Course 2025-2026 a.y.

Classes: 28 (I sem.)

Instructors:
Class 28: DAMIANO CANALE

The expression “General Jurisprudence” usually refers to theoretical study of law, which tries to answer questions such as “What is law?”, “What distinguishes law from other social phenomena?”, “How is it the case that laws provide guidance to human behavior?”, etc. Traditionally, such questions have been approached through the lens of state law as it has developed in Western legal systems. However, this perspective increasingly fails to account for today’s legal realities. Although state law is still central to our lives, its regulatory function is intertwined with that of supra-national and international legal sources. At the same time, the forms of legal regulation and planning appear highly diversified and cannot be reduced to traditional, black letter law. Not to mention that different legal traditions tend to provide different answers to the question “What is law?”, to the point of casting doubt on the very idea that legality can be reduced to a set of universal features common to all polities that ever existed and will exist in the future. The course aims to reconstruct these different constellations of problems in order to provide students with a critical understanding of contemporary law, legal systems, and the forms of legality characterizing them. In addition, students will be introduced to the philosophical foundations of human rights, considered in light of the broader theoretical questions posed by general jurisprudence.

At the end of the course student will be able to...

At the end of the course student will be able to...

• Lectures
• Collaborative Works / Assignments

	Continuous assessment	Partial exams	General exam
Oral individual exam			x
Collaborative Works / Assignment (report, exercise, presentation, project work etc.)	x

a) Final oral exam 

    Weight toward the final grade: 40% 

• A maximum of 2 bonus points may be awarded based on the evaluation the group assignment.

• After the mid-term exam, attending students may choose to take a final written exam covering the entire course program instead of the oral exam. The written final exam will consist of five open-ended questions (up to approx. 400 words per answer) and will account for 100% of the final grade. 

 

b) Mid-term written exam  (3 open-ended questions, up to approx. 400 words per answer) 

   Weight toward the final grade: 60%

 

a) Final written exam (5 open-ended questions, up to about 400 words per answer) on the program for non-attending students 

   Weight toward the final grade: 100% 

 

Notes: 1) Written exams are not open book. The use of LLMs is permitted for preparing and presenting group assignments, but not during exams. 2) Attending students are requested to attend at least 75% of the lectures. 3) As for the group assignment, attending students will be randomly divided into groups, and each group will be asked to analyse and discuss in class a case related to the course content. Group assignments will be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria: a) quality of the presentation; b) depth and rigor of the case analysis; c) demonstration of critical thinking.

General Part:

 

Lecture notes and course reader uploaded on the Balckboard Platform.

 

Special Part:

 

Nickel, James. Making Sense of Human Rights, 2nd ed., Blackwell Publishing, 2007, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12.

Bix, Brian. 2023. Jurisprudence: Theory and Context, 9th ed. Sweet & Maxwell. Chapters 1-9.

 

Tamanaha, Brian. 2021. Understanding Legal Pluralism, Oxford University Press. Pages 1-18, 55-96, 129-168.

 

Nickel, James. 2007. Making Sense of Human Rights, 2nd ed. Blackwell Publishing. Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12.