“Sumer, la tua giusta sapienza, in cui gli dèi furono generati, è inattingibile come il cielo”. Il millennio sumerico: l’invenzione della scrittura e la seconda demiurgia

Since the beginning of its history, Mesopotamia has been a multilingual (bilingual from a literary point of view) and multicultural land. Despite its long life as well as the several linguistic and cultural differences swarming inside it, the Mesopotamian civilization was made homogeneous by the persistence of its writing system…

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Note celestiali. La libertà religiosa sul pentagramma: istruzioni per l’uso e diritto d’autore

Music is a powerful ‘symbolon’ that unites people. It is also a vehicle for the transmission of religious cultures and traditions. Among the arts music, more than other creative forms, allows people to express their religiosity. It is the ultimate instrument for connecting with God, for manifesting one’s religious belonging,…

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Futile Otherness: Religion and Culture vs. Futile Motives in Criminal Law

Within Italian criminal law, the category of motive entitled motivi futili, or futile motives, is used as an evaluation standard in determining an increase in the severity of a penalty for a crime committed, not unlike the designation ‘aggravated’ in common law systems. An application of the penalty means that…

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The right to access to essential goods and the sub-Saharan Africa’s courts: A comparative outlook

The paper is aimed at outlining some trends in the legal enforcement of the right to access to essential goods in sub-Saharan Africa, through the analysis of some judicial decisions issued during the early stage of the Covid-19 Pandemic. The analysis is framed within the assessment of some general evolutions…

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How Communication Technologies Remold the Religion/Human Rights Divide: Online Synergies for a Global Democratic Space

Human rights, when understood and applied interculturally, offer an interface for translating and mediating values across global diversities. Religions have long done the same, attempting to provide meaning that bridges human-to-human as well as human-to-divine relationships through a universalist ethos. Still, the two are often pitted against each other with…

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La vita eterna digitale (digital afterlife) tra diritto civile e ordinamenti religiosi

Legal systems are traditionally responsible for handling the devolution of assets following the death of a natural person (succession, inheritance). In the digital world, a universe of data relating to the deceased reverberates, managed by various providers on the basis of instructions received during the life of the subject, or…

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Matrimonio, relazioni familiari e discriminazioni di genere. Israele alla prova della secolarizzazione

Among the Western-style democracies, no other country experiences the problem of religion’s place more intensely than Israel. This is the consequence of the ambiguities inherent in the ‘Status quo agreement’, which proclaimed Israel simultaneously a ‘Jewish’ and a ‘democratic’ state. This dualism, which has given rise to a close interconnection…

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Non credo, dunque sono. Credere e non credere, ovvero due facce della stessa medaglia, in una recente ordinanza della Cassazione

This essay examines the Italian Cassation Court Ordinance of 17 April 2020 – concerning the recognition of the right to distribute publlicity (‘propaganda’) as claimed by the UAAR (Unione degli atei e degli agnostici razionalisti/Union of Atheists and Rational Agnostics), in accordance with Article 19 of the Italian Constitution. Specifically,…

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La krisis del Coronavirus. Una sfida inattesa per l’essere umano e le società contemporanee. Considerazioni filosofico-giuridiche

The following essay offers some legal-philosophical reflections about the current pandemic resulting from the spread of coronavirus Covid-19. These are concentrated around a few core-themes: (1) the role and of mass media and the problem of credibility; (2) the issue of cooperation among states (mostly within the EU); (3) the…

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