Athena – Critical Inquiries in Law, Philosophy and Globalization: Announcements
Athena – Critical Inquiries in Law, Philosophy and Globalization / ISSN 2724-6299 (Online) is a diamond open-access and double blind peer-review scholarly journal that sets out to analyse the problems relating to the legal, political, and social changes attendant on globalization and global issues, proposing to provide these problems with theoretical answers. It is owned by the Alma Mater Research Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (Alma Human AI) and published by Alma Diamond, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna.
Forthcoming "Decolonising Legal Studies: An Interdisciplinary Perspective" (vol. 7, 2027, no. 1)
Athena was created with the aim of exploring issues and challenges posed by globalisation, including the intensification of the meeting of cultures and traditions. This process inevitably questions the presumed centrality of Western knowledge and calls for an understanding of the ways in which Western traditions connect with and relate to the ones that have been systematically marginalised. Ultimately, this perspective stresses the importance of engaging with other approaches and cultures without claiming a position of superiority. This is precisely why it seems appropriate to dedicate an Issue to the decolonisation of legal studies, with the objective of exposing the epistemic assumptions that are inherent to legal production. Indeed, the issue of decolonising legal studies is foremost an epistemic one. The Issue, therefore, intends to reflect upon the Eurocentric nature of modern legal studies, in line with a strand of literature that has developed over the past decades. Indeed, decolonial legal studies have been gradually expanding across several fields of law, including international law, philosophy of law, law and religion, law and gender, constitutional law, and comparative law. The purpose of this new scholarly movement is to address the role of colonialism and supremacy of the Global North in legal production and legal scholarship, ultimately rejecting the colonial construction of categories such as national, racial, ethnic, religious, and gender classifications, and trying to imagine an alternative to traditional categories upon which modern legal systems and studies rest, including the nation-state. The interdisciplinary and multicultural approach that will characterise the Issue will bring together scholars not only across different fields, including the ones mentioned above, but also across different geographical areas. In this way, we hope to shed light on two different yet related aspects: (i) the epistemic connection between the process of understanding things and their normativity. The underlying premise is that how we understand and interpret things directly conditions the way we think about them normatively; (ii) the contribution that marginalised traditions can give to legal thinking and legal institutional design. This is necessary to understand the interrelation between local and global designs, i.e., how local legal thought and institutions can reshape national and international legal imaginaries and arrangements. Overall, it appears to be a particularly relevant issue at a time when traditional Western legal categories are under increasing pressure. Indeed, the decolonisation of legal studies can help us understand how norms are made, both at the local and global levels, and reflect on whether norms can be understood as both embedded in their own local culture, as well as a valuable legal model to address global, social, and ecological crises.
Athena – Critical Inquiries in Law, Philosophy and Globalization
Athena Webinar Series "Board of Peace: Might Makes Right, Again? – Inquiries on the Current Shaping of Global Governance"
On 17 November 2025, the UN Security Council adopted Res. 2801, which represents a point of no return in the “governance of peace”. On the one hand, the Resolution stands out for its procedural content, as it does not refer to the UN Charter or to previous Security Council resolutions on the Palestinian issue, as is customary practice, but instead cites the “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict” of 25 September 2025 and “the Historic Trump Declaration for Lasting Peace and Prosperity” of 13 October 2025, as well as the constructive role played by the USA, Qatar, Egypt and Türkiye in facilitating the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, the Resolution sets out the process for establishing the “Board of Peace” (BoP): an entity endowed with international legal personality for the reconstruction of Gaza in accordance with the aforementioned “Comprehensive Plan”. As Trump declared during the BoP’s first meeting, “this Board has the chance to be one of the most consequential bodies ever created in the history of the world”. While the impact of this body has not entirely manifested itself yet, it has already raised significant questions about the extent of its relevance in global governance and the strategies for peace-making. Indeed, the creation of this new entity represents a watershed with respect to the international legal order established after the Second World War and raises important new questions that we must attempt to address. The aim of this Webinar Series launched by Athena is, therefore, to bring certain issues to the foyer and examine them with experts. The common thread that will run through these meetings will be the role of law and politics in power dynamics. The main issues that will be explored include: • The legal personality of the BoP, the ways in which internal rules are established (starting with those that define conditions for admission and exclusion) and the decision-making processes therein; • The role of the UN and its interaction with the BoP. • The dichotomy between “war” and “peace” as emerging from different perspectives, inside and outside the BoP; • The BoP as a result of the rupture within the international order based on multilateralism; • The role of the EU in a post-multilateral scenario. Schedule of Webinars: Webinar 1 – What is the Board of Peace? Issues Surrounding Its Legality and Nature Date: 5 June 2026, 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm CET • Greetings and Introduction to the Webinar Series Project: Micol Pignataro – University of Bologna, Department of Legal Studies; Athena’s Journal Manager • Chair: Aytekin Kaan Kurtul – University of Huddersfield, School of Law; Athena’s Journal Manager • Speakers: Evelyn Anoya – Former Senior Legal Advisor and Director of Judicial Services at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Andrea Knapp – University of Potsdam, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences Link Webinar 2 – What ‘Peace’ in the Board of Peace? Date: 12 June 2026, 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm CET • Chair: Martino Tognocchi – University of Pavia, Department of Political and Social Sciences; Athena’s Journal Manager • Speakers: Murad Idris – University of Michigan, LSA Political Science Basem Kharma – University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Department of Linguistic and Cultural Studies • Scheduled Intervention: Iryna Zhyrun – National Research University – Higher School of Economics Link Webinar 3 – Insight into the Board of Peace from an International and EU Law Perspective Date: 24 June 2026, 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm CET • Chair: Luigi Sammartino – Athena’s Journal Manager • Speakers: Joris Larik – Leiden University, Leiden University College The Hague and Europa Institute Gian Maria Farnelli – University of Bologna, Department of Legal Studies Mauro Gatti – University of Bologna, Department of Legal Studies Susanna Villani – University of Bologna, Department of Legal Studies Link Scientific Committee: Aytekin Kaan Kurtul, Micol Pignataro, Luigi Sammartino, Martino Tognocchi.
CfP vol. 6 (2026), no. 2 "The transformations of globalization: power, geopolitics and law"
The election of the 47th president of the United States triggered not only a change within the global order as we know it, but also laid the foundations for the creation of a new one. The exit of the United States from the WHO, the sanctions against the International Criminal Court, the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change, the decision of the American president to terminate the agreement reached by the OECD in 2021 on the global taxation of multinationals, the recent legislative proposals to protect the US enterprises from any application of due diligence regulations, the end of the U.S. Foreign Aid Agency system: all these indicate a clear orientation that expresses a growing conflict between power and law. The effects of this new American policy reverberate in several directions: against the supranational legal order that had been created after the Second World War; towards the revision of the traditional system of US alliances; towards the overcoming of the principles of liberal democracy; towards the decline of the West and the emergence of the power of the Global South; towards the international protection of human rights. Hence, a question arises: what has the West become, or what is becoming? Aims and Scope of the Call for Papers: This call for papers aims to investigate the transformation that globalization and the global order are facing from different perspectives. We aim to answer (although not exclusively) the following questions: Geopolitical scenarios and the transformation of the global legal order: what interaction? The role of international and regional institutions in directing this transformation; The transformation of global politics in the light of the exercise of unilateral powers; The impact of power on the global and regional economies; The role of civil society in the transformation of global politics; Law, geopolitics and new technologies: how do these tools influence global transformation? Power, geopolitics and protection of fundamental rights, especially in the field of business and human rights. Information for authors: The call is open to all scholars who want to contribute, coming from political, legal, historical, philosophical, international, anthropological, social and economic disciplines. Interested authors can send a 700-word abstract on a topic related to the call for papers by 28 February 2026, by writing to athena@unibo.it (and in cc gustavo.gozzi@unibo.it and luigi.sammartino2@unibo.it). Selected proposals will be communicated by 7 March 2026. Final papers must be submitted to the Review by using this link no later than 30 June 2026. The final issue will be published in November-December 2026. For any other information, please contact the Journal Manager, Luigi Sammartino (luigi.sammartino2@unibo.it).
The Editorial Board is pleased to announce that submissions are now open for our Miscellanea and Book Reviews sections for evaluation and publication in the upcoming issue (vol. 6, 2025, no. 1). Contribution Types: Miscellanea: 9,000-15,000 words (footnotes and references included) Book Reviews: 5,000-10,000 words Scope: Contributions must address topics related to globalization or global issues and concerns, in alignment with our journal's focus. Submission Deadline: February 28, 2026 How to Submit: Manuscripts should be submitted through OJS platform in accordance with the Submission Rules. We welcome scholarly analysis on the said topics from any perspective and methodological approach within the fields of Philosophy, History, Law, Political Science, and International Relations. For more information or assistance, please contact the Editorial Office.
Webinar "Globalization and Multidisciplinary Approaches to Research: Some Critical and Perspectival Issues"
When: 24 October 2025, h 4-6 PM CET. Online, via Teams (link to the event and registration: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/716dc7f6-8254-4c89-a861-68b1c743982b@e99647dc-1b08-454a-bf8c-699181b389ab). By registering to the event, you can also find the abstracts of presentations. Programme H 4-4:15 - Introductory Greetings: Gustavo Gozzi (Editor-in-Chief, Athena) and Luigi Sammartino (Journal Manager, Athena) H 4:15-5:30 – Session; Chair: Luigi Sammartino Sanne Taekema (Professor of Legal Theory, Erasmus University of Rotterdam) and Wibren van der Burg (Professor of Legal Philosophy, Erasmus University of Rotterdam) Methodologies of law-in-context research in a pluralist world Maria Wallenberg Bondesson (Affiliated Researcher, Institute for Futures Studies and Centre for Cultural Evolution at Stockholm University) Globalization and multidisciplinary approaches in the Humanities. Multidisciplinary and quantitative comparative methods in Swedish History and Legal History Christine Frison (Associate Research Professor in International Environmental Law and Director of the EcoLAWgy research centre, University of Liège) and Svetlana Gencheva (Associate Researcher at EcoLAWgy research centre, University of Liège) Ornamentation as a sequential art system to decolonize International Biodiversity Law H 5:30-6: Q&A session For participating, please send an email to luigi.sammartino2@unibo.it Scientific Organization: Gustavo Gozzi and Luigi Sammartino.
Forthcoming "Fictional Minds. The Law’s Misrepresentation of Human Thought" (vol. 5, 2025, no. 2)
The theory and practice of law often rest on problematic assumptions about the functioning of the human mind. For example, law traditionally presupposes that its addressees are rational and strategic agents, that they are motivated by rewards and sanctions, that, regardless of their IQ or cultural level, they are able to predict the legal consequences of their actions, and that they are always prone to perform these actions on the basis of cost-benefit calculations. In recent years, an important strand of legal philosophy has started to challenge these assumptions, relying on neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Legal provisions and doctrines usually presuppose folk-psychology, a very natural and commonsense way to think about thinking, one based on concepts such as intention, consent, will and belief, but which has turned out to often clash with the empirical findings. Empirical research consistently reveals that decision-making is not fully conscious, but also substantially intuitive and emotional, and constantly guided by heuristics and biases. Stressing this clash, some scholars for example have questioned the very foundations of democracy, arguing that it rests on an overly idealized view of political agency, one that assumes citizens are rational, self-interested, and well-informed. Others have challenged the traditional concept of criminal responsibility, which is still often conceived as demanding some version of free will, a notion that is difficult to reconcile with the deterministic image of nature described by the empirical sciences. Despite all these challenges, the law has shown remarkable resistance to revision, often persisting in its traditional assumptions as if they were in principle immune to empirical criticism. Fictional Minds is a monographic section of Athena, vol. 5 (2025), no. 2, co-edited by Michele Ubertone and Giuseppe Rocchè. It brings together a range of contributions aimed at exploring the consequences, positive and negative, of the law’s tendency to rely a fictional rather than real minds. Can assumptions about the rationality of legal agents still be defended as transcendental categories or regulative ideals? Some legal assumptions may prove defensible, not because they are empirically accurate, but because they serve some important social functions.
The Editorial Board is pleased to announce that submissions are now open for our Miscellanea and Book Reviews sections for evaluation and publication in the upcoming issue (vol. 5 (2025), no. 2). Contribution Types: Miscellanea: 9,000-15,000 words (footnotes and references included) Book Reviews: 5,000-10,000 words Scope: Contributions must address topics related to globalization or global issues and concerns, in alignment with our journal's focus. Submission Deadline: July 31st, 2025 How to Submit: Manuscripts should be submitted through OJS platform in accordance with the Submission Rules. We welcome scholarly analysis from any perspective and methodological approach within the fields of Philosophy, History, Law, Political Science, and International Relations. More information or assistance may be requested to the Editorial Office.
Despite being a relatively recent addition to the Cambridge English Dictionary, the definition of the term “lawfare” has been hotly debated in academic circles, particularly in the fields of international law, international relations and military theory. The most widely cited definition in this respect was arguably provided by retired US Major General Charles J. Dunlap Jr., who described lawfare as “the strategy of using—or misusing—law as a substitute for traditional military means to achieve a warfighting objective”. In spite of Dunlap’s intent to formulate a “neutral” concept within the frameworks of public international law, international politics and operational theory, this understanding of “law as a weapon” has given way to broader interpretations of the term “lawfare” which have been used in other legal contexts (such as human rights law) as well as other disciplines (such as geopolitics). Even though Dunlap’s definition of “lawfare” can be deemed appropriate in contemporary contexts such as Ukraine’s claims against Russia before the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, or Palestine’s claims against Israel before the International Court of Justice and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, there have also been contexts in which law has served as a complement to traditional military means rather than a substitute thereof. Notable examples in that respect have arisen from post-conflict disputes over the narrative of the conflict, especially among those sovereign states that emerged from a single, multinational sovereign state: e.g., Azerbaijan and Armenia; Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina; also, if one is to observe more historical (and unitary) contexts, Turkey and Greece. In light of the foregoing, international crimes have been central to claims and counterclaims in the context of “lawfare” in addition to laying the groundwork for the formulation of denialism-related offences: the latter of which have also played a crucial role in the “war of narratives”. Such a predicament has led to a common misperception of international crimes as a “narrative weapon” meant to assert the moral superiority of one side over another, rather than a legal construct meant to protect humankind from the most despicable horrors conceived in history. This imbroglio of conflicting definitions and perspectives is further exacerbated by the continuous attempts to use the term “lawfare” as an accusation against any legal action taken against a given state or by a given state. Moreover, as opined by ICJ judges Kirill Gevorgian and Xue Hanqin, the use of international instruments on international crimes for the purpose of achieving a judicial decision on the legality of the use of force can potentially lead to a misinterpretation and misimplementation of international law. Thus, we are faced with yet another challenge to the integrity of international law as the foundation of a rules-based international order. In view of the preceding, vol. 5 (2025), no. 1 of Athena – Critical Inquiries in Law, Philosophy and Globalization will welcome the application of diverse research methods pertaining to the disciplines mentioned above. By way of illustration, contributors from the field of law may adopt doctrinal, comparative, theoretical, historical, and critical approaches as they see fit; contributors from the various fields of political sciences may use, inter alia, discourse analysis, historical analysis, and qualitative (geopolitical) content analysis; whereas scholars of military theory may utilise (among other things) strategic theory development and just war theory evaluation. Please note that we especially encourage submissions that adopt an interdisciplinary approach; therefore, the aforementioned research methods are by no means exhaustive or mutually exclusive. The full Call for Papers can be found at this link. Preliminary information and scheduled deadlines: Papers can have either the form of an article (between 9000 and 15000 words) or a book review (between 3000 and 5000 words) and they must comply with the Formatting Rules. Papers must be submitted anonymously at the following link: https://athena.unibo.it/about/submissions. Please add in a separate file the author’s name, institutional affiliation, email address, ORCiD number (if available), a 200-word abstract and 5 keywords; Mandatory deadline for paper submission: 28 February 2025; First evaluation and notification by Editors: 7 March 2025; Mandatory final submission after peer review: 10 May 2025 If you have any queries, please send an email to Dr Aytekin Kaan Kurtul (a.kurtul@hud.ac.uk) or to Athena Editorial Office (athena@unibo.it).
Feminisms and globalization. Critical perspectives Orsetta Giolo and Annalisa Verza (Eds) As a result of neoliberal globalisation processes, massive changes have taken place that have directly affected the condition - legal, political, social, economic - of women. In this focus we intend to examine these transformations according to the proposals so far put forward by feminist critical theory, with particular reference to the debates that have been developed in different geographical and cultural contexts. Particular attention will be paid to the following themes: - Decolonial feminism - Feminism and neoliberalism - Black feminism and racialisation - Feminism and immigration - Feminism and climate change - Feminism and extractivism - Feminism and legal and political cosmopolitanism - Feminism and pacifism - Feminism and labour and sexual exploitation Abstracts (maximum 1000 characters) should be sent to orsetta.giolo@unife.it and annalisa.verza@unibo.it and, in c.c., to athena@unibo.it, by 30 May 2024. Selected papers must be submitted by 15 September 2024.
Seminar "Israele e Palestina: cosa resta del diritto?"
Athena - Critical Inquiries in Law, Philosophy and Globalization is proud to announce the first collaboration with the authoritative academic journal Jura Gentium, for promoting this interesting and timely seminar on the situation in Palestine. The seminar will be held online on 20 November 2023, h 05:30 pm, at the link https://meet.google.com/rno-beky-ugi. The seminar will be introducted by prof. Orsetta Giolo (University of Ferrara), co-director of the Review, and concluded by prof. Baldassare Pastore (University of Ferrara), member of the Scientific Committee. Hope anyone could enjoy it!
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS - VOL. 3 (2023), N. 2 (expired)
New order or world disorder? The current international situation raises many questions about the future and the forms of globalisation, conceived as a regime involving a global spatial fix of capital as a reaction against the crisis of accumulation of the Fordist regime and labour struggles in the core States of the capitalist system. After the fall of the Berlin wall, a unipolar world dominated by American hegemony emerged, and the process of globalisation was defined by the creation of a global market surrounded by capitalism without barriers. However, despite the exportation of capital in the global south, the delocalisation of production and the integration of China into the World-system, the above-mentioned crisis was not resolved: indeed, this process did not prevent, in the long run, the crisis of American hegemony and the emergence of other powers. In this scenario, three criticalities have shaped new forms of globalisation, which have accelerated the ongoing process and exacerbated the divergences in the multi-polar world. First, the recent pandemic has accentuated the North-South differences and inequalities between countries that are able to cope with the infections and those that lack the resources to cope with the spread of the pandemic. Second, climatic crises are marked by a conflict that is currently not overcome between "developed" and "underdeveloped" countries, where the latter claim the right to reach the level of development of the former, while not limiting energy consumption corresponding to the level of development they aspire to achieve. Third, the supply chain disruptions (which had already an impact on global growth and inflation) are further aggravated by the war of aggression against Ukraine by the Russian Confederation, which interacts with the previous criticalities. This war is not just the invasion of a sovereign country by another that claims "imperial" expansion. The causes of this war are complex and may be seen in many ways. In this respect, it can be interpreted not only as aggression by Russia, but also as a war between Russia and NATO (via Ukraine as a proxy) and, third, as a “war” of the US against the EU economic system, centred on Germany. As a consequence, analysts have been focusing on the different and numerous causes that have led to this war. The debate first centred on the "historical reasons" at the origin of the invasion, focusing on the founding moment of "Russian civilisation", identified in the conversion to the Orthodox faith of Kievan Rus' in 988. The debate can be extended to two other major issues: a) the (presumed) threat to Russia's security represented by NATO's territorial extension and b) the Kremlin's violations of international law. A Eurocentric perspective has proposed to read the ongoing conflict as a "clash of civilisations". In fact, the opposition occurs, on the one side, between the "collective West" – so-called in the manuals compiled by the Kremlin for state and political media – represented by the coalition of Western liberal democracies, NATO and the European Union (the alliances with other autocracies is always disregarded in this stream of interpretation), and, on the other side, an empire that claims its role as a great power rejecting and challenging Western hegemony in the name of the values ​​of traditions, of a patriarchal vision of society and of imperial "great spaces” conception. The Russian empire proclaims a decline and a sunset of the West, claims a multipolar world and denounces past (such as colonialism) and present crimes (such as the Gulf wars and neo-colonialism) of the Western world. Another way to read the conflict is through the world-system theory, placing the current escalation in the longue durée and integrating it with the analyses of the different actors at the global and regional levels. In this respect, the rivalry between the US and China and the war which the US is waging through sanctions (many mainstream commentators analyse the current general and all-encompassing ban on the sales of semiconductors as an act of war), in order to strive to keep hegemony and to forbid a multipolar world to emerge, is of course fundamental. Through these lenses, the economic dimension is fundamental and leads to considering the crisis of overaccumulation and the crisis of profitability, further monopolisation, and skyrocketing inequality. Thus, the focus of this war has already gone beyond the reality of the invasion of Ukraine. It is instead the “fatal clash" between the Western world centred on the USA and a multipolar world. It is a conflict in which all the limits of the United Nations are emerging, and the position of the European Union is being redefined. There are many questions that arise in this scenario: - Is there a “sunset” in the West and what is its significance? - What are the transformations of globalisation? - What will be the shape of the further deglobalisation that is yet to come? - What are the features of the new world order? - Or can we only hypothesise a global “disorder”? - What were the violations of international law caused by Russia's war against Ukraine? - What are the implications for international governance and international organisations? - What is the significance of NATO expansion: self-defence of Western powers or a threat to the security of other powers? - The limits of the United Nations: are they unreformable? - What is the role of the European Union and what are its limits? - What is China's position in the new global scenario? - What might be the further development of global capitalism, even in relation to the debate on techno-feudalism? - Is the current conflict a way of addressing the long-lasting crisis of overaccumulation? - How is a disentanglement between the interests of geopolitical actors and global capital possible? All the topics can be addressed with a multidisciplinary approach and from different disciplinary perspectives: e.g., political science, philosophy of law, ethics, political philosophy, international law, public law, political economy, human rights law, and gender studies. Abstracts of no more than 500 words must be sent by 16 December 2022 (11.59 GMT +1) via e-mail to athena@unibo.it (and in cc luigi.sammartino2@unibo.it and francesco.cavinato2@unibo.it). Successful authors will be notified by 28 December 2022. Papers must be submitted by 31st May 2023. The expected publication of the issue is set for October 2023. Please consider that you may also submit pieces of research that are not strictly related to the Call for Papers' topic, although they must strictly adhere to the Journal's themes and purposes (see our manifesto on the website’s homepage, https://athena.unibo.it).
The Editorial Board sincerely thanks all Authors who submitted their Abstracts for the Volume on "Disagreement, Free Speech, and Cancel Culture". Each abstract will be evaluated in order to be considered eligible for the Volume. The Editorial Office will notify acceptance to authors by May 15th ,2022; the whole manuscripts shall be submitted to the Editorial Office by October 15th, 2022 for the double-blind peer review process. The Volume will be published in 2023.
The editors of Athena. Critical Inquiries in Law, Philosophy and Globalization invite submissions for the forthcoming issue on the topic of Disagreement, Free Speech, and Cancel Culture. Manuscripts from researchers of all disciplinary areas whose work addresses the political, philosophical and legal aspects arising from this topic will be welcome. Description Some believe that the increasing centrality of social justice and inclusion issues in public debate in liberal democracies is not matched by increasing freedom to actually discuss these issues. On 7 July 2020, for instance, 150 intellectuals and academics – e.g. Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker and Francis Fukuyama – signed an open letter denouncing the climate of dogmatic censorship and intolerance that has affected the public arena in recent years. The signatories of the appeal complain about ostracism exercised by those cultural and political circles from which one would expect a greater openness to diversity, i.e., left-wing circles or more generally of liberal persuasion. One of the central points raised by the petitioners is that the opinions that would fall under this censorship would not be those that are actually subversive, but rather those that counter the prevailing cultural and social thought. Although there is no explicit reference in the text of the letter, the set of practices characterized by this censorious attitude are often grouped in the mainstream debate under the notion of ‘cancel culture’: “[…] collective strategies by activists using social pressures to achieve cultural ostracism of targets (someone or something) accused of offensive words or deeds”. Typically, topics of interest include identity, inequality, fairness, and discrimination, emphasising gender, ethnicity, or social class issues. The expression 'cancel culture' became popular also thanks to social justice movements such as BlackLivesMatter and MeToo; and it is often associated with a certain kind of political rhetoric that has been often called 'wokeness' over the years. Both 'wokeness' and ‘cancellation’ are linked to collectivised demands for greater responsibility on the part of social systems that have long failed marginalised people and communities. In this context, practices of censorship, often carried out thanks to social media, are not so new: “Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.” These are certainly not legal sanctions, but rather forms of social pressure, which very often turn into shaming or boycotts aimed at repressing, more or less indirectly, behaviour considered offensive. The appeal by the 150 American intellectuals is probably the strongest stance taken so far in the debate on cancel culture and reveals the annoyance that a certain milieu feels towards cultural and political attitudes viewed as excessively moralistic or overprotective of the sensibilities of certain social groups. These attitudes would hinder dialogue and, ultimately, freedom of speech. Hence, critics of cancel culture call for an environment conducive to substantive debate between competing positions, even at the risk of wounding the sensitivities of groups or individuals. As much as this seems like the classic topic of freedom of speech and its boundaries, it brings new aspects that require further investigation into the debate. We think addressing these new profiles from a multidisciplinary perspective would be beneficial. Questions that this issue aims to address include, but are not limited to, the following: What are the historical roots of cancel culture and which socio-political variables is it influenced by? Is cancel culture an actual phenomenon or is there an instrumental use of this notion? Is cancel culture a kind of censorship or is it instead a legitimate form of public critique? Are practices of cancel culture fair and effective tools for curbing offensive behaviour? Can historical research denouncing the horrors of the past, e.g. colonialism, become a dogmatic barrier to freedom of expression? Cancel culture, justice and the rule of law Is cancel culture consistent with liberalism and free speech? What influence does the variation of the concepts of liberal and illiberal in different constitutional and cultural contexts have on the perception of cancel culture? Is cancel culture a form of populism? Free speech on social networks: e.g., what role does the monopoly of social media platforms play? What are the limits of freedom of speech in pluralist societies? Are they effectively identified by cancel culture? What role should sensitivity play in the public debate for certain social groups? If any, are there repercussions on the law given by cancel culture, e.g., on criminal justice? Cancel culture, research and academia Deadlines and selection process Abstracts should not exceed 500 words in length and shall be submitted by April 30th, 2022 to the Editorial Office: athena@unibo.it (please insert luigi.sammartino2@unibo.it and francesco.cavinato2@unibo.it in cc). Abstracts will first be evaluated by the Editorial Board who will notify acceptance to authors by May 15th ,2022; the whole manuscripts shall be submitted to the Editorial Office by October 15th, 2022 for the double-blind peer review process. Each paper should not be longer than 15000 words and 90000 characters and it shall be complied with the Authors Guidelines . Selected papers will be published in Volume 3 (expected 2023). For any inquiries, please contact the Editorial Office at athena@unibo.it.
RELEVANT INFORMATION AND DATES Abstracts should not exceed 500 words in length and must be submitted by 31 May 2021 to: athena@unibo.it. (please insert luigi.sammartino2@unibo.it and francesco.cavinato2@unibo.it in cc). Abstracts will first be evaluated by the editorial board who will notify acceptance by 15 June 2021. The full paper must then be submitted by 31 October 2021 for double-blind review; the confirmation of final acceptance will be provided by 31 December 2021. The paper should not be longer than 15000 words and 90000 characters. The complete submission guide can be found under the “Author Guidelines” on the journal's website. For inquiries please contact: athena@unibo.it. TOPIC: GLOBAL JUSTICE: THE CURRENT SITUATION AND THE NEW CHALLENGES This topic refers to the different interpretations of the problem of justice in the international frame, that can be addressed through a plurality of approaches: from the concept of global justice – quite different from that of international justice – and conceived as a global (distributive) justice according to distinction among relationism, non-relationism, pluralist internationalism (M. Risse), to the relationship between international justice and law of peoples (J. Rawls), to the concept of “cognitive justice” of Sousa Santos, to that of justice according to TWAIL (Third World Approaches to International Law), to the interpretation of justice in the frame of a transcivilizational international law (Onuma Yasuaki), or according to the perspective of “capabilities” (A. Sen) etc. The scientific interest in Global Justice includes, but is not limited to, the following topics: - Theories of Global Justice; - Democracy, Sovereignty and Global Institutions - Human Rights and Common Goods - Inequality and Poverty - Migrations, National Borders and Citizenship - Climate Change, Global Environment and Sustainability - Strategies for dealing with Global Crisis - Global Health and Pandemic Challenges - Multicultural and Gender issues - Development, Trade and Economic Growth - War, Peace and International Relations A particular attention is to be paid to the question of Climate Change that is currently at the centre of multiple, and multidisciplinary, studies and research projects. Predominantly interpreted as a technical-scientific problem, and thus as a question of efficient management, containment and control of “nature,” the question of Climate Change should also be seen as an opportunity to call into question the socio-economic, political and (geo)political causes of environmental problems, and namely of our predatory approach to nature, and to relaunch the discussion on Global Justice by addressing in particular its intergenerational and ecological declinations, as well as the ways in which this debate has translated into the adoption of new constitutional norms (e.g. in Ecuador, Bolivia and many other countries) or policies and in the search for “alternative sustainabilities.” All the topics can be addressed with a multidisciplinary approach and from different disciplinary perspectives: e.g. political science, philosophy of law, ethics, political philosophy, international law, political economy, human rights law and gender studies. Please, consider that you may also submit pieces of research not strictly related to the Call for Papers' topic although they have to deal with the Journal's themes.
Editorial Proposal – “Sovereignty, International Law and Global Constitutionalism”
Within the framework of a controversial and reciprocal process of constitutionalization of international legal order and internationalization of constitutional law,1 one can easily see that two opposed phenomena are in progress: the erosion of sovereignty and the rising of different forms of nationalism. Since long time and namely with reference to the international field, sovereignty has irretrievably developed from an exclusive monopoly of the State to a broadly shared practice, exercised by a plurality of actors in different places, not only at national but also at sub-national and trans-national level. If State is now considered as a “Global State”,2 it has even ceased to be conceptualized and represented as the entitled subject of the sovereignty (here referred as the power of the State to enact law and exercise security and protection on its own territory), but has been developed into a valuable and “measurable” entity in relation to its own capacity and resources (as for the case of the economic development) and also in relation to risks it can produce and for which an immunization must be done.3 Aside of the different attempts to give again to sovereignty a central role in International legal order (for example, the rising of different forms of nationalism), two particular aspects are highlighted in this reconceptualization of sovereignty: the humanitarian turn of the International Community and the rising and legitimacy of new actors in the International legal order. As the result of a long, dramatic and discussed journey, international politics have now reached the humanitarian turn, which has reconceptualised sovereignty as a form of responsibility for the State, and has turned into the broadly accepted concept of “Responsibility to Protect”, posing also problems with the notion of “humanitarian intervention”. Indeed, this new concept allows to keep together the ambiguous dilemmas and effects stressing the exercise of the global governance; at the same time, a necessary containment of the sovereignty is derived and accepted. The complexity and plenty of sources, by which the ideological, moral and doctrinal architecture is fed and which lays under the humanitarian declination of international politics, are enough for underlining the plurality of upcoming questions in the constant configuration of the ideal space, which is so far come up beside, confused and fronted by the realist space of international politics. From the reflections on moral and legal fundaments of Spanish Conquista of the Americas at the beginning of XVIth century, passing through the reasons of antislavery movement in XVIIth and XVIIIth century, the philanthropic colonial projects of XIXth century and the dramatically known crisis of XXth and XXIst century having a humanitarian (as for the cases of Biafra, Pakistan, Cambodia, Ethiopia and Rwanda) and political character (as for the cases of Kuwait, Kosovo, the Arab Springs and Lybia), the new geometry of the relations among International law, sovereignty and human rights is qualifying the humanitarian space, even relying on the crucial and narrative contribution of a plurality of actors of global civil society.4 Indeed, in this context rules and language of human rights, although weakened by several failures and well-known shortcomings, find again a renovate moral and political worth for becoming the fundament of legitimacy on the basis of which traditional international principles on the use of force are dutifully reconceived, and on which the sovereignty of States is now measured again, controlled, “invaded” and contained.5 Aside of this form of erosion of sovereignty, International legal order is assisting to the advancement of other actors, namely non-state actors and indigenous people. As with respect of non-state actors, they are increasingly involved into international decision-making processes, since they are considered as bearers of different public interests to be taken into account and developed into rules by international institutions.6 Although this participation is highly considered at the international level as a new form of “supranational” or “shareholder democracy”,7 non-state actors are only formally accepted, but substantially are taken out of the deciding phase. Together with non-state actors, indigenous people had been recently considered as new legitimate subjects and had been granted with legitimacy to participate in the discussing phase of international decision-making processes (see UNGA res. 71/231). The mere fact to be considered as a minority both at national and international level has step forward to consideration of legitimacy outside the principle of self-determination, which can be only granted to people subject to colonial, foreign or racial domination. As for non-state actors, this subject is still in search for a full legitimacy in international processes. These new actors are putting the traditional decision-making processes into crisis, and new forms of institutional dialogue are on study. As an example, one can cite the legal and political process of creating a Global Parliament, as advanced by the European Union. As a matter of discussion, the two sides of erosion of sovereignty (the humanitarian turn and the advancement of new actors) are putting the international legal order under new lights, i.e. those of the modern thought of Global Constitutionalism. On one side, the traditional pillar of sovereignty is facing a new conceptualization of its limits, both on legal and political sides, and is leaving room to the progressive construction of a Global Community supported by fundamental values, considered as the pillars of a new form of Rule of Law. On the other side, there is an increasing demand for a new conceptualization of international politics, involving both more consideration of the principle of human dignity8 and more participation in decision-making processes, for the purposes of commonly constitutionalize the International Community. These points can be considered the starting ones for discussing on this process of constitutionalization of International law. Moreover, there are different questions to be solved (despite more others can be posed): Is the erosion of sovereignty still conceivable in times of incumbent nationalisms? What kind of global patterns are going in the direction of putting fundaments for a Global constitutionalism? What institutions must be involved in this process? What forms of legitimacy must be accorded to the different actors of Global constitutional order? What kind of rights and duties must be accorded? Brun-Otto Bryde, Constitutional Law in “old” and “new” Law and Development, in Law and Politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2008, pp. 10-15.↩ Ricciardi, From Modern to Global State. History and Transformation of a Concept, in Scienza & Politica, vol. XXV, no. 48, 2013, pp. 75-93.↩ Duffield, Social Reconstruction and the Radicalization of Development: Aid as a Relation of Global Liberal Governance, in Development and Change, Vol. 33, no. 5, 2002, pp. 1049-71; Simpson, ‘Doing development’: the gap year, volunteer‐tourists and a popular practice of development, in Journal of International Development, vol. 16, no. 5, 2004, pp. 681-92.↩ Gozzi, Umano, non umano. Intervento umanitario, colonialismo, «primavere arabe», Bologna, 2015; Salvatici, Nel nome degli altri. Storia dell’intervento umanitario, Bologna, 2015; Scuccimarra, Proteggere l’Umanità. Sovranità e diritti umani nell’epoca globale, Bologna, 2016↩ Gozzi, Umano, non umano cit.; Scuccimarra, Proteggere l’Umanità cit.↩ Higgins, Problems and Process. International law and How we Use it, Oxford, 1994.↩ Singer-Ron, Models of shareholder democracy: A transnational approach, in Global Constitutionalism, vol. 7, no. 3, 2018, pp. 422-446.↩ Cançado Trindade, International law for Humankind. Towards a new Jus Gentium, The Hague, 2013 (II).↩
The sovereignty of national states, that is, their control over a specific population and country, is currently challenged by many factors. In this respect, migrations represent a phenomenon of great significance: traditional conceptions of borders seem no longer adequate in view of the extent of the movements of huge masses of human beings. The interpretation of these phenomena implies the re-thinking of the categories of a plurality of disciplines: from the political thought, to cultural anthropology, to philosophy of law, to international law, to the philosophy of international law. On the one side, traditional concepts of political doctrines, such as sovereignty, citizenship, boundary need a new interpretation. On the other side, the processes of migration, that ought to be conceived as a “global social fact” (A. Sayad), entail the necessity of understanding the complexity of migration flows through an inter-cultural perspective. In the field of international relations there looms a complex system of relationships between the international law that refers to the relations among States, supranational institutions, non governmental organizations, and the insuppressible claim of the human rights’ protection of people looking for new horizons of hope and possibility of life. In short there takes shape a deep contrast between international law and cosmopolitan law. At last the philosophy of law is questioned over a crucial problem: which principles of justice have we to assume, both in domestic and international law, in order to face the reality of migrations? Is it conceivable a fair international society? And in domestic law the figure of migrant can be considered on the ground of criteria of justice or have we to accept only criteria of security and utility?