman in such an institutional role. How can this be explained? And why do European monarchies seem to be more successful than Republics in achieving gender equality in this apex role? []

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ChatGPT: Challenges and Legal Issues in Advanced Conversational AI

by A. Diurni and G.M. Riccio

This paper analyzes ChatGPT, the first mass-deployed chatbot using Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) technology. While there is unprecedented potential for application of this technology, many concerns with multidimensional value have arisen, all of which are inherent in pre-trained AI, generative AI, and communicative AI profiles. []

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Law’s Evolution and a ‘Claim to Progress’ - for a Philosophy of the History of Law

by M. La Torre

The article aims at providing an attempt to reconsider the notion of evolution of law from a normative point of view and not from a functional or functionalist perspective. Evolution of law thus is disconnected from its possible roots in a Darwinian cosmology or in a functionalist or system theory of society.  []

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Equal and Not. A Feminist Perspective on Italian Family Law

by J. Long

In countries of the so-called global north, family law is currently based on the principle of gender equality. However, despite this foundation, both formal and substantive discrimination persists. In this context, it is imperative to apply a feminist perspective to identify where the law and the courts uphold or challenge traditional gender roles and power dynamics. []

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The Contribution of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Algorithms to the Investigation Activities of the Financial Administration and to the Jus Dicere Function of the Tax Judge: What Prospects for the Suppression of Tax Evasion?

by S.A. Parente

Artificial intelligence, big data and computer algorithms, in addition to being used in administrative action, can play an important role in judicial proceedings, in the application of tax provisions, in the context of assessment procedures and in suppression of tax evasion. One of the advantages of the technology lies in the possibility of filing a large amount of information relating to taxpayers, which can then be shared between tax authorities of different States. []

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The Italian Regime of Legal Communion Within Matrimony Viewed Through the Prism of Constitutional Principles

by D. Scarpa

The concept of ‘legal community’ within the Italian property regime is derived from the normative treatment of the property of spouses as community of property, whether immediate or residual, as well as the maintenance of the personal character of the purchase of property.  []

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New Solutions and Critical Remarks from Squaring the Circle of Dieselgate: Towards a Fruitful Coordination Between Automotive and Consumer Law?

by E. Tuccari

Dieselgate – first revealed about ten years ago – is a complex affair that has raised numerous legal, environmental and economic issues in the context of (national and supranational) systems with very different characteristics. It has therefore become a ‘neverending case’, harbinger of multiple reflections, in a constantly cha(lle)nging global context. []

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Transparency and Comprehensibility of Working Conditions and Automated Decisions: Is It Possible to Open the Black Box?

by L. Zappalà

The paper proposes a reflection on the possibility for workers and trade unions to know and understand the logics of the functioning of new forms of algorithmic management. In particular, the essay analyses the evolution of the principle of transparency and comprehensibility of automated decision-making systems in labour matters,  []

 

MALEBOLGE

On the High Open Sea
Computational Empiricism and the Naturalization of Law

by N. Lettieri

The paper projects into the legal universe a topic, the overcoming of the divisions between natural and social sciences, long central in philosophical debate. Fed by a longstanding research trajectory intersecting law, complexity theory, and computational social sciences, it advocates for a vision where law is conceptualized and studied in empirical terms as a natural phenomenon, [...]

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Divine Allegories and Earthly Realities: Exploring Symbolism in Dante’s ‘the Divine Comedy’ for Insights into International Environmental Law

by S. Mahlawat and A. Siroha

This research paper delves into uncovering the metaphorical and allegorical layers within Dante Alighieri’s ‘The Divine Comedy‘ and their potential applicability to modern environmental law and ethics. Analysing Dante’s odyssey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven as a figurative portrayal of human behavior and ethical repercussions, this paper investigates how his masterpiece provides valuable perspectives for environmental jurisprudence and ethics. []

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Belonging, Things and Time(s).
Elements for a Spatio-Temporal Perspective on Law

by V. Pecile

This article presents two proposals to enable the legal recognition of a not-one, collective, assembled subject: property conceived as belonging and legal time as made up of multiple temporal layers. First, it provides a genealogical reconstruction of how the category of belonging has percolated through modern legal thought since Roman jurists identified it as a much broader and richer relation to things than that denoted by owning. []

 

HARD CASES

Italian Citizenship by Marriage: Some Remarks on the Constitutional Court’s Ruling no 195 of 2022

by G. Ciliberto

In July 2022, the Italian Constitutional Court handed down Judgment no 195 on the issue of citizenship by marriage. The Court held that foreign or stateless persons married to an Italian citizen cannot be denied Italian citizenship due to the death of their spouse pending the proceedings, provided that they fulfil the conditions to obtain Italian citizenship at the time of the application. [...]

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Something New on the Eastern Front.
The Application of the 1996 Hague Child Protection Convention in Italy to Children Fleeing the Russian-Ukrainian War

by E. di Napoli

This article offers a critical assessment of a judgment by the Italian Supreme Court in 2023 (judgment no 17603 of 13 June 2023), concerning the recognition of a measure by which the Ukrainian Consulate in Italy appointed a woman as guardian of several Ukrainian children who had fled the war.  []

 

INSIGHTS AND ANALYSES

Space Colonization: Which Regulations and in Whose Interests?

by V. Barela

This work aims to analyse the emerging and urgent issue of the lack of regulation on the exploitation of resources extracted from celestial bodies. It highlights the leading role of private investors, which inevitably disrupts the traditional legal frameworks of private and public law. [...]

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The Function of Mediation in Transnational Family and Inheritance Law Litigation: The Role of the Department of Legal Sciences (DSG), Unifi, in European Field Research

by S. Landini and S. Viciani

This paper describes the participation of DSG, Unifi, in two European Union-funded research projects, GoInEU Plus and InMEDIATE, and presents the results, which highlight the need to resolve cross-border issues through solutions agreed by the parties with the intervention of professional dispute resolution facilitators. []

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Public Corruption in the Italian Legal System: Between Early Deflagration Offenses, a Low Determinacy Coefficient and Remaining Application Tensions

by A. Milone

This paper takes as its starting point the analysis of a recent judgment of the Sixth Section of the Supreme Court on the subject of bribery and provides a reconstruction of the microsystem of the cases provided by the Italian legal system on the subject. It proposes a solution to overcome the application difficulties that have emerged in practice in delineating the boundary between functional bribery []