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MISTAKEN IDENTITIES?
EXPLORING THE LIMITS OF THE SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY

Power requires Law. Only Law guarantees an adequate balance between antagonistic positions. Power has to be judged and calibrated; eventually it may need to be either adjusted or removed. But one thing is certain – without Law, all is lost.
In this edition, we explore the territory where power and Law meet. Why and how are citizens under surveillance? Should we be viewed as inert lumps of data? What influence do states exert on global food security? How are governments addressing the issue of mass migration and what does it mean for the future?
Our authors dissect the main arguments and legal procedures. Criteria are necessary to understand the justifiability of power. The legality of power can never be taken for granted.

Authors - click the titles for more Information

Martin Scheinin - Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the European University Institute, Florence: Can we hope for rational decisions on surveillance?

…genuine security and counter-terrorism experts, including within intelligence agencies, are not all driven by vested interests related to power and money. Their professional integrity can become a decisive factor in swinging back the pendulum to a zone where rational discussion is possible. This will not stop the pendulum but it will at least provide opportunities for correcting past mistakes and introducing measures that are based on evidence and a proper assessment of both the security benefits and of the human rights impact of surveillance. And if those measures produce tangible results, they may also persist in times when new calls to do ‘something’ are heard…

Kirsty Hughes - University Lecturer in Public Law at the University of Cambridge, and Director of Studies at the Clare College, University of Cambridge: If Big Brother is watching you, who is watching Big Brother? The limits of human rights courts as guardians against mass state surveillance

The Court’s recent judgment in Big Brother Watch, the first case to reach the Court concerning the allegations in the Snowden files, demonstrates the considerable limits on the Court’s ability to protect privacy in the face of mass surveillance. It suggests that whilst the Court will continue to play an important role in ensuring that states have a legal framework and that they satisfy important minimum safeguards it will not push back on the use of mass surveillance…

Carlos Bernal Pulido - Judge at Colombian Constitutional Court: Defending the undefended. What the Colombian Constitutional Court can teach us about the rights of refugees

The process of forced migration and internal displacement inevitably leads to the infringement of human and constitutional rights. Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) often find themselves lacking access to water, food, shelter, health care, education, and a minimum income. The Colombian Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence on this issue can enlighten us both to good practice and what could be done better. Certainly its firsthand experience in dealing with the complexities of the rights of IDPs is worth further consideration, for both its virtues and its vices…

Sigfrido Ramírez Pérez - Historian at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, Frankfurt: European competition law and economic ideologies

Since the 2008 economic crisis some have tried to retrospectively cast European integration as a kind of ideological plot in which the purpose of the whole project was the creation of a neo-liberal economic constitution. This is obviously false because it is logically counterintuitive and historically incorrect to believe that the nation states that created the modern welfare states after 1945 with social and economic rights in their constitutions were aiming few years later to create a supranational organization which would encourage neo-liberal ideas guided by neo-liberal technocrats. Or even worse, that they did so not on purpose but because their economic sovereignty had been hijacked by a cabal of economic doctrinaries and European judges, when nation-states had had plethoric state administrations and organised interests attentive to any movement made at the European level since the beginning…

Dario Bevilacqua - Professor of Administrative Law; Ministry of Agriculture, Food, Forestry and Tourism (MIPAAFT), Rome: Which approach for global food security regulation?

There may be conflicting views about what food security choice confronts us, but what is undeniable is that whatever we choose, we cannot avoid the concept of food sovereignty, which dwarfs national and even regional concerns; which has, in fact, a global character in a globalised world. To achieve effective food sovereignty we need to have a global ‘food democracy’, in the sense that all the regulatory bodies – be they national, regional or global – have to be accountable, impartial, representative. In a word: democratic…

Laura Clérico - Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Buenos Aires and honorary professor of Constitutional Comparative Law and Human Rights protection at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg: The migration of proportionality: narratives and questions

I wanted to address the issue of the types of discussions the so-called migration of proportionality produces. First of all, the sequence of steps was less visible in the explosion of the narrative about migration in the German proportionality test. This seems to be crucial in the German constitutional version of the test. However, it is not the case in other practices. This reveals two things. On the one hand, the migration of proportionality is limited. On the other, highlighting these re-interpretations or the (implicit) rejection of the structured methodology provides a window of opportunity to pose new questions to old issues. For instance, Latin American Courts are well known for ruling on constitutional rights. Nevertheless, some of these Courts refuse to reveal in advance the method of rights adjudication to justify the decision in a fully structured and explicit way. I would argue strongly that the discussion (reception or rejection or transformation) of the test of proportionality is influenced by the specific context in which it is performed.

Leonie Holkenbrink - project manager of the Human Rights Film Festival Berlin: Changing hearts and minds. Film festivals are shining the spotlight on human rights

Over a century later: a pair of children are sitting on a balcony, licking lollipops and letting their legs hang over the side. There is suddenly the sound of shelling and the children run inside. Now the perspective widens. Countless shell-destroyed buildings can be seen. A war scared town. It is Aleppo in Syria, four years ago and a scene from Oscar-nominated documentary Watani – My Homeland. Again, the audience is shocked by the images they have seen on screen. Again, the reality is overwhelming. But this time the audience is at the opening of the first Human Rights Film Festival Berlin in September 2018.

Publishing

Laura Di Gregorio: Katapult

‘Should I draw a picture for you?!’ I often heard this question in Naples when someone reproached a person for not understanding an argument fast enough. It was quite a popular expression, underpinned by something not very nice: the interlocutor seemed to not be smart enough to grasp the verbal meaning of the sentence. The need for visual support has traditionally been denigrated, even in Naples, homeland of gesticulation. In particular during intellectual exchanges, people had to be able to understand complex arguments by reading or listening to long discourses!...

Cap Verde: Rosa de porcelana

It can happen: small publishing houses giving international visibility to wonderful but unknown writers. In Cape Verde, ‘Rosa de Porcelana Editora’ is one of them. Founder Filinto El.sio who created the publishing house with his partner M.rcia Souto speaks to This Century’s Review.

International books review

Il metodo della paura, Rosario Aitala

…The answer should be to reinforce all legal procedures that stress the universality of human dignity and are directed to overcome the drivers of conflict – race, religion, politics. Thus, legal awareness becomes a potent weapon against terrorism. The author explains with rare clarity how legality is strictly related to empathy for the victims of terror. The only real way of escaping fear is to not be indifferent to the destiny of others…

The power of judges, David Neuberger, Peter Riddell

…All of these books manage to tackle often quite complex issues with immense economy and clarity, providing an enlightening and engaging summary of the enduring effort it takes to hold a society – any society – together, and safeguard the Rule of Law.

Exhibition - Martina Marolda - Art historian, Italy: Save the date. Art agenda 2019

Art in 2019 promises much in the way of creativity in a world in which borders are no longer permanent but continually in flux and up for definition. In this, Art and Law have much in common, continually reinventing themselves to meet the challenges of our times. From Jerusalem to London, Paris to Marrakech, passing through Alberta, Vienna and Kanazawa, the main private foundations and public institutions bring us a world in constant conflict, wounded and full of contradictions, but also interconnected and constantly developing new forms of expression…

Francesca Sani - Galerist of PH Neutro, Siena: Still life

We have chosen to feature Felix Dobbert’s photographs in this edition of TCR to explore a modern dilemma: while we may benefit from new communication technologies in both our working and private lives, this can come at a cost. Whether it is to our privacy, the commodification of our identity in a market where we amount to little more than data to be bought and sold, or our very existence is reduced to a shallow ‘virtuality’ rather than a living, breathing, complex human being, Dobbert’s still lifes provide a metaphor for a world in which beautiful, living creatures are

Featuring: Felix Dobbert – www.felixdobbert.de


© Felix Dobbert - Blossom Works, BW1, 122x92cm, 2018
The artworks of Felix Dobbert are currently on show at Gallery RASCHE RIPKEN BERLIN until January 19, 2019 - www.rasche-ripken.de

NO EMOJI FOR DEMOCRACY

Authoritarians use short, simple sentences to sum up apparently easy solutions to the complex maladies that afflict each and every modern society. They promise the successful enforcement of their visions. Their rhetorical strategy is to repeat a handful of facile arguments. Repetitiveness increases, at least apparently, their soundness, credibility and consensus.
It seems far more difficult to make the arguments that affirm democratic ideals. Even democratic societies that work well face enormous limitations to the implementation of their egalitarian goals. A genuine debate should involve compromises among opposing views. Democratic discourse is complex, requires a long-term perspective, and above all, involves admitting it cannot deliver a definitive solution, but one that is conditional and may have to be constantly adjusted according to the changing circumstances.

Authors - click the titles for more Information

Michel Rosenfeld - Professor of Law and Comparative Democracy at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, New York: Can democracy survive a fractured freedom of speech?

“The fracturing of speech and its nefarious effects on democracy can be greatly magnified by the deployment of new technologies as attested by the spread of hate speech and misleading information across the web and via social media such as Facebook. News outlets, even if fragmented, operate under editorial supervision which typically insures some form of cogent control over output. Social media, in contrast, are in significant respect not, or insufficiently, editorially managed…”

Eric Heinze - Professor of Law and Humanities at the School of Law, Queen Mary University of London: Is democracy necessary for human rights?

“Yes, there are human goods aplenty outside democracy. Just as surely, however, outside democracy there will never be any regime of human rights.”

Domenico Francavilla - Professor of Comparative Law at the Department of Law at Turin University: Legal uniformity, equality and personal laws in India

“The uniform civil code has a strong symbolic value and may seem a necessary passage on the path towards modernisation of the country. However, it is also possible to ask whether the uniform civil code is an appropriate instrument or if, on the contrary, the current system of personal laws applied by secular Indian courts within the constitutional framework and progressively harmonised by legislation can ultimately achieve an adequate management of Indian pluralism.”

Laura Di Gregorio - Stella Deetjen. Devotee of dignity

“Stella makes an immediate impression – tall, slim, beautiful, with pearly white seashells nestled in her long blonde dreadlocks –she isn’t exactly the clich. of the dowdy do-gooder”

Ilaria Vianello - - Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law: The hope behind the headlines. Public administration reforms in Afghanistan

“It was the promise of a fair civil service entrance exam, based on merit and transparency, that convinced the young couple to walk for five days to Feyzabed, provincial capital of Afghanistan’s Badakshan Province. Shortly thereafter, their son, Ahmad Nader was born – a sign, perhaps, of hope, of renewed trust between the citizens living in the remote areas of the country and the state.”

Liza Schuster - Reader in Sociology at City, University of London: The Common European Asylum System. Inconsistent, incoherent and lacking credibility

“There are two distinct but related issues here: the diverse probabilities of receiving protection in the EU depending on the country in which one makes a claim, and the credibility of decisions that are made. There is currently no European institution implementing these directives or ensuring that criteria are uniformly applied – instead considerable discretion remains at national level, with the result that where one makes one’s claim matters enormously, a fact ignored by the Dublin regulation.”

Daniel Bonilla Maldonado - Professor of Constitutional Law at the Universidad de los Andes of Bogotà: Legal barbarians

“The three stages that constitute modern law, despite their differences, have a noteworthy similarity: the articulation of the self of the Global North by means of the articulation of the self of the Global South. The former is a legal subject, the latter a legal barbarian.”

Sam Hunter Jones - Lawyer specialising in Climate Accountability at the international law firm Client Earth: Law and the ‘Great Deceleration’

“It may even be possible that the ‘Great Deceleration’ – done fairly, justly and sustainably – can create a more stable, cohesive and civically engaged society, living a better quality of life amidst a less polluted and more abundant environment.”

Elke Hortmeyer - Communications and Public Relations Officer at the Bremen Cotton Exchange: Bio or non-bio? Unravelling the environmental contradictions of the cotton trade

But we should not forget that the organic cotton farmer takes a high economic risk when entering the organic field. If insects damage his fields he is in trouble and might even lose the entire crop as he or she is bound to the standard requirements, which mean doing otherwise would risk losing certification status. Organic farming is a system. Farmers produce not only one single crop, but many others and those have to be produced as certified organic as well.

Gábor Halmai - Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at the European University Institute in Florence: The Decline of Mitteleuropa. A ’89er’s thoughts on the fading light of Constitutionalism

“Pribán’s essays are not about the nation’s historical struggle for survival and independence, but rather the decline of democratic constitutionalism and civility in post-national Europe, with a particular emphasis on the region once known as Central Europe.”

transcript press. Independent academic publishing par excellence

“…its greatest strength is its commitment to an independent publishing culture free from any interference from corporate interests. By partnering with a wide range of overseas presses like Columbia University Press in North America and Pluto Press in the UK, it aims for its international programme to grow year by year.”

Martina Marolda: Manifesta 12. The nomadic European Biennial arrives at the heart of the Mediterranean

“Manifesta is an extraordinary Biennial of Contemporary Art. Born in the early Nineties in The Netherlands as a response to the political and economic changes brought about by the end of the Cold War and the consequent moves towards European integration, it has been hosted by cities from Murcia in Spain to St Petersburg, Russia. In 2018, it arrives in Palermo, Sicily, a cultural crossroads of three continents at the heart of the Mediterranean.”

Featuring
The Urban series by Marina Dafova - art director and photographer, Berlin

© by Marina Dafova - www.dafova.com

Does everything come at a price?

Economic policy trumps everything. How is the old goddess of Justice faring in our increasingly monetised world? In this issue, our articles include an exploration of the Eurozone’s increasing power, climate justice, the perspective of the Global South, and wavering attitudes to the immigration issue. We also feature an exclusive, in-depth interview with legal philosopher Robert Alexy

Authors - click the titles for more Information

Robert Alexy - Professor at University of Kiel, Germany:A rational man

“Laura Di Gregorio meets world-renowned legal philosopher Robert Alexy…
Rationality is thrilling for two reasons. The first is that rationality is possible. Rationality starts with asking, asserting, and arguing…”

Peo Hansen - Professor of Political Science at the Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO), Linköping University, Sweden: Crisis? What crisis?

“Why Sweden’s refugee crisis spending should be a Keynesian lesson for all of Europe…
The perception here is that refugees constitute a cost, an expense, and that is the end of the story…”

Marcel Fratzscher - President of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW-Berlin), Germany: Choosing hope

“Opportunity credit, not basic income, would transform lives…
Policy makers have not yet succeeded in shaping the major shifts of our era – technological change, globalisation, and the information society – to the majority’s satisfaction. This not only applies to Germany but almost all of the world’s industrial countries. The widespread perception of rising social inequality is fuelling the success of populists.”

Edoardo Chiti - Professor of Administrative Law at the University of La Tuscia, Italy: Growing pains

“The changing nature of the Eurozone…
Over a decade dominated by lurid headlines, the Eurozone has quietly evolved from a “jurisdiction” to an “organisation” – one that threatens to eclipse the EU itself. But is the new institution fit for purpose?”

Elisa Arcioni - Professor of Public Law at the Sydney Law School in Australia, and member of the Council of the Australian Association of Constitutional Law, Australia: We, what People?

“Constitutional identity in Australia. For a start, the Constitution fails to recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the ongoing traditional owners of the land and members of the oldest living cultures in the world.”

Martine Reicherts - Director-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture at the European Commission - and Roberto Viola Director-General for Communications, Content and Technology at the European Commission: Cultural contents

This Century‘s Review talks about film and culture with the European Commission’s Martine Reicherts and Roberto Viola…
In times of crisis, the role of culture is revealing its political and economic influence, reinforcing cohesion among Member States…”

Marta Craveri - is director of the International Departement of the Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme (FMSH) and researcher at the Centre d‘études des mondes russe, caucasien et centre-européen (CERCEC), France - and Anne Marie Losonczy Directrice d‘études at the École Pratique des Hautes Étude (EPHE) and member of the CERMA, France: Europe’s Gulag children

“While we have long recognised the terrible fate meted out to the child victims of the Holocaust, the children who were sent to the Gulag under Stalin’s Terror exist only in the shadows of popular understanding, if they exist at all.”

Virgílio Afonso da Silva - Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of São Paulo, Brazil: Global South

“Cases, controversies, legal and political perspectives from the cutting-edge of global law…
My daughter has a book of folk tales, published in a European country. Translated into English, the title of the book is ‘Folk Tales from the Four Corners of the World.‘ There are tales by the Brothers Grimm, H. C. Andersen, some English, Italian, Slavic, and Middle Eastern tales. And that‘s it. These are the four corners of the world. Even if it is true that this was the world a European knew many centuries ago, today…”

Fabio Giglioni - Professor of Administrative Law at Sapienza University, Italy: The Law of the Cities

“Like their skyscrapers, the Law of the Cities is rising in prominence…As the profile of states has drawn back in the wake of globalisation, that of cities is again on the rise.”

Meryem Tanahrte - Dr. Meryem Tanahrte is a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, and Associate Professor at the University of Casablanca, Morocco: Climate justice

“Climate change is the legal issue of our age. At stake are billions of dollars and millions of lives. Industries can rise and fall, and nations can find themselves at threat from the consequences of our changing climate. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that despite the weight of evidence, climate change is at the centre of a fierce debate, and science can sometimes find itself in the crosshairs.”

Publishing
Madagascar: The flight of Dodo Vole

“A Madagscan publisher pushes back…Dodo Vole from Madagascar is more than a typical publisher producing books for children and adults. It is a political statement and a project of empowerment.”

Berlin: The enduring art of Lettre International

“Celebrating its 30th anniversary next year, the journal remains unashamedly intellectual in a dumbed-down age”

International Books Review
Carbon Capture and Storage
Das gute Projekt
Constitucionalismo del Sur Global

Movies
The International Festival and Forum on Human Rights in Geneva

“Celebrated graphic novelist Guy Delisle will be artist of honour for Geneva’s 2018 International Festival and Forum on Human Rights, which has been running in parallel with the main session of the UN Human Rights Council for the past 15 years. The festival is widely regarded as the most important festival of its kind…”

Exhibitions
Martina Marolda - Art historian, Italy: The moving art of Adrian Paci

Water is a metaphor for movement and flow but also provides an opportunity for action and reaction – a theme explored in a series of simultaneous exhibitions on show in Tuscany until next year by celebrated Albanian artist Adrian Paci.

Featuring
The Urban series by Marina Dafova - art director and photographer, Berlin

© by Marina Dafova - marinadafova@gmail.com - www.dafova.com

Collaboration with MaKoMe

MaKoMe’s (il)legal currency

Follow the designs through this edition

The cost of free speech
© MaKoMe
What Price privacy?
© MaKoMe
Nature, price or prize?
© MaKoMe

BACK ISSUES 2012 - 2014

A Castle of Words Issue
THE DRAMA OF LAW Issue
LEGAL AWARENESS Issue

A Castle of Words

The third issue of This Century’s Review has the title “A Castle of Words” because it is devoted to the relationship between law and literature. We analyse the creative power of language, how a few words are changing the role of the European Central Bank, Hungary’s constitution, migration policies and the dissemination of political culture around the world.

Also in this issue, This Century’s Review continues its cooperation with an artist. Following our previous collaborations with Clemens-Tobias Lange and conductor Paolo Manetti, we are honoured to feature photographs by Federico Pacini.

Authors // biographies

Malcolm Coulthard - Emeritus Professor of Forensic Linguistics at the University of Aston and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianopolis (Brazil): Co-Writing Justice

Malcolm Coulthard is Emeritus Professor of Forensic Linguistics at the University of Aston and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil. He is probably still best known for his work on the analysis of spoken and written discourse, but since the late 1980s he has become increasingly involved with forensic applications of linguistics. He has written expert reports in over 220 cases and given evidence on author identification in the Courts of Appeal in London, as well as in lower courts in England, Germany, Hong Kong and Northern Ireland. Major publications with Alison Johnson in the area of Forensic Linguistics are ‘An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics’, 2007 and ‘A Handbook of Forensic Linguistics’, 2010.

Gábor Halmai - Visiting Research Scholar at Princeton University and professor of Law at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest: Constitutionalism and Democracy. Hungary’s new Fundamental Law

Gábor Halmai is professor of Law at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. He is currently Visiting Research Scholar at Princeton University and, since 2003, he has been the national director of the European Masters Program in Human Rights and Democratization in Venice. He is a former member of the Management Board of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, and had previously served as chief counsellor to the President of the Hungarian Constitutional Court. He has published widely on Comparative Constitutional Law and Human Rights. His latest book Perspectives of Global Constitutionalism will be published by Eleven International Publishing.

Adamantia Karali Co-Writing Justice

Adamantia Karali is a PhD researcher in Forensic Linguistics at the University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece. She has been a distance learning tutor in Linguistics at the University of Birmingham, UK, since 2000, and a court secretary at the Athens Court of Appeal, Greece, since 2001.

Petra Hardt - Head of the Rights Department at Suhrkamp Verlag (Berlin): How a Publishing House Disseminates (Legal) Culture

Petra Hardt studied Romance Literature and wrote a PhD on the ‘Lyrik der Résistance’. She has worked at Suhrkamp Verlag (Berlin) since 1995 and has been the Head of the Rights Department since 2000.

Marta López Torres - Deputy Head of the Institutional Law Division at the European Central Bank: The Changing Lexicon of the European Central Bank

Marta López Torres is Deputy Head of the Institutional Law Division at the European Central Bank. Before joining the ECB, she worked in the European Commission and the international U.S. firm Hunton & Williams. She also served one year in the legal services of the International Monetary Fund. She has a law degree from her home-town university in Pamplona, Spain. She completed her post-graduate education at King’s College, London, and the European University Institute, Florence.

Frank Mc Namara - European University Institute: Do good fences make good neighbours?

Frank Mc Namara is a PhD candidate at the European University Institute. His doctoral research considers the effects of externalisation and privatisation on migrants in the EU. He has previously worked in the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal in Ireland and as a Trainee at the European Commission in the Unit for Border Management and Schengen Governance/Relations with Frontex. His postgraduate degrees are an LL.B (from the National University of Ireland, Galway); an LL.M in European Law (University of Edinburgh); and an LL.M in Comparative, European and International Legal Studies (European University Institute).

Christoph Möllers - Professor of Law at the Humboldt University of Berlin, and Judge at the Supreme Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandeburg: Forms of the Possible – on Law and Literature

Christoph Möllers is Professor of Law at the Humboldt University of Berlin, and Judge at the Supreme Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandeburg. He is also Permanent Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg of Berlin where he is the Head of the Programs ‘Law in Context’ and ‘Legal Cultures’ (Co-head Prof. Susanne Baer). He studied Philosophy of Law, Public and Comparative Law at the legal faculties of Tübingen, München and Madrid.

Iker Nabaskues - Professor of Philosophy of Law and Theory of Law at the University of the Basque Country: The Strange Case of Literature and Justice: Robert Louis Stevenson

Iker Nabaskues teaches Philosophy of Law and Theory of Law at the University of the Basque Country. He has also worked in Public Administration in the area of Social Services. Specialized in welfare-state policies, he is the author of Globalización y nueva política local (IVAP, 2003) on the role of local governments as creators of new social policies in the era of globalization. He received his doctoral degree from the University of the Basque Country for his thesis “Robert Louis Stevenson: Ethics, narrative and justice”. His research has focused on literature and film as cultural elements that help in the formation of free citizens and on the use of novels as a means of iusphilosophical analysis.

Thomas Weitin - Professor of German Literature at the University of Konstanz: The Devil is in the Human Dignity: Goethe’s Faust

Thomas Weitin is Professor of German Literature at the University of Konstanz.

Collaboration with Federico Pacini

Federico Pacini, Untitled, 2012

The images appearing alongside the texts in the current issue of TCR are the work of the Tuscan photographer Federico Pacini. “At first glance they seem to be random snippets of normal everyday life, shabby, even. The intention of these representations is not, however, to celebrate the beauty of banality (and even less so the banality of beauty): they are simply chronicling a banality that exists around us, and which we cannot banish just because we wish to. It is a banality which is as much a part of us as it is of our field of vision.”
Luca Quattrocchi, Professor Contemporary Art History, Siena University

Federico Pacini (born 1977) has received numerous international awards. Amongst these, his book 0001735.tif was awarded a prize both at the 'IPA International Photography Awards' of 2009 (New York, Lincoln Centre), and at the 'Prix de la Photographie de Paris' in 2010.

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A CASTLE OF WORDS

‘Both the majesty and the misery of our societies are regulated by a castle made of words. Literary representations unashamedly expose the reality of human nature, while human dignity is grounded in our awareness of our limitations. Legal systems evolve on the basis of an appropriate choice of words, and they reveal their strength or fragility by the same means. It is linguistic subtleties that change constitutions, amend migration policies and redefine the role of institutions.’

Editorial
Laura Di Gregorio, Editor-in-chief

Photo: Serena Carloni

Veiling // Short story

This Century’s Review wishes to pay tribute to both literature and law with the publication of Veiling, a short story based on an illusory superimposition of emotional states and legal ploys.

“Random images, recorded who knows when and where on the Internet, were forming in the atmosphere. The air was stratifying in transparent curtains, overlapping like veils. Photos, emails, videos, ads, search engines, digital encyclopedias were slipping into invisible interstices. Entire folders were refracted with varying intensity in no apparent order, sometimes just as faint glimmers, a blur indistinguishable from everyday reality, while others were glowing figures which attached themselves to the real world, even supplanting it. The duration of the phenomenon was also unpredictable; it went from flashes lasting just a few seconds to effects continuing for minutes at a time. In India, a lady in a field of pink flowers had seen a whale arching. Its large grey tail had sunk into an ocean which had appeared out of nowhere, whose waves submerged flowers and bushes, transforming them into a credible seascape. The filming was an incomprehensible collage: the wind was blowing and the pink petals formed a cloud of plankton between the fins of the large, steel blue cetacean. The lady kept on filming – gasping in astonishment, she uttered no words, just giggled occasionally – up until the moment she lowered her video camera and saw her shoes turning into a brood of luminous jellyfish. Terrible screams could be heard in the final moments of the video. The camera was then thrown away, going off. Afterwards, the unfortunate lady recounted her ridiculous efforts to swim in the ocean depths. She jumped and flailed around in a field of flowers she could no longer see. She kept breathing like an awkward amphibian, thrashing around while trying in vain to return to the surface. Her absurd gesticulations would have made her pass out had not the huge mass of water suddenly disappeared. A sound like that of an electrical switch put an end to the projection, extinguishing any sidereal reflection and reverting to an unblemished vision of countless pink flowers…”

An extract from ‘Veiling’, by Laura Di Gregorio

THE DRAMA OF LAW

Authors // biographies

Carlos Bernal - Senior lecturer at Macquarie Law School (Sydney, Australia): The Drama of the Law as a Collective Play

Carlos Bernal is a senior lecturer at Macquarie Law School (Sydney, Australia). He has research interests in the fields of jurisprudence and constitutional theory. He has published widely in these fields in seven different languages. His qualifications include a LL.B. from the University Externado of Colombia (Bogota) (1996), a S.J.D. from the University of Salamanca (Spain) (2001) and a M.A. (2008) and a Ph.D. in Philosophy (2011) from the University of Florida (USA). He has delivered lectures and presented papers in more than 20 countries. He is currently working on a project on collective intentionality and the nature of law.

Anna Cento Bull - Professor of Italian History and Politics at the University of Bath, UK: The Limits of Retributive Justice in Italy: The Limits of Retributive Justice in Italy: The Outcomes of Recent Trials on Bombing Massacres Perpetrated in the Late 1960s and 1970s

Anna Cento Bull is Professor of Italian History and Politics at the University of Bath, UK. She has examined the legacy of 1960s-1970s Italian terrorism, exploring issues related to reconciliation, memory, truth and justice and comparing the views of victims, perpetrators and politicians close to the right. Her early research focused on extreme- right terrorism. The findings of this research have been published as journal articles, book chapters, and a solo- authored book, Italian Neofascism. The Strategy of Tension and the Politics of Nonreconciliation, published by Berghahn in 2007 (re-published in paperback in 2011). More recently, her research has examined the end of terrorism and its legacy in Italy with reference to both left and right terrorism, thanks to a new major round of interviews with former terrorists and victims/relatives of victims. A new book, entitled Ending Terrorism in Italy, written jointly with Dr Philip Cooke, University of Strathclyde, is to be published by Routledge in 2013.

Jean-Pierre Cassarino - Professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (European University Institute, Florence): Shaping Policy Perceptions: Revising the Migration Script

Jean-Pierre Cassarino is professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (European University Institute, EUI, Florence) where he directs the Return Migration and Development Platform (http://rsc.eui.eu/RDP/). He is also research associate at the Tunis- based Institute for Research on Contemporary Maghreb (Institut de Recherche sur le Maghreb Contemporain, IRMC, Tunis) and a member of the academic network of the Border Crossing Observatory at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia). He has researched and published extensively on migration policies and state-to-state cooperation as wellas on migrants’ conditions and realities in their broadest sense, while carrying out various field surveys in North and sub-Saharan Africa and in the Caucasus.

Magda Bianco - Head of the Law & Economics Research department at the Bank of Italy: Getting the Law Back to Work

Magda Bianco is head of the Law & Economics Research department at the Bank of Italy where, in various departments, she has worked since 1989. From 1992 to 1996 she has been professor of Industrial Organisation at the Università degli Studi di Bergamo. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a master degree in Economics. Her current research interests are in the field of corporate governance and company law; the economics of bankruptcy; the economics of civil justice. She has published articles on Italian corporate governance, bank-firm relationships, financial structure.

Jakob Braeuer - Lawyer at Heller & Partner, Berlin, Joanna Warsza and Tea Tupajić - Curator for visual and performing art and architecture: Art Legally on the Edge

Jakob Braeuer is a lawyer at Heller & Partner, Berlin. The firm specialises in art law. Among its clients are numerous internationally well-known artists, galleries, and art institutions. Jakob Braeuer studied in Berlin, Salamanca, and London, and holds an LL.M. in IntellectualProperty Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Joanna Warsza is a curator for visual and performing art and architecture. She was an associate curator of the 7th Berlin Biennale. She graduated from Warsaw Theater Academy Theater Studies department and the University of Paris 8 dance department. She is a founder of the independent platform Laura Palmer Foundation www.laura-palmer. pl). Warsza has worked mostly in the public realm, curating projects that examine social and political agendas. She is one of the curators of upcoming Gothenburg Biennale and curator of the Georgian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2013. She is an editor of ‘Stadium-X – A Place That Never Was’ (2009) and ‘Forget Fear’ (2012).

Tea Tupajic, born in Sarajevo, 1984, is a Croatian theatre director. In 2010-2012 she created ‘The Curator’s Piece’ in collaboration with Petra Zanki and several performances and conferences as a part of ‘The Agora Project’ initiated by Jan Ritsema. Her projects have been presented in venues/ festivals such as BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), Bastard (Trondheim), TUPP festival (Uppsala), Tanzquartier Wien (Vienna), Kaaitheater (Brussels), steirischer herbst (Graz), PACT Zollverein (Essen). Guest editior for the magazine Frakcija.

Ioanna Kondyli - Assistant Professor of Civil Law in Faculty of Law of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens: Disability in Theatre and Law

Ioanna Kondyli (B.A. National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; DEA in General Private Law & DEA in Sociology of Law and Social Relationships, Panthéon- Assas University; Doctorat d’état Panthéon- Assas University) is an Assistant Professor of Civil Law in Faculty of Law of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She teaches general principles of civil law, hereditary law as well as interpretation of laws and legal transactions. She has received prestigious prizes (1st prize, French Centre of Comparative Law; Label – European Doctorate 1992). She is Vice-President of the State School of Dance (Athens), Honorary President in Onassis Scholars’ Association Board of Directors and editorial advisor in AΩ International Online Magazine. She produces several radio broadcasts on legal, social and cultural issues.

Cledia Sedda - Actor and writer for theatre, cinema and radio:Caramel Jail, Personal Shopper for the Accused

Cledia Sedda is an actor and writer for theatre, cinema and radio. She graduated with a dissertation on the music of silent films and holds a PhD on the origins of cinema as a scientific instrument. Her current research interests lie with communication and performing – in particular the use of art and comedy to communicate scientific principles and theories. She has written plays performed in various theatres across Italy and recently acted in Pupi Avati’s film: Il cuore grande delle ragazze.

Miriam Aziz - Visiting scholar at Cardozo Law School, New York: Lost for Words: Law as Tanztheater

Miriam Aziz is a visiting scholar at Cardozo Law School, New York, as well as holding a Visiting Professorship at Université Paris Dauphine. Aziz’s research and teaching focuses on basic questions of culture, citizenship and human rights in European and International Law and Law & Humanities. An accomplished artist, she is also Founder and Artistic Director of a performance arts laboratory called Artist(s) at Large which is a creative platform that she also uses for legal scholarship and teaching about legal narratives.

Jean Paul Hernández - Jesuit and professor of theological anthropology at the Theological Faculty of Bologna: Job: God’s Accuser

Jean Paul Hernández is Jesuit and professor of theological anthropology at the Theological Faculty of Bologna

Paolo Manetti - Conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of Ravenna: Truths of Faith

Paolo Manetti studied under Bruno Bettinelli in Milan and graduated in composition, conducting, choral music and choral conducting. He performs as a conductor in Italy and abroad, favouring the symphonic repertoire and collaborating with internationally renowned soloists. He has been conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of Ravenna since 2001. He created the concert series Organ and Orchestra in Romanticism, currently held at Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, www.organoeorchestra.it. He is Professor of Orchestral Practice at the Conservatory of Music E. Duni in Matera.

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THE DRAMA OF LAW

The current issue of This Century’s Review draws back the curtain on excerpts from a Passion play. The Passion was the public execution of a death penalty – a gruesome spectacle still practised by humankind. Each of the following contributions will deal with some aspect of the drama of law, where drama is understood in the Greek sense of action. While it is true that the law is created by constitutional assemblies and parliaments, it is equally true that it regenerates itself constantly in its application to specific cases. It is implemented by individuals playing to a chorus that is neither imaginary nor fictitious, rather, that represents the collectivity itself. Humankind still requires the theatre, the persuasive force of gestures and dialectics, and the link between law and theatre remains binding. The law must always have a plot, not only in the trials carried out in the halls of justice.

The first issue of This Century’s Review claimed that law has an existential character. It is a preliminary choice that is part of our everyday lives. This view is now further underlined as it becomes clear that the application of a legal norm requires a dialectic awareness based on the need to select between available material and facts, as well as the ability to communicate one’s choices effectively. Legal procedures are norms that must be respected and nonetheless leave wide scope for action. It is in the actual implementation of the law that individuals recite their personal and unique monologues to the chorus. Each individual has a part in which she reconstructs her own version of events and her own arguments; she narrates her own reality and, in particular, seeks the consensus of the collectivity. The collectivity is not an impassive observer, but an active interlocutor who may or may not identify with the destiny of the individual. The collectivity is the recipient and at the same time the judge of the abstract legal norm.

The law is alive to the degree that it is perceived by public opinion, in interstate negotiations, by the media, by the national and international press, at conferences, in academic forums, in social networks and so forth. If the audience remains indifferent, the legal debate fails.

According to This Century’s Review, the legal debate shakes the very foundations of a society; it determines its values, its sense of security and its fears. It is a debate that may take a rational form, giving visibility to opposing opinions, but always has the creative force of the word. The law ensures that a flood of words, arguments and sentiments are channelled into legal procedures. It enhances their efficacy and shapes the destiny both of individual existences and of entire societies.

Editorial
Laura Di Gregorio, Editor-in-chief

Collaboration with conductor Paolo Manetti

La salita al Calvario
La salita al Calvario

LEGAL AWARENESS

  • "Rationality is a concept that ceases to appear utopian when we decide to achieve it." Editorial

  • "Legal debate has an existential character whatever the specific issues under analysis." Editorial

Photo: Dirk Vogel

Authors // biographies

Mattias Kumm - Professor of Law at New York University School of Law and Research Professor at the Social Science Research Center and Humboldt University in Berlin: Total Rights and the Banality of Injustice

Mattias Kumm is Inge Rennert Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, as well as holding a Research Professorship on 'Globali- zation and the Rule of Law' at the Social Science Research Center (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, WZB) and Humboldt University in Berlin. Kumm's research and teaching focuses on basic issues in Global, European and Comparative Public Law. His work emphasizes the analytical and normative connection between law, claims to legitimate authority and public reason, and the institutional conditions under which such claims can be made plausible. He argues for the need to reconceive the liberal-democratic constitutional tradition in cosmopolitan and pluralist terms. Among his intellectual influences are Hans Kelsen, Robert Alexy, and Ronald Dworkin. Professor Mattias Kumm lives and works in New York City and Berlin.

Virgílio Afonso da Silva - Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of San Paolo: Discovering the Court: or, How Rights Awareness Puts the Brazilian Supreme Court in the Spotlight

Virgílio Afonso da Silva is Professor of Law at the University of São Paulo, where he teaches constitutional law, human rights, constitutional theory, and political and electoral systems. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Kiel, Germany. His works on constitutional interpretation, human rights (including social and economic rights), political representation and electoral systems have been published in Portuguese, English, Spanish, and German. He has been a visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, and at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He is a member of the scientific board of the São Paulo Research Foundation (Fapesp).

Guilherme Leite Gonçalves - Research Fellow at the Free University in Berlin at Bremen University: Are We Aware of the Current Recolonisation of the South?

Guilherme Leite Gonçalves has a Ph.D in the Sociology of Law from the University of Salento, Italy. He is currently a Humboldt Foundation George Foster Research Fellow at the Free University in Berlin and at Bremen University.

Edmund Boyo - Partner at Clifford Chance based in Frankfurt: The Increasing Demand for Infrastructure Financing

Edmund Boyo is a Partner at Clifford Chance based in Frankfurt who joined the firm in 1998. He specialises in International Project Finance (including toll roads, airports, ports, petrochemicals, and mining), asset finance and general banking. He is the global co-head of the firm’s Africa Group. Boyo has led the Clifford Chance team on numerous landmark transactions including advising the finance parties on the commercial bank and Islamic bank backed project financing of a USD 12.5 billion bauxite mine and refinery and aluminium smelter and rolling mill in Saudi Arabia (Middle East Industrial Deal of the Year 2010 – PFI and Middle East Mining and Metals Deal of the Year 2011 – Project Finance Magazine), and advising SABIC (as sponsor) and Saudi Kayan (as project company) on Saudi Kayan’s IPO and the ECA and commercial and Islamic bank backed project financing of a USD 10 billion petrochemicals project in Saudi Arabia (Middle East Petrochemicals Deal of the Year 2009 – Project Finance Magazine).

Mariella de Masellis - Counsellor for the Fourth Penal Section of the Corte d’Appello in Rome: How Judges Assess Fear

Mariella de Masellis has been a judge since 1989. She has worked in Calabria and Campania in Italy dealing with complicated cases involving organized crime, and was the anti-mafia public prosecutor in Salerno in Southern Italy for seven years. She is currently the counsellor for the Fourth Penal Section of the Corte d’Appello in Rome, where she is in charge of enforcing arrest warrants issued by other European Union countries, also in matters of freezing assets - the seizure and confiscation of assets of those who are considered a danger to society, for example Mafiosi – and also for the award of compensation to those who were in preventive custody and were subsequently found not guilty. She has been involved for many years in educational activities. She is the co-author of the book Violenza in famiglia. Percorsi giurisprudenziali (Giuffré 2011).

Winfried Bullinger - Lawyer at CMS Asche Sigle and Professor at Brandenburg University of Technology in Cottbus: Copyright, Pirates and Internet

Winfried Bullinger was born in Munich, Germany in 1965. He studied Fine Art (Painting) at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, South Africa and at the University of Art Berlin (UDK), Germany, from 1987 to 1993. He studied for his Masters Degree at the UDK in 1993, writing his dissertation on art and falsification. Bullinger has also studied law and now practices at the international law firm CMS Asche Sigle. In both his photographic artwork and in his legal work he focuses on the human condition. He lives in Potsdam and Berlin. Recent exhibitions (selection): 2008 Caves, Goethe Institut in Cooperation with Herakleidon Museum, Athen (Solo); Caves Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg; 2009 Traces, Concent Art Berlin; 2009 Artists from Berlin, Museum of Modern Art, Skopje; 2010 Waterplaces, Curatorial Partners, Karlsruhe; 2010 Gallery Bob van Orsouw, Zürich; 2011 Gallery Sassa Trülzsch, Berlin.

Simonetta Agnello Hornby - Writer and children’s lawyer in London: Traces of Awareness between Law and Literature

Simonetta Agnello Hornby is a writer of international renown – she is the winner of many literary prizes, including the ‘Stresa di Narrativa’ and P.E.N. Club Italy awards. She has spent most of her life working as a children’s lawyer in Brixton, South London. Moreover, she chaired The Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal for eight years. Novels: La Mennulara (The Almond Picker), 2002; La Zia Marchesa (The Marchesa), 2004; Boccamurata (Sealed Lips), 2007; Vento Scomposto (There’s Nothing Wrong with Lucy), 2009; Camera Oscura (The Dark Room), 2010; La Monaca (The Nun), 2010; Un filo d’olio, 2011

Klaus Walter - DJ and author in Frankfurt/Main: Get up, Stand up – Legal Awareness in Pop

Klaus Walter is a DJ and author on topics related to pop culture, politics, and sports. From 1984 to 2008 he was moderator of the programme ‘Der Ball ist rund’ (The ball is round) of the Hessischen Rundfunk (Hessian Radio) in Frankfurt/Main – voted numerous times the best radio programme in Germany by the readers of the ‘Spex’ and ‘Intro’ magazines. Since 2008 he has worked as moderator and editor for the ByteFM Internet radio (‘Grimme Online Award’ winner in 2009). He has written articles and hosted radio programmes for numerous publications (Rolling Stone, Spex, Die Zeit, Frieze, Süddeutsche Zeitung, TAZ, WOZ, Melodie & Rhythmus, Spiegel Online, Jungle World) and radio channels (DLF, Deutschlandradio Kultur, BR, NDR, WDR, HR). In 2005 he co- authored ‘Plattenspieler’ (Turntable), a book of conversations with Frank Witzel and Thomas Meinecke, which was followed by ‘Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland’ (The German Federal Republic) in 2009. He is also active in giving seminars and lectures – recently at the University of Paderborn and the Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main.

Clemens-Tobias Lange - Artist working in Hamburg and Venice: Beyond the Visible

Clemens-Tobias Lange is born in Berlin 1960, works in Hamburg. He was a student both of Emilio Vedova and Ennio Chiggio and trained in the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Venice. His works are of international significance, and are regularly exhibited in Europe, the United States of America, and Japan. He has received prestigious prizes, the latest being ‘The City of Ludwigsburg Antiquarian Prize for Book Culture’ (2012)TEST.

Collaboration with the artist
Clemens-Tobias Lange

A gift with the first 400 copies: Two original prints by the artist Clemens-Tobias Lange

HISTORY © 2019 THIS CENTURY'S REVIEW