Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza

In the wake of a time-honoured and authoritative tradition, which dates back to the very origins of our University, the scholarly community of the Department of Law puts itself along a research stream which faces the most topical issues underlying the whole gamut of the legally relevant relationships of our societal life, by critically analyzing legislative practice and judicial trends. This fits into a framework featured by a solid inter- and multi-disciplinary cooperation, and a marked internationalization of research and teaching activities.

Generally speaking, departmental research is focused on the legal forms of inter-individual and community relationships, in a historical, theoretical, practical, international, as well as comparative perspective; individual rights and remedies, having regard to both their practical, historical and philosophical dimensions; the big questions surrounding social cooperation through contract and liability, in the areas of business, markets, and labour relations; crime and punishment; the full range of individuals' and citizens' rights and duties, in their interaction with justice, legal protection, and procedural rules. Research interests are hence wide and diversified, but deeply intertwined, and involve positive lawyers, legal historians and philosophers, as well as economists in a constant dialogue with current practice. In this way, complementary skills and different backgrounds merge in the analysis of legal materials, with a view to furthering the legal culture ultimately aimed to the actual pursuance of justice.

PH. D. PROGRAMMES: http://www.giurisprudenza.unina.it/it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=493&Itemid=130

Research output (2011-2013)

Data on the research output of the Department are extracted from the 2011-2013 Research activities Review (SUA-RD)

Staff

Data on the Department Staff is taken from the institutional website of the Italian Ministry of University and Research

Research projects

PRIN: National Research Projects

  • Title: The codification of EU rules on administrative procedures (Prin 2012).
    Description: The project aims to contribute to the basic and applied research for codification of the administrative procedures of the European Union. The relevant EU law is an area in which scientific research has long been inadequate. A major reason is that the European administrative law consists not only of the principles of European law and rules applicable to direct administration by institutions and bodies of the EU, but also of the relevant law of the Member States, under the framework of the principle of procedural autonomy, as established in the case law of the EU Court of Justice. EU law of administrative procedures has thus developed on a sectoral basis, in neither systematic nor transparent fashion. Simplifying procedures and improving them are the key elements of this research project.
    P.I.: Roberto Mastroianni.
  • Title: The legal regulation of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as a tool for strengthening inclusive, innovative and secure societies (Prin 2010-2011).
    Description: The rise and growth of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) has caused profound changes in cognitive processes and techniques to access to information, which are giving a different form to styles of life, to the techniques of economic competition and to working models. The objective of this research project is to identify policies for the realization of an inclusive information society and to develop legal tools able to support and give effect to these strategies.
    P.I.: Luciana D’Acunto.
  • Title: The authority of words. The forms of Roman preceptive discourse between preservation and change (Prin 2010-2011).
    Description: A culturally and politically central element of the encounter-clash between Rome and the Hellenistic world since the II century BC is the relationship between the language that represents the power, the Latin , and the languages of peoples and territories which are subjected (through different legal tools) to the Roman imperialism. The Neapolitan Unit, starting from the analysis of the expression forms, aims to study the processes of legal interaction that occur when, crossed the borders of Italy, Rome begins to build its role as a Mediterranean power.
    P.I.: Carla Masi Doria.
  • Title: Courts, professors and the inclusive society: the impact of scholarly opinions on the highest Courts (Prin 2010-2011).
    Description: With regard to the legal systems under investigation, the Federico II University Research Unit aims to study the French model and its circulation in EU systems of law (Belgium, Luxemburg, Italy, etc.) and beyond, with reference to mainly civil law. Research on French case law is of particular relevance since, among other things, it also relies on the ‘cryptic' nature of its judgments. This is because, on the one hand, of a legal tradition which is opposed (and widespread) to citing doctrinal works in the judgment and, on the other, the extreme synthesis which characterizes legal reasoning. The latter is at the heart of the arrêt, which is almost always based on a syllogistic model based on the sources of law. Nevertheless, this does not mean that doctrine does not play a primary role in the structuring of French legal science, by precisely promoting the circulation of ideas and comparison of solutions in the various legal systems, and often aiming at a higher level of protection of civil, social and economic rights, with specific reference to the struggle against various forms of separation, discrimination and inequality.
    P.I.: Antonino Procida Mirabelli Di Lauro.
  • Title: Market Governance in the European Union (Prin 2010-2011).
    Description: The debate on the financial crisis has led to highlight the inadequacy of regulators and supervisors to govern and manage the risks of the markets in a context characterized by significant innovations: e.g. the rise of new intermediaries not subject to prudential supervision (hedge funds), the proliferation of structured securities so opaque that only to the authors of securitization and the credit rating agencies (CRAs) can look through them. On the other hand, one of the most important causes of the market failures as well as of the regulators’ failures was - in addition to the capture of regulators by the financial industry and the excessive use of debt leverage at every level - the difficulty for the authorities to oversee the rating agencies, because of the lack, until recently, of the tools similar to those existing for traditional intermediaries, according to the belief that the proper functioning of the credit rating industry could be left to initiatives – more or less qualified – of self-regulation. The purpose of the Research Unit is to analyze the regulation of rating agencies existing in the Community (by following its constant evolution), and to put it in comparison with the U.S. regulation in the same field. The Unit intend to point out the ability of this regulation to address the problematic issues of the CRAs, to propose additions and/or amendments and to contribute – among others – to enable (rather than to reduce) the access to credit by small and medium enterprises.
    P.I.: Marilena Rispoli.
  • Title: Water, a non-reproducible resource, a public good, a factor in development, a cause of war (Prin 2010-2011).
    Description: The research is based on the reconstruction of the legal concept of the fundamental right to water as a social collective right. We compare the models of protection of the "Euro-American” Constitutions, and of international and EU law. We shed some light on the issue of competition for the use of water, in countries characterized by the abundance of the resource. Then, we consider, with regard to countries where it is less abundant, the new forms of the issue of inequality, not only among individuals, but also among communities and parts of the world: this is a problem that the national constitutionalism is not able to solve. The unequal distribution of the "right of acquisition" of water is a powerful factor in the aggravation of those differences, and it produces instability, stop of development, war.
    P.I.: Sandro Staiano .

FIRB (National Research Projects)

  • Title: Trasformazioni metropolitane. The City as Political Space. Urban Fabric and Body Politic: The Crisis of a Metaphor (Firb 2012).
    Description: The research unit focuses on the city as a space of justice and conflict resolution, with emphasis on the interaction between social, political and legal dynamics and their relevance for the urban context. The research is organized around two main themes: on the one hand an enquiry about spaces of justice in the city, the legal evolutions of the contemporary city and courthouse architecture; on the other hand an analysis of participatory and human rights claimant activities to and in the city, with reference to practices of access to law and justice and centre-periphery relationship.
    P.I.: Valerio Nitrato Izzo .
  • Title: Migration Policies and Legal Transplant in the Mediterranean Area (Firb 2012).
    Description: The Research Unit of Naples, made up of internationalists and legal historians, aims to investigate the legal backlashes of the migration phenomenon, which acquired over the years a mass dimension and, following the growing of international capitalism, has been mainly studied, in literature, as a problem of labour mobility.
    P.I.: Fulvio Maria Palombino .

EU Research Projects

  • Title: Regulae iuris: from the construction of the rule to the interpretation of the rules. History, theory, practice (Star 2013, line 1, Junior PI Grants).
    Description: The research aims to advance analytically the scientific debate on the regulae iuris,under the historical, theoretical, and applicative-practical profile. Its objective focuses on deepening, in a diachronic lens, the utilization of these principles by the Roman jurists, and the successive developments through the ‘stratification’ of the post-Justinian elaborations. From the methodological point of view, the analysis of the generalia favours the comprehension of the structures of legal reasoning, essential to the hermeneutical and logic-argumentative baggage of the contemporary jurist.
    P.I.: Carlo Nitsch.

Other projects

  • Title: The role and finance of environmental taxes in the fiscal policy of the Campania Region (Legge 5. Regione Campania 2007).
    Description: This research wants both to investigate how often tax levies connected to the environmental factor are used in fiscal systems and highlights particularly the fiscal policy set on this field by the Campania Region. Many countries have started using their tax system for environmental protection; these countries in order to conform to new social-economic scenarios, due to the globalization, have revalued the central role that public finance has in environmental protection policies. Italy after having ignored these themes for long time just recently started a first timid reasoning on environmental taxation. These considerations represent this research project’s cues.
    P.I.: Roberta Antonietta Giuseppina Alfano.
  • Title: The principle of proper cooperation in the Italian autonomy model (Legge 5. Regione Campania 2007).
    Description: The research project aims to provide an analytical reconstruction of the significance and implications of the principle of loyal cooperation, which has become one of the most important regulators of the relations between territorial levels of government. Essential for this purpose is the important role played by the constitutional case-law. Through the consideration of the decisions of the Italian Constitutional Court, we intend to define: 1) the main areas of operation of the principle; 2) the value of the various collaborative tools that characterize the Italian model; 3) the problematic aspects that emerge in relation to the system of relations between levels of government. From the latter perspective, the project considers the absence, in our autonomist system, of a body for legislative cooperation between the State and the Regions.
    P.I.: Gennaro Ferraiuolo.
  • Title: Commissarial regimes and rule of law in the system of local autonomies (Legge 5. Regione Campania 2007).
    Description: The research intends to reconstruct the main constitutional issues that exist in relation to the commissarial structures established in order to deal with emergency situations, which is a wide phenomenon, in particular after the lawn. 225of 1992. We will analyse the gradual distortion of the commissarial structures, in relation to the requirements, nature and functions of the institute; this is a factor that may generate strong tensions with the constitutional framework, as far as the protection of the rights and the organization of public powers are concerned. The evaluation of these issues will be conducted through the study of the acts which contain the basis of legality of the commissarial structures, of those that regulate related events, and of those adopted by the commissioners delegated to emergencies.
    P.I.: Sandro Staiano.
  • Title: Regulae iuris (2014).
    Description: Over the last years some romanists and law’s philosophers of the law Department, have joined an interdisciplinary research team that has an historical and theoretical study in progress on the regulae iuris. This study, based on models starting from Roman experience, can be diachronically  projected in the history of ius commune and of modern, not only European, national legal systems, touching also some aspects of the legal practice. The subject of the regulae iuris is a debated ancient theme in the legal studies’ tradition but the multiple analysis’ perspective (historical, theoretical, operative) certainly  represents the essence of this new research.
    P.I.: Cosimo Cascione.
  • Title: The Protection of Vulnerable Victims between International, European and National legal system (2014).
    Description: The object of research is the analysis rules in the International, European and National legal system Framework to protect the vulnerable Victims of crime, through the examination of the various lines of action undertaken by the national legislature, in the activity of adapting the national regulatory system to supranational acts. The aim of the research is to assess the compliance of the national legislation to the supranational and the existence of any critical profiles and points of friction between the different legislative levels. In order to further research and to find "best practices" aimed at ensuring a high standard of compliance with the international system it will also proceed to a comparative analysis with the legal order of several Member States.
    P.I.: Daniela Savy.
  • Title: Crisis of political representation and decision-making processes: political parties, form of government, negotiated legislation, lobbying and measures against corruption (2014).
    Description: The research will study, with an interdisciplinary approach, the processes of political decision in Italy. The aim of the research is to establish the model of government that has been consolidated in the Italian political and institutional experience (recently characterized, as known, by the crisis of traditional political representation and the alteration of the form of government), through a theoretical reconstruction of the decision-making models, and through the observation of the practice. At the centre of the investigation we will put all those issues, traditionally entrusted to the scientific interest of the constitutionalist, that characterize the processes of decision: political parties, the form of government, the institutional framework and, above all, the type of legislation in act - legislation marked by the negotiation model.
    P.I.: Sandro Staiano.
  • Title: The subjective changes in labour law: co-employers and economically dependent work (2014).
    Description: The research deals with the transformation of the parties of the contract of employment, with regard both to the employers, by analysing especially the networking of businesses that act as co-employers, and to workers, by examining the change in the sociological and legal condition of dependency.
    P.I.: Antonello Zoppoli.
  • Title: The protection of workers in supply contracts (2013).
    Description: The research, on the one hand, focuses on contents, limits and conditions of laws protecting workers involved in supply contracts and supply chains, especially as regards the liability of purchasers for salaries, social security contributions and safety at work, as well as in terms of identification of the real employer in the event of deviation from the typical pattern (so called pseudo supply contract); on the other hand, the research aims at investigating the tools to protect the continuity of employment of the workers involved in supply contracts in case of succession of suppliers, especially focusing on the mechanisms introduced by collective bargaining in numerous productive sectors. These objectives are pursued according to a methodology that analyses the regulations and their effects at both the substantive and procedural level, in a perspective capable of taking account, also, of the constraints deriving from EU law.
    P.I.: Matteo Mutarelli.

Libraries, labs and facilities

Libraries

  • Law Library - The "Biblioteca di Area Giuridica" (Law Library) pertains to the University Library System (DG/2013/216) and represents the library of reference for the Department of Law. It was established in 1905 as "Biblioteca degli Istituti Giuridici" (Library of the Law Institutes), and from 1987 to 2012 it was called "Biblioteca Centrale della Facoltà di Giurisprudenza" (Main Library of the Faculty of Law). It is located at the third and fourth floor of the "Edificio Centrale" (Main Building) in Corso Umberto I, 40, and features 72 seats. Its collections include approximately 200,000 books and 2,000 journals (of which 430 are still published). It also subscribes to many legal databases and electronic law journals. Opening times: Monday-Thursday: 9.00 a.m. / 4.40 p.m.; Friday: 9.00 a.m. / 2.20 p.m.

    Library services:

    • Consultation
    • Loan
    • Inter-library loan
    • Document delivery service
    • Reference services
    • Reproduction services
    • Databases and e-journals

Third mission

Public engagement

  • College Fair - Since its foundation, the Department of Law offers, among its programmatic targets, a wide and varied range of guidance activities for students. Besides the Open Day Event entitled "Incontri introduttivi allo studio del diritto", scheduled every year in September, the guidance program includes seminars aimed specifically at reception and orientation of high school students in the university choice. This effort includes the equally significant attention to the students enrolled in the Department - with the organization of workshops for interdisciplinary research and meetings with members of the legal professions - and graduates, who are directed paths of internships and placements, in the framework of the Conventions signed by Law Department with local businesses and the judicial districts of the territory.