‘A Symptom of an Underlying Condition’. Law, the Humanities, and a Non-formalistic Approach to Brexit

The essay addresses Brexit as a constitutional and jurisgenerative moment. It provides an alternative reading to that traditionally used to assess its impact on the Anglo-British constitution. Politics and legalism have trapped Britain in a formalistic approach without offering innovative responses to the challenges posed by Brexit, persuading the public that there are no alternatives to an out-of-Europe approach. The essay adopts a different stance, exploring Brexit with less formalism and more attentiveness to its impact on British society. It uses novels and essays, political pamphlets, and other writings prompted by Brexit to examine the conditions underlying this event. Their analysis may nurture the productive imagination needed to support Britain's constitutional creativity during the post-Brexit scenario

Jaakko Husa, Interdisciplinary Comparative Law. Rubbing Shoulders with the Neighbours or Standing Alone in a Crowd Cheltenham, UK & Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2022, 256 pp, Hardback, ISBN: 9781802209778

The review examines how Husa's book perambulates the place of comparative law in the field of scientific research

Borders: A Cross-Disciplinary Journey Through Non-Legal Lexicon

The paper engages in a cross-disciplinary examination of the concept of borders. After considering its several connotations in law, geography, and linguistics, it focuses on their interrelations with territory. It then considers how their meaning has evolved over time, thus reflecting the cognitive way whereby political power has tried to superimpose on them its own conception on the world. It then discusses the impact of cross-disciplinary research on comparative-law taxonomies (such as territorial constitution and litigation, territorial demarcation, and alteration), as well of how non-legal variables have some bearing on the operational rule of bordering processes

Social capital and Growth in Brazilian Municipalities

According to the modern theory of social capital (see Coleman (1990), Putnam (1993), Fukuyama (1995)), widespread trust would influence the economic performances of a country through a) reduction of transactional costs (monitoring and preventive activities to protect themselves from being exploited in economic transactions) and legal disputes; b) higher percentage of time devoted to innovation in new products or processes; c) higher reliability of formal institutions like the government and the central bank which implies that people can adopt more appropriate horizons in making investment decisions and choose production technologies that are optimal over the long, rather than short, run; d) a stronger social cohesion due to the sharing of ethical norms which induces cooperative behaviours and organisational innovations. On the basis of these theories a large number of empirical contributions which confirm the existence of a positive relation between growth, efficiency and the level of trust has been produced. Following the seminal work by Knack et al. (ibidem), we try to explain growth in Brazil over the period 2000-2003 using indicators of social capital. We develop our analysis at the most detailed geographical level, considering all 5507 municipalities. This choice is motivated by the great heterogeneity inside every country in terms of growth rate. While we observe homogeneity in some countries, like Sergipe, in other countries, like Sao Paulo, we have huge differences. This forces us to consider the municipalities as unit of observation; otherwise the country level would force us to loose all the heterogeneity. In order to obtain good measures of social capital, we start from a set of objective measure, and then analyse then with factor component analysis. We find a robust evidence of the positive effect of social capital on growth rates of income per capita.DYNREG15

The Legal and the Literary: Cultural Perspectives on Brexit

The essay introduces a special issue on Brexit. Instead of merely focusing on its legal implications, this issue undertakes an examination of the UK leaving the EU from a law-and-humanities perspective. The legal analysis is therefore complemented by a broader assessment of the social and cultural features of Brexit, also extending over the complexity of the present and the incertitude posed by its future. Brexit is also a matter of reimagination; constitutional and literary issues thus coalesce towards a transdisciplinary dialogue. To this extent, the collected essays engage with Brexlit, i.e. novels and essays, political pamphlets, and other writings prompted by Brexit. The aim is to explore the doubts, fears, and threats that still haunt the UK after leaving the EU, paying particular attention to the development of new narrative strategies and forms capable of reflecting and giving expression to the new Brexit identities

Modelos económicos neoliberales y cambios constitucionales. La promoción de la mutación jurídica en la perspectiva de la comparación

The essay examines how Neoliberal economic models trigger changes in the realm of constitutional law. It suggests such changes be assessed by a double change of mood. The first change regards the perspective whereby legal studies consider how economic variables affect and change the law. Instead of merely focusing on the current financial crisis, the essay assumes that economics and constitutional law have been interacting for centuries. The second change points to legal methodological innovations. The essay argues that comparative law provides us with an adequate methodology when it comes to analysing how economics affects the legal domain. Owing to its subversive potential, comparative law methodology assists us in examining how economics, democracy and legal change interrelate. In challenging legal formalism, comparative law broadens the scope of legal research so as to consider how non-legal factors trigger changes in the field of constitutional law. The essay then considers the quantitative turn in law, and therefore focuses on the constitutionalisation of balanced budgetary rules in the aftermath of the financial crisis. The essay argues that such a constitutionalisation is a by-product of the Neoliberal economic agenda, whose aim is to impose constitutional recipients to adapt to the needs of transnational financial actors. Summary:1. The economic roots of constitutional change. – 2. Methodological underpinnings: resurgent formalism and constitutional change. – 3. Neoliberal economic models and nominal democracy. – 4. Facing methodological biases: Comparative law and and the defiance of the Neoliberal paradigm. – 5. The reasons for constitutional change: The quantitative turn in legal studies. – 6. The change in lawyers’ mentality and its symptoms: Constitutionalising budgetary rules. – 7. The economic turn triggered by balanced budgets: Rights, lawmaking and federalising processes. – 8. Econometric constitutions and federalism. – 9. Economics triumphant? Lawyers’ autism and the role of comparative law.El ensayo trata de examinar el impacto del modelo económico neoliberal en los procesos de mutaciones constitucionales a través de un doble cambio, esto es, de perspectiva y método. El cambio de perspectiva propone abandonar las modalidades mediante las que, en la última década, se ha valorado el impacto de los factores económicos sobre cambios constitucionales. En lugar de centrarse en la crisis económica, el ensayo considera la interacción entre la Economía y el Derecho constitucional como un fenómeno históricamente recurrente y facilitador de mutaciones jurídicas. El cambio de método deriva de la aplicación de la comparación jurídica para el estudio de dichos procesos de mutación. A este respecto, la comparación propone re-imaginar política y jurídicamente la relación entre economía, democracia y cambios constitucionales. De esta manera, se propone suavizar el formalismo de la ciencia jurídica tradicional para conseguir valoraciones más amplias de los fenómenos –entre otros, económicos– que empujan a cambios en la esfera de lo jurídico-constitucional. Puesto que la relación entre mentalidad económica y mensuración cuantitativa del Derecho se expresa en gran medida a través del proceso de constitucionalización del principio del equilibrio presupuestario, el ensayo analiza la relevancia de su constitucionalización aplicando el potencial«subversivo» de la comparación: por un lado, ésta facilita el  desvelamiento de las ideologías que subyacen a la mensuración cuantitativa; por otro, nos indica las modalidades por las que los actores de las finanzas globales concretan su propia agenda política procurando –o, mejor dicho, imponiendo– cambios relevantes en la esfera del Derecho constitucional

El «nivel integral» de tutela como contenido de los derechos fundamentales europeos

The dialogue between the European and National Courts concerning the fundamental rights, permits to define a so called «complete level» of protection, based on the individual human rights recognized and protected by the member States’ Constitutions, by the EU, by the European Court of Human Rights. The National and European Courts decisions establish their own level of human rights protection, meanwhile allowing the circulation of them. As a consequence of this dialogue, the protection of fundamental rights in the European space found its complete level referring to the whole legal instruments enacting by the Courts. The contribute analyses the way the Courts determine such complete level of protection and highlights the judicial mechanism through which this complete level can be considered compelling in the European space.El diálogo entre los tribunales europeos y nacionales relativo a los derechos fundamentales, permite definir lo que se denomina «nivel integral » de tutela, basado en los derechos humanos individuales reconocidos y protegidos por las Constituciones de los Estados miembros, por la Unión Europea, por el Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos. Las decisiones de los tribunales nacionales y europeos establecen su propio nivel de protección de los derechos humanos, en tanto que permite la circulación de los mismos. Como consecuencia de este diálogo, la protección de los derechos fundamentales en el ámbito europeo encontró su nivel integral en referencia a todos los instrumentos jurídicos dispuestos por los tribunales. El trabajo analiza la forma en que contribuyen los tribunales a determinar dicho nivel integral de tutela y pone de relieve el mecanismo judicial a través del cual se puede considerar aplicable ese nivel integral de tutela en el ámbito europeo.The dialogue between the European and National Courts concerning the fundamental rights, permits to define a so called «complete level» of protection, based on the individual human rights recognized and protected by the member States’ Constitutions, by the EU, by the European Court of Human Rights. The National and European Courts decisions establish their own level of human rights protection, meanwhile allowing the circulation of them. As a consequence of this dialogue, the protection of fundamental rights in the European space found its complete level referring to the whole legal instruments enacting by the Courts. The contribute analyses the way the Courts determine such complete level of protection and highlights the judicial mechanism through which this complete level can be considered compelling in the European space

The Legacy of Foundlings in Emilia-Romagna (Italy)

Between 1820 and 1929, in Iggio and in Tiola, rural parishes not too distant from the respective chief towns, a large number of marriages occurred between natives and former foundlings. The study of the distribution of surnames within the provinces of Emilia-Romagna (Italy) leads one to believe that the phenomenon was quite widespread in this area. This observation does not wish to call into question what is known about the extinction of families from the towns, their continual replacement by people who immigrated from the surrounding countryside and the resulting gene flow; however, it supplies evidence of how, in many cases, this was accompanied by a gene flow, limited but not negligible, in the opposite direction. The gene flow from immigration occurring over the last hundred years would seem to be on a completely different scale, with a notable impact on the genetic structure of the populations studied

Un \u201cdialogo\u201d possibile? Riflessioni comparative sulla dialettica corti-legislatore nella prospettiva della giurisdizione costituzionale \u201cmutilata\u201d della Norvegia

Dopo aver illustrato il contributo della comparazione giuridica nelle indagini sul \u2018dialogo\u2019 tra corti e legislatori, il contributo si concentra sulle inevitabili tensioni che oppongono la giurisdizione costituzionale al potere democraticamente legittimato. Di qui si esamina la natura non-maggioritaria e anti-maggioritaria del conflitto che oppone corti e legislatori. Infine, ci si sofferma sul caso norvegese, dove il controllo di costituzionalit\ue0 \ue8 indagato nelle sue numerose particolarit\ue0