How can multicultural conflicts be solved in a court of law? What kind of reasoning guides judges who are called upon to become anthropologists when culture enters the horizon of law? Based on rulings that have piled up over the last decades, the course will reconstruct the anthropological and constitutional narratives and the technical legal devices worked out by judges to tackle the challenges of multiculturalism: from Islamic veil to circumcision, from honour killings to Roma manghel, from different conceptions of women and family to the world views of native peoples.
I. Rugiu, Il giudice antropologo. Costituzione e tecniche di composizione dei conflitti multiculturali, Milano, Angeli, 2014, pp. 400
Learning Objectives
Understanding
Logical-formal, procedural and political-evaluative aspects of legal reasoning, investigated with a method both theoretical and case-based
Skills
Ability to analyze judgements on controversial legal issues, finding the kinds and species of argument actually used by judges.
Competences
Familiarization with problematic and critical forms of thought with reference to the general aspects of law and legal interpretation. Sensitivity to the pluralistic aspect of settling legal disputes and the prudential and argumentative character of legal thought.
Prerequisites
Students must have passed the exams of Constitutional law (general) and Private Law I and Philosophy of Law
Teaching Methods
Lectures: 30 hours
Seminars: 18 hours
Type of Assessment
For attending students, active participation in the seminar and presentation of a written paper on several judgements.
For non-attending students, discussion of the reference text.
Course program
After theoretical introductory lectures, groups of judgements will be analyzed first by university professors or legal experts in the subject matter, then, during the seminar stage, by groups of students. The topics which will be treated in the seminarial part of the course will be the judicial borowing and the cultural defenses