Reading Vico for the School of Law

In his oration On the Study Methods of Our Time, Giambattista Vico conceived of the jurist as a person well schooled in law and in rhetoric, able to perform as an orator and a statesman. This ideal contrasts markedly with the modern conception of the lawyer as primarily a rule-technician and a judge. Studying the educational program unfolded by Vico, it becomes apparent that the arts and sciences of oratory, law and philosophy for him converge in the role model of the prudent legislator. This role model has become virtually meaningless in the culture of modem law through an emphasis on the idea of sociolegal positivism which carries the conviction that jurists are functioning as social engineers, especially when they are judges. From Vico we can learn that it is worthwhile to attempt to restore the internal connection between rhetoric and jurisprudence. This could lead to a reform of the law school curriculum. It will be possible to design modern equivalents of the topical method, deriving from the rhetorical tradition. Vico encourages a free use of the resources of the poetic imagination. And a curriculum on these lines warns against confusing all the other arts of language (such as the art of legislation) with the art of interpretation

Jurisprudence for Global Law?

In developing a jurisprudence for global law, we have to move beyond the paradigms of the Western legal tradition. A crucial issue is how legal professionals will be able to deal with complex interdependencies involving cultural notions from a non-western legal tradition. A dialogue is then called for, as the example of Amartya Sen’s analysis of the Indian concepts of niti (somewhat like organizational propriety) and nyaya (somewhat like living law) demonstrates. Accordingly, global legal scholarship must not only become post-national, inter-disciplinary and empirical (as Pierre Larouche argues elsewhere in this issue) but it must also concern itself with cultural issues of justice and injustice

Attribution of physical complaints to the air disaster in Amsterdam by exposed rescue workers: an epidemiological study using historic cohorts

BACKGROUND: In 1992 a cargo aircraft crashed into a residential area of Amsterdam. A troublesome aftermath followed, with rumors on potential toxic exposures and health consequences. Health concerns remained even though no excess morbidity was predicted in retrospective risk evaluations. This study aimed to assess to what extent the rescue workers attribute long-term physical complaints to this disaster, including its aftermath, and to examine associations between such attribution and types of exposure and background variables. METHODS: Historic cohort study that collected questionnaire data on occupational disaster exposure, attribution of physical complaints, and background variables on average 8.5 years post-disaster. For the present study the workers who were exposed to the disaster were selected from the historic cohort, i.e. the professional firefighters (n = 334), police officers (n = 834), and accident and wreckage investigators (n = 241) who performed disaster-related tasks. RESULTS: Across the three occupational groups, a consistent percentage (ranging from 43% to 49%) of exposed workers with long-term physical complaints attributed these to the disaster, including its aftermath. Those with more physical complaints attributed these to a stronger degree. Multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that attribution was significantly more often reported by firefighters who rescued people, and by police officers who reported the identification and recovery of or search for victims and human remains, clean-up, or security and surveillance of the disaster area; who witnessed the immediate disaster scene; who had a close one affected by the disaster; and who perceived the disaster as the worst thing that ever happened to them. Age, sex and educational level were not significantly associated with attribution. CONCLUSION: This study provides further cross-sectional evidence for the role of causal attribution in post-disaster subjective physical health problems. After on average 8.5 years, almost a third (32%) of all the exposed workers, and almost half (45%) of the exposed workers with physical complaints, attributed these complaints to the disaster, including its aftermath. The similarity of the results across the occupational groups suggests a general rather than an occupation-specific attribution process. Longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether causal disaster attribution leads to persistence of post-disaster complaints and health care utilization