Next Generation EU - a constitutional analysis of a historical initiative 

Mandatory for first and second-year PhD Students

June 5th, 2024 - h. 14:30
Room B4 - Brixia Building

Speaker: Prof. Paul Dermine, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Chair: Prof. Nadia Maccabiani

The adoption of the recovery plan ‘Next Generation EU’ during the COVID-19 pandemic was an important moment for the European Union. As an embryo of autonomous fiscal capacity, it will exercise a long-lasting effect on the trajectory of the European polity. The presentation will come back to the most salient constitutional aspects of the initiative, and investigate the main questions it raises, especially in view of its potential replication in the future. 

Creativities and the Laws  

Mandatory for first-year PhD Students

March 14th, 2024 - h. 15:00
Sala della Biblioteca - S. Faustino Building

Speaker: Prof. dt ogilvie, Rochester Institute of Technology (USA)
Chair: Prof. Matteo Landoni

“Creativity and creative thinking are crucial to the job performance of lawyers, judges and others working in law” (Lubart & Thornhill-Miller, 1). Creativity in law is not just legal innovation, it is also the creativity of lawyers and legal professionals. Lawyers are problem solvers who use creative thinking in drafting “a negotiated settlement agreement, crafting a persuasive closing argument, and structuring a multi-party real estate deal” (Anderson, 2022). Creativity and innovation in the law are increasingly important as clients want unique solutions to their legal issues (Legal Creatives, 2023). A better understanding of Creativities may help law students to appreciate how knowing more about creativity can be useful to their careers as lawyers. In her book, Creativities, the author discussed what creativity is and how one can best nurture creativity in different contexts. The book goes beyond the typical Western ‘creative genius’ model, illuminating global creativities, and addresses five key questions, the what, how, where, who, and why of the creative process, employing frameworks, questions, and illustrative ‘recipes’ designed to inspire out-of-the-box creative thinking. 

Conducting systematic reviews in social research

Mandatory for first-year PhD Students  

February 22th, 2024 - h. 14:00-17:00
Sala della Biblioteca - S. Faustino Building

February 23rd, 2024 - h. 9:30-12:30
Room A1 - S. Chiara Building

Speaker: Prof. Marta Pellegrini, University of Cagliari
Chair: Prof. Giovanni Abbiati

In recent years there has been a growing interest in systematic research syntheses, for the potential role these methods play in discriminating evidence-based practices in different fields of study, such as (but not limited to) medicine, education, psychology. The seminar, introductory in nature, presents the main methods of systematic research synthesis - scoping review, systematic review, meta-analysis –, together with the steps to undertake. The seminar will be interactive, and it will use examples and simulated activities on real data. At the end of the seminar, the participants will be able to: 1) define the distinctive elements of the different methods of synthesis; 2) know the steps to conduct a systematic synthesis of the research; 3) evaluate the methodological soundness of existing research syntheses. Students or researchers wishing to discuss an idea, or an already ongoing research synthesis project are encouraged to share their research questions during the interactive activities of the seminar. The seminar is dedicated primarily to students in Social and Life sciences, due to the field expertise of the teacher. However, students and researchers working in the area of Engineering are also welcomed to participate and to share their research, since this methodology is widely used also in the STEM fields. 

Suitability versus sustainability in the EU regulation of investment services

February 6th, 2024 - h. 12:15
Sala della Biblioteca (via San Faustino 74/b)

Speaker: Prof. Riccardo Ghetti, University of Bologna
Chair: Prof. Matteo Landoni

Firms providing investment services to clients are mandated by EU law to consider ‘sustainability preferences’ in disclosures and suitability assessments. These rules raise coordination issues with the pre-existing suitability regime, as well as with other legal notions in recent EU sustainability-oriented financial regulation (such as ‘sustainability factors’ and ‘sustainability risk’) and general principles of EU financial market regulation (such as the proportionality principle employed by MiFID II organisational requirements). The complex interplay between legal notions, regulatory principles and industry practices casts doubts on the cost-effectiveness of the current legal framework, calling for careful interpretation and restrictive application of some of these notions. MiFID III, however, might offer an opportunity for their comprehensive revision. 

Challenges of regulating new technologies 

Mandatory for first-year PhD Students

January 19th, 2024 - h. 9:00 - 13:00
Room C1 - S. Chiara Building

Speaker: Prof. Dr. BHM (Bart) Custers PhD MSc LLM, Leiden University, The Netherlands 
Chair: Prof. Nadia Maccabiani

In this interactive and multidisciplinary seminar, challenges of regulating new technologies are discussed in three parts. The first part is a general introduction to technological developments and ethics approaches to assess these developments. Types of moral problems, more values, principles and rules are introduced. The second part focuses on law, particularly EU data protection law, as most of these technological developments are based on collecting and processing large amounts of data. The fundamental rights to privacy and data protection, enshrined in the EU Charter for fundamental rights are discussed and a crash course on the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GPDR) is provided, with a focus on data subject rights and data controller obligations. The third part broadens the horizon from legal approaches to non-legal approaches that can be used to address ethical and legal issues of new technologies. Multidisciplinary models, such as Lawrence Lessig’s Code 2.0 and behavioral economics theory, with a focus on nudging theory, are discussed. Some of these approaches are also legal obligations, such as privacy impact assessments and privacy by design. The theory provided in this class will be applied to specific cases in several short exercises and thought experiments during class.

Enhancing Effectiveness of Democratic Representation. Constituencies and Equality of the Vote within Different Electoral Systems

24 October - 10 November 2023
Department of Law
Via San Faustino, 41 - Brescia

Regulation of AI: evolution of the legal framework and future challenges  

November 3rd, 2023 -  h. 9.00 - 13.30
Room D5 - Brixia Building 

Speaker: Prof. Michael Lognoul – University of Namur
Chair: Prof. Nadia Maccabiani

The seminar starts with an introduction to AI technology, followed by a synthesis of the most important bodies of law that currently apply to AI tools. Next, the presentation discusses the AI Act Proposal and the AI Liability Proposal, which are two key elements of the future EU legal framework. Finally, several major challenges raised by AI are highlighted, and potential legal solutions to these challenges are discussed. 

Personal and Digital Data: Who owns What?

June 23rd, 2023 -  h. 11:15 am
Room A5 – S. Chiara Building

Speaker: Prof. Kateryna Nekit, National University-Odessa
Chair: Prof. Nadia Maccabiani

Nowadays, the legal nature of personal data remains hotly debated. The possibility to extend the legal regime of ownership to personal data is widely discussed. Some scholars believe it is possible to monetize personal data and treat it as a commodity as it has obvious economic value. However, there are strong arguments on behalf of the inalienability of personal data, which brings opinions on the impossibility to cover personal data with the legal regime of ownership. At the same time the development of information technologies brought the appearance of a new concept – digital data, which is tend to be treated as property. Consequently, the Seminar deals with the question how personal and digital data are correlated and which legal provisions should be applied in each case.

Contemporary challenges of human rights protection - Part I

May 3rd, 2023 - h. 9:30 am

Room A1 - S. Chiara Building

Speaker: Prof. Anna Podolska, University of Gdańsk
Chair: Prof. Nadia Maccabiani

The seminar will cover issues related to the understanding of the idea and content of human rights The advantages and disadvantages of the leading systems of human rights protection will be discussed, as well as selected problems related to social development, including those resulting from the development of new technologies.

Contemporary challenges of human rights in Poland

May 4th - h. 11:15 am

Room B3- S. Chiara Building

Speaker: Prof. Anna Podolska, University of Gdańsk
Chair: Prof. Nadia Maccabiani

The topic of the lecture focuses on institutions and mechanisms dealing with the protection of human rights in Poland. Problems faced by the national system will be present, including those related to the justice system or the rights of LGBTQI+ people.

Human rights in the 21st Century. Between theory and practice. 

May 5th - h. 11:15 am

Room A2 - S. Chiara Building

Speaker: Prof. Anna Podolska, University of Gdańsk
Chair: Prof. Nadia Maccabiani

The idea of human rights has been known for centuries. However, their understanding, content and scope of application have been changing. The goal of the lecture will be to confront the social perception of human rights and the problems that have arisen as a result of the development of civilization and that threaten human rights with the achievements of theory and jurisprudence in this area.

Speaker: Prof. Adrián García Ortiz, PhD, Profesor Ayudante Doctor of Constitutional Law, Universidad de Alicante (https://cvnet.cpd.ua.es/curriculum-breve/en/garcia-ortiz-adrian/46970)

Chair: Prof. Saverio Regasto (Department of Law – University of Brescia)

Representativeness and Direct Citizen Participation in the Spanish Constitution

April 13th, 2023 – h. 11:15 am
Room A5 – S. Chiara Building

Representativeness, that is, the exercise of popular sovereignty through representatives, has been accepted as the most appropriate means of making the democratic principle effective. However, the Spanish constitutional text also contemplates a series of mechanisms for direct citizen participation in public affairs. The aim of the seminar is to analyse how the Spanish constitutional system combines both models of political participation. Specifically, it will analyse the institution of the referendum, whose scarce presence in the Spanish Constitution is due to its use as a plebiscite during the Franco dictatorship, as well as the popular legislative initiative, which allows the initiation of the legislative procedure, with notable exceptions, at the request of the citizens.

Parliamentarism in Supranational Organisations: The Case of the European Union

April 14th, 2023 – h. 14:30 am
Room A5 – S. Chiara Building

The European Union is a unique sui generis reality in the world. The progressive transfer of competences by the member states to the supranational level of the exercise of power forces us to reflect on whether this assumption of state sovereignty has been accompanied by the corresponding mechanisms of democratic counterbalance. Parliament thus emerges as the main institution capable of channelling the democratic legitimacy of the European project. The seminar will address the political and legal viability of the existence in the international sphere of an institution built under state paradigms and, specifically, the configuration and functions of the European Parliament within the Union’s institutional system. 

Limitations and Mechanisms for Environmental Protection in the Spanish Decentralised State

April 17th, 2023 – h. 14:30
Room A1 – S. Chiara Building

The acceleration of climate change due to the greenhouse effect, which manifests itself in symptoms such as desertification, melting ice, rising global temperatures and the destruction of ecosystems, requires a common effort on the part of all centres of power. The state has shown signs of exhaustion as a space in which to circumscribe political and regulatory efforts in the face of challenges that have no borders. That is why it is essential that environmental protection comes from both supranational level such as the European Union and infra-state level, that which is closest to the citizens: federated states, Länder, regions or autonomous communities. The aim of the seminar is to discuss how the Spanish autonomous communities can meet environmental challenges, i.e. what limitations they face and what protection mechanisms are available to them.


The Protection of the Environment in the Spanish and Italian Constitutions in a Comparative Perspective

April 19th, 2023 – h. 11:15 am
Room A2 – S. Chiara Building

Climate change is already an evident reality that should not remain alien to Constitutional Law studies, as a discipline called upon to analyse the challenges facing society and to articulate responses from the paradigms of controlling power and guaranteeing rights. Constitutionalism can approach this problem from an anthropocentric or ecocentric perspective: the former conceives of nature as an object for human use and enjoyment or worthy of protection; the latter postulates the defence of nature as an end in itself, with no relation of benefit or utility. The seminar will analyse, using the method of legal comparison, the Spanish and Italian constitutional texts in the light of the above parameters, taking into account the change of paradigm established since the recent reform of the Italian constitution of 2022.

A conversation on designing data collections and analysing quantitative data 

January 13th, 2023 - 09:00/11:15 am
Room B3 - S. Chiara Building

Speakers: Prof. Giacomo Carli, Senior Lecturer in Strategy and Teaching Director of the Undergraduate Business Programme at The Open University Business School
Prof. Davide Giacomini, Lecturer in HRM and Business Organization at the University of Brescia