The last one hundred years have seen a number of events that could be perceived as disruptive challenges to the normal operation of the legal order. Some have been disruptive innovations of technologies or business practices, others social changes or constitutional transformations, further buttressed by the impact of globalisation and interdependence affecting the development of international, transnational and global law. Coincidentally, this period of one hundred years has been bookended by two pandemics, themselves disruptive realities testing the resilience as well as the adaptability of the legal regimes. A hundred years ago, the founding dean of a newly established law faculty beginning its mission amid the ashes of the First World War and the disintegration of the only remaining European empire gave an opening lecture exploring the role of law and judges in the face of revolutionary societal changes. Drawing upon that important text, this edited volume explores similar challenges for law brought about by various disruptive realities. The collection looks at the past as well as the future. Following the text of the opening lecture by Pitamic, the contributions are grouped under five headings, dealing with the law and revolution in 1918, the challenges posed for law by the seemingly more gradual political or technological transformations, the effects of globalisation and the changing world, with the final contributions reassessing the law, its methodologies and traditional paradigms including, in the epilogue, the challenges posed for law the recent disruptive reality of the Covid-19 pandemic. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers and policy-makers working in the areas of legal history, jurisprudence, constitutional law, law and politics, and law and technology.
1. Introduction: Law, Justice and (R)evolution 1920–2020; 2. Law and Revolution; Part I: Law and Revolution Before and After 1918; 3. The Idea of Revolution in 1918; 4. Ivan Žolger, A Forgotten (R)evolutionary in the Constitutional Processes of Two Successive Polities in 1918?; 5. Ius et Vis – Two Understandings of the Origins of Law; 6. Understanding the Law; Part II: Law, Policies and Politics; 7. Criminal Law and Crime Policy in Transition Countries: Between Human Rights and Effective Crime Control; 8. Evolution or Revolution? The Future of Criminal Justice in England and Wales after Brexit; 9. Law, Evolution and Constitutional Courts; 10. Plotting (R)evolution? On Critical EU International Relations Law; 11. The Quiet Revolution of Global Governance Law; Part III: Law and (Dis)continuity; 12. Rechtsdogmatik and Change; 13. Artificial Intelligence – An important Part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR): Challenges and Chances for Europe; 14. Litigating the Innovation Paradox; Part IV: Law and the Changing Social World; 15. (R)evolution of the Social Security Law in a Changing World: From protecting the poor to the workers and finally every member of the society?; 16. Social Security and Democracy; 17. Surrogate Mother, Co-Mother, Biological or Genetic Mother, Legal or Social Mother: Which is the real one?; Part V: Rethinking the law; 18. De Minimis Non Curat Lex? Law and Little Things; 19. Legal Monism and the Challenge of Legal Pluralisms; 20. Shall the Justice of the Whole Earth Not Do Justice? The Revolutionary Copernican Moment in the Relationship of God’s Law, Humanity and Justice; 21. Epilogue: Law and Justice in a Time of the Pandemic
Matej Accetto is President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia and Associate Professor of European Law at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Law. Katja Škrubej is Associate Professor of Legal History at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Law and its former Vice-Dean. Joseph H.H Weiler is University Professor at NYU School of Law and Senior Fellow at the Harvard Center of European Studies.
