NOTICE: International School of Ius Commune (Erice, Sicily: 6-12 October 2011)

The Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture presents the 31st International School of Ius Commune in Erice (Sicily, Italy) from 6-12 October 2011. The Directors of the School are Manlio Bellomo (Catania), Kenneth Pennington (Catholic University of America), and Orazio Condorelli (Catania). The Director of this course is Andrea Romano (Messina). The theme is 'The Formation and Crisis of the Great Systems of Law: The Legacy of the Romano-Canonical Ius commune':

The objective of this course will be to explore the foundations and then the crisis of the European systems of law in the age of the Ius commune (canon, Roman, and feudal law). A further objective will be to measure the rich inheritance that contemporary legal systems have received from these legal systems, even if, in some cases, profoundly changed.

The present legal realty puts the entire concept of “great juridical systems” in crisis. This means that it is necessary to understand the inheritance of the past that had created and elaborated the Ius commune. This world had inumerable conflicting local norms established by the iura propria that had to be balanced and measured against the Ius commune. It is necessary, then, to explore and clarify how present day European and other legal systems evolved from this heady stew.

An elementary aspect of this development was the transformation that took place in the twelfth century. From the sixth to the eleventh centuries, European law can be characterized as an age of Sapientia iuris that was transformed in the twelfth century into an age of Scientia iuris. The twelfth century was an age in which not only law but theology, philosophy, and medicine emerged as independent and autonomous academic fields of knowledge.

From this historical perspective it is useful to consider the potential of the Ius commune to be a unifying instrument that regulated the plethora of distinct institutions (empire, kingdoms, city states, republics, Roman law, canon law, germanic and feudal law, iura propria, custom) into a system of jurisprudence that had one language, common norms, a methodology, a political structure, and a system of values. It was a jurisprudence that strove to render to every person his rights (ius suum cuique tribuere).

The course proposes, furthermore, to expand the horizons of these questions to include legal systems outside continental Europe. A key issue is the difference between systems of “codified law” and systems of “common law”.Both, however, had their roots in the Ius commune.

The great American jurist and historian John Henry Wigmore created a paradigm in 1928 that identified 16 legal systems. Other scholars have found only three. If one includes historical legal systems the number would be much larger. They all, however, have their place in the history of law. And they all must be taken into account to understand the evolution of legal institutions.

The lecturers and topics include:

• Andrea Romano (Università di Messina, I): “Ius Commune”, “Common Law”, “Civil Law”: origini, nessi e crisi dei grandi sistemi giuridici europei. Un’introduzione.
• Manlio Bellomo (Università di Catania, I): Avventure delle categorie giuridiche nelle società dell’Europa continentale.
• Italo Birocchi (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, I): Il diritto comune fra storia e teoria.
• Giovanni Chiodi (Università di Milano “Bicocca”, I): Diritto Comune e Common Law.
• Orazio Condorelli (Università di Catania, I): Consuetudini delle città di Sicilia e restituzione dei “male ablata”: tra “ius proprium” e “utrumque ius”.
• José Manuel De Bernardo Ares (Universidad de Córdoba, E): El derecho comun y el derecho positivo en la formacion del Estado Moderno (siglos XVI-XVIII) (I, II).
• Gigliola Di Renzo Villata (Università di Milano Statale, I): Il diritto comune e la formazione del diritto penale “maturo” (secc. XIV-XVI) (I); Il “favor defensionis” nei “Tractatus varii” di Egidio Bossi ovvero l’eredità del passato e una prospettiva per il futuro (II).
• Antonello Miranda (Università di Palermo, I): Diritto Romano Comune e Common Law: una discussa influenza.
• Emma Montanos Ferrín (Universidad de La Coruña, E): ¿Crisis del sistema del derecho común en la literatura jurídica gallega del siglo XIII? Juan Francisco de Castro y sus “Discursos criticos”.
• Daniela Novarese (Università di Messina, I): Fra sistema di diritto comune e sistema di civil law: alle origini della codificazione del diritto in Europa.
• Andrea Padovani (Università di Bologna, I): La repressione dell’eresia in Italia settentrionale (sec. XIII. Tra “ius proprium” e “ius commune”.
• Kenneth Pennington (Catholic University of America, Washington D.C., USA): The Norms of the Ius commune in Conflict with the Power of the Early Modern State.
• Hans Schlosser (Universität Augsburg, D): Ius commune e apoteosi positivistica della legge - sec. XIX.
• Manuel Torres Aguilar (Universidad de Córdoba, E): Paz y conflictos en el Mediterraneo: derecho, politica y cultura.
• José Luis Villacanas (Universidad Complutense, Madrid, E): Alfonso X y su vinculation con el ius commune (I); Carlos V y el derecho romano-imperial (II).

The School is sponsored by: The Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research – Sicilian Regional Government – Catholic University of America, Washington D.C. – University of Catania – University of Messina – Universidad de Córdoba (Spain), UNESCO Chair in Conflict Resolution – Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Imola

For information and applications please write to:

Prof. Orazio Condorelli
Università di Catania
Facoltà di Giurisprudenza
via Gallo 24
I-95124 Catania
tel. 0039-095-230417
ocondorelli@lex.unict.it