Sciences Po Toulouse is organizing, in collaboration with the Research Committee on Sociology of Law of the International Sociological Association (ISA/RCSL), with the support of the European Network on Law and Society (RED&S), a Congress which will take place in Toulouse, from September 3 to 6, 2013, on the theme: "Sociology of Law and Political Action".

The Key Dates

• Launch of Calls for Papers: November 15th, 2012

• Submission of Abstracts: from November 15th, 2012 till February 15th, 2013, last deadline

• Opening of Registration: March 15th, 2013

• Registration with preferential rates: from March 15th, 2013 till June 15th, 2013

• Submission of Final Papers: from March 15th, 2013 till June 30th, 2013, last deadline

• Close of Registration: July 15th, 2013

• Opening of Congress: September 3rd, 2013

Presentation

As part of its regular activities, the Research Committee on Sociology of Law (RCSL) of the International Sociological Association (ISA) organizes, jointly with the Institut d’études politiques de Toulouse, an international congress on sociology of law, to take place in Toulouse, 3-6 September 2013, under the heading: Sociology of Law and Political Action.

Over recent years, it proved to be necessary to discuss the topics of the RCSL’s specialty – Law and its implementation, notably by courts – in strong connection with the study of broader processes regarding, beyond the law, the modes of structuring, functioning, and regulating of societies in general. Researches on law found thereby the way back to the main founding fathers of sociology, for whom law deserved special interest not only for itself but also because its analysis was considered as a prerequisite for a meaningful interpretation of major social changes.

These were the motives that led to the main topic of the congress. Its discussion has two aims: to tackle broad current social changes likely to be illuminated by socio-legal research, rather than to narrowly focus on socio-legal issues; and to take advantage of an international trend in scientific research strengthening the connections between law and politics. Indeed, over the last years, we observe deep transformations of political regulation. The government as a notion is replaced by governance; Nation States are loosing significance in the course of globalization; their modes of intervention are shifting from top down decision processes to more complex processes of negotiation and regulation, forcing analysts to replace the concept of public action by the one of public policy; representative democracy is said to be in crisis; the relationship between legality and legitimacy has to be redefined as a result of the shortcomings of the Weberian model of legal-rational domination; civil society invents new forms of mobilization, etc.

These evolutions did favour new research trends in sociology of law, which also correspond to more general new trends in social sciences, in particular in political sciences, sociology, history, and jurisprudence, especially in the field of public law. These trends are bringing about a new economy in the relationship between legality and politics. They contributed to narrowing the gap between research on courts (e.g. research in the United States, where law and justice are topics traditionally addressed by political sciences; see also research in Japan) and research oriented by the needs of jurists, focussing mainly on State’s law (which is in particular the case for European and in particular French socio-legal research). And they triggered a dynamic renewal of sociology of law, today less concerned with its identity and frontiers of sociological specialty than with the challenging issue of the changing relationship between law and politics.

So there has been more and more researches on the production of law as revealing political processes ; on the law viewed not as a mere reference, but as a resource among others for the action of social movements, as well as for public policies aiming at achieving “efficiency”, even at the expense of the “requirements of legality” (“managerialization of Law”); on the law as participating in the construction of social reality beyond the intervention of official entities supposed to act upon this reality (see the debate on legal consciousness). Such a legal concept favours a new definition of the relationship between citizens and legal norms with a view to the accomplishment of the democratic project. In these dramatic changes of law and of legal consciousness, legal professions are gaining special relevance. People skilled in the use of the legal resource are becoming key players in the political game (see the international research stream on cause lawyering). The debate on globalization gives increasing relevance to law and courts in supra-national territories. And, last but not least, let us remember the researches on the “legalization of politics”.

The programme of the Congress is strongly inspired by this new knowledge regime, linked to the transformations of the nature, role, and place of law today. It is designed to discuss aspects of these transformations in plenary sessions gathering internationally recognized specialists, as well as in workshops mirroring the plurality of possible different approaches to the relationship between law, justice, and politics.

The main topic chosen requires a broad interdisciplinary approach. The involvement of the Institut d’Études politiques of Toulouse, and the support of the French Political Sciences Association reveals the strong commitment of French political sciences in this exercise. Other social sciences are welcome too, as well as, obviously, jurists, to whom RCSL owes its existence, as it is worth remembering now in 2012, the year of this Research Committee’s 50th anniversary.

As part of its regular activities, the Research Committee on Sociology of Law (RCSL) of the International Sociological Association (ISA) organizes, jointly with the Institut d’études politiques de Toulouse, an international congress on sociology of law, to take place in Toulouse, 3-6 September 2013, under the heading: Sociology of Law and Political Action.

Over recent years, it proved to be necessary to discuss the topics of the RCSL’s specialty – Law and its implementation, notably by courts – in strong connection with the study of broader processes regarding, beyond the law, the modes of structuring, functioning, and regulating of societies in general. Researches on law found thereby the way back to the main founding fathers of sociology, for whom law deserved special interest not only for itself but also because its analysis was considered as a prerequisite for a meaningful interpretation of major social changes.

These were the motives that led to the main topic of the congress. Its discussion has two aims: to tackle broad current social changes likely to be illuminated by socio-legal research, rather than to narrowly focus on socio-legal issues; and to take advantage of an international trend in scientific research strengthening the connections between law and politics. Indeed, over the last years, we observe deep transformations of political regulation. The government as a notion is replaced by governance; Nation States are loosing significance in the course of globalization; their modes of intervention are shifting from top down decision processes to more complex processes of negotiation and regulation, forcing analysts to replace the concept of public action by the one of public policy; representative democracy is said to be in crisis; the relationship between legality and legitimacy has to be redefined as a result of the shortcomings of the Weberian model of legal-rational domination; civil society invents new forms of mobilization, etc.

These evolutions did favour new research trends in sociology of law, which also correspond to more general new trends in social sciences, in particular in political sciences, sociology, history, and jurisprudence, especially in the field of public law. These trends are bringing about a new economy in the relationship between legality and politics. They contributed to narrowing the gap between research on courts (e.g. research in the United States, where law and justice are topics traditionally addressed by political sciences; see also research in Japan) and research oriented by the needs of jurists, focussing mainly on State’s law (which is in particular the case for European and in particular French socio-legal research). And they triggered a dynamic renewal of sociology of law, today less concerned with its identity and frontiers of sociological specialty than with the challenging issue of the changing relationship between law and politics.

So there has been more and more researches on the production of law as revealing political processes ; on the law viewed not as a mere reference, but as a resource among others for the action of social movements, as well as for public policies aiming at achieving “efficiency”, even at the expense of the “requirements of legality” (“managerialization of Law”); on the law as participating in the construction of social reality beyond the intervention of official entities supposed to act upon this reality (see the debate on legal consciousness). Such a legal concept favours a new definition of the relationship between citizens and legal norms with a view to the accomplishment of the democratic project. In these dramatic changes of law and of legal consciousness, legal professions are gaining special relevance. People skilled in the use of the legal resource are becoming key players in the political game (see the international research stream on cause lawyering). The debate on globalization gives increasing relevance to law and courts in supra-national territories. And, last but not least, let us remember the researches on the “legalization of politics”.

The programme of the Congress is strongly inspired by this new knowledge regime, linked to the transformations of the nature, role, and place of law today. It is designed to discuss aspects of these transformations in plenary sessions gathering internationally recognized specialists, as well as in workshops mirroring the plurality of possible different approaches to the relationship between law, justice, and politics.

The main topic chosen requires a broad interdisciplinary approach. The involvement of the Institut d’Études politiques of Toulouse, and the support of the French Political Sciences Association reveals the strong commitment of French political sciences in this exercise. Other social sciences are welcome too, as well as, obviously, jurists, to whom RCSL owes its existence, as it is worth remembering now in 2012, the year of this Research Committee’s 50th anniversary.

As part of its regular activities, the Research Committee on Sociology of Law (RCSL) of the International Sociological Association (ISA) organizes, jointly with the Institut d’études politiques de Toulouse, an international congress on sociology of law, to take place in Toulouse, 3-6 September 2013, under the heading: Sociology of Law and Political Action.

Over recent years, it proved to be necessary to discuss the topics of the RCSL’s specialty – Law and its implementation, notably by courts – in strong connection with the study of broader processes regarding, beyond the law, the modes of structuring, functioning, and regulating of societies in general. Researches on law found thereby the way back to the main founding fathers of sociology, for whom law deserved special interest not only for itself but also because its analysis was considered as a prerequisite for a meaningful interpretation of major social changes.

These were the motives that led to the main topic of the congress. Its discussion has two aims: to tackle broad current social changes likely to be illuminated by socio-legal research, rather than to narrowly focus on socio-legal issues; and to take advantage of an international trend in scientific research strengthening the connections between law and politics. Indeed, over the last years, we observe deep transformations of political regulation. The government as a notion is replaced by governance; Nation States are loosing significance in the course of globalization; their modes of intervention are shifting from top down decision processes to more complex processes of negotiation and regulation, forcing analysts to replace the concept of public action by the one of public policy; representative democracy is said to be in crisis; the relationship between legality and legitimacy has to be redefined as a result of the shortcomings of the Weberian model of legal-rational domination; civil society invents new forms of mobilization, etc.

These evolutions did favour new research trends in sociology of law, which also correspond to more general new trends in social sciences, in particular in political sciences, sociology, history, and jurisprudence, especially in the field of public law. These trends are bringing about a new economy in the relationship between legality and politics. They contributed to narrowing the gap between research on courts (e.g. research in the United States, where law and justice are topics traditionally addressed by political sciences; see also research in Japan) and research oriented by the needs of jurists, focussing mainly on State’s law (which is in particular the case for European and in particular French socio-legal research). And they triggered a dynamic renewal of sociology of law, today less concerned with its identity and frontiers of sociological specialty than with the challenging issue of the changing relationship between law and politics.

So there has been more and more researches on the production of law as revealing political processes ; on the law viewed not as a mere reference, but as a resource among others for the action of social movements, as well as for public policies aiming at achieving “efficiency”, even at the expense of the “requirements of legality” (“managerialization of Law”); on the law as participating in the construction of social reality beyond the intervention of official entities supposed to act upon this reality (see the debate on legal consciousness). Such a legal concept favours a new definition of the relationship between citizens and legal norms with a view to the accomplishment of the democratic project. In these dramatic changes of law and of legal consciousness, legal professions are gaining special relevance. People skilled in the use of the legal resource are becoming key players in the political game (see the international research stream on cause lawyering). The debate on globalization gives increasing relevance to law and courts in supra-national territories. And, last but not least, let us remember the researches on the “legalization of politics”.

The programme of the Congress is strongly inspired by this new knowledge regime, linked to the transformations of the nature, role, and place of law today. It is designed to discuss aspects of these transformations in plenary sessions gathering internationally recognized specialists, as well as in workshops mirroring the plurality of possible different approaches to the relationship between law, justice, and politics.

The main topic chosen requires a broad interdisciplinary approach. The involvement of the Institut d’Études politiques of Toulouse, and the support of the French Political Sciences Association reveals the strong commitment of French political sciences in this exercise. Other social sciences are welcome too, as well as, obviously, jurists, to whom RCSL owes its existence, as it is worth remembering now in 2012, the year of this Research Committee’s 50th anniversary.

Program

Plenary Sessions

1st Session - Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013 - from 10 am till 12:30 am

• Welcome

• Speech by the Director of the Institute of Political Studies of Toulouse: Philippe Raimbault
• Short Speech by the President of the University Toulouse 1 - Capitole: Bruno SIRE
• Short Speech by the President of the Midi-Pyrénées Regional Council - Representative: Nicole BELLOUBET
• Address by the President of the Research Committee on Socilogy of Law of the International Sociological Association: Vittorio OLGIATI
• Adress by the Scientific Director of the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law: Adam CZARNOTA
• Address by the Co-Director of the European Network on Law and Society: André-Jean ARNAUD
• Short Speech by the Secretary of the French Association of Political Science: Yves DELOYE

• Opening Adress by Bruno LATOUR

2nd Session - Wednesday, September 4th, 2013 - from 9 am till 12:30 am

Theme: " The Uses of the Law in the New Forms of Collective Mobilizations "

Presidence: Jacques COMMAILLE

Introduction of theme: Liora ISRAEL

Interventions:

• Boaventura DE SOUSA SANTOS
• Moussa Abou RAMADAN
• Zhang YI

3rd Session - Thursday, September 5th, 2013 - from 9 am till 12:30 am

Theme: " Politics of Science - Politics of Law "

Presidence and animation: Pierre GUIBENTIF

Interventions:

• Antonio Casimiro FERREIRA
• Susan SILBEY
• Martin SHAPIRO

4th Session - Friday, September 6th, 2013 - from 9 am till 12 am

• Closing Presidency: Philippe RAIMBAULT
• Conférence of Arvind AGRAWAL
• Closing Presidency: Vincenzo FERRARI
• Synthesis by Jacques COMMAILLE
• Assessment: Philippe RAIMBAULT and Wanda CAPELLER
• Prospects: Jean-Michel EYMERI-DOUZANS
• Closing Adress by Jean TIROLE

Workshops

September 3rd, 4th and 5th, 2013 - from 2:30 pm till 6 pm

• Research Committee on Sociology of Law of the International Sociological Association - Working Groups:
  • Civil Justice and Dispute Resolution
    Masayuki MURAYAMA
    • Session 1
    • Session 2
    • Session 3
  • Comparative Legal Cultures: "The Perception of Law and Faith in the Political System"
    Marina KURKCHIYAN
  • Law and Migration: "Law, Cultural Politics and Immigration: French case study"
    Devanayaka SUNDARAM
  • Human Rights : "Sociology of Human Rights"
    Dani RUDNICKI
  • Law and Politics: "Legal reforms: seeking new practices, in the face of lagging inertia"
    Angelica CUELLAR VASQUEZ
  • Social and Legal System: "Hidden Structures of the Law and the Role of the Politics"
    Germano SCHWARTZ
  • Gender and Law: "Gender Renewal(s)?"
    Alexandrine GUYARD-NEDELEC and Barbara Giovanna BELLO
  • Comparative Studies of Legal Professions
    • Subgroup Family, Policy and the Law - Benoît BASTARD
    • Subgroup Judiciary: "Judicial Cultures" - Tony BRADNEY
    • Subgroup Legal Education: "Exploring Legal Education" - Fiona COWNIE
    • Subgroup Women/Gender in the Legal Profession - Ulrike SCHULTZ
    • Subgroup Management in/and Justice: "Reforms and Management of Justice and Judicial Organizations" - Frédéric SCHOENAERS

• Workshops :
  • "Policy Intelligence in the Public Realm, Policy Intelligence as a New Public Policy Instrument"
    Thierry DELPEUCH and Jacqueline ROSS
  • "Making the EU Non-Discrimination Law and Policy Work: Theories, (Best/Worst) Practices and Ways Forward"
    Barbara Giovanna BELLO
  • "Between the Social and the Judicial: Tension, Absorption or Cooperation?"
    Emmanuel BERNHEIM and Pierre NOREAU
  • "Mediation or Mediations : its Rationales, Issues, Appraisals"
    Jean-Pierre BONAFE-SCHMITT
  • "Spaces of Justice and Courthouse Architecture: A Matter of Political Action?"
    Patricia BRANCO and Paula CASALEIRO
  • "Judicialization and Public Regulation of Religion"
    Claire DE GALEMBERT and Matthias KOENIG
  • "Main Changes of Police Organizations"
    François DIEU
  • "Justice Inside or Outside the State ? Justice Devices, Forms and Levels of Government"
    Laurence DUMOULIN
  • "How To Do a Rule And What Do Do With It? Bureaucrats Between the Fabrication and Usages of Legal Rules"
    Jean-Michel EYMERI-DOUZANS and Gildas TANGUY
  • "Interculturality and Multiculturalism"
    Gilles FERREOL
  • "Non-Compliance to the Rules and Disobedience Towards the Law"
    Mauricio GARCIA-VILLEGAS and Aude LEJEUNE
  • "Law and the Social Construction of Uncertainty"
    Pierre GUIBENTIF
  • "Contemporary Issues in Legal Education"
    Liora ISRAEL and Rachel VANNEUVILLE
  • "L’enfance, entre droits et politique"
    Valérie LARROSA, Delphine ESPAGNO and Gildas HIVERT
  • "La "Soft Law" dans la construction de l’Union Européenne"
    Xavier MARCHAND-TONEL
  • "Social Services’ Law Policy Interplay: European and Italian Rules"
    Angelo MATTIONI
  • "Innovations politiques de gouvernance territoriale et démocratie locale"
    Laure ORTIZ and Philippe RAIMBAULT
  • "Discriminations in the Hearth of New Dynamics of Social Issue and Law?"
    Olivier PHILIPPE
  • "Transitional Justice and Political Peace Settlement"
    Xavier PHILIPPE
  • "Networking the Rule of Law: Influence of Legal and Judicial Standards in the West and the East"
    Daniela PIANA and Michal BOBEK
  • "Comparative Law as Communication"
    Antonios Emmanuel PLATSAS
  • "The Administration of Rights"
    Anne REVILLARD and Pierre-Yves BAUDOT
  • "Political Subversions and Contestations of the Trial "Form""
    Violaine ROUSSEL, Laure BLEVIS and Déborah PUCCIO DEN
  • "Environment and the Law: Popular Struggles, Popular Epidemiology and other Forms of Resistance "From Below" in Worldwide Areas at Risk"
    Pietro SAITTA and Ilaria LAZZERINI
  • "Legal Rules, Social Rules"
    Vincent SIMOULIN et Gilbert DE TERSSAC
  • "Rule of Law and Political Action Facing Environmental Conflicts"
    Ferdinando SPINA
  • "The Use of New Legal Instruments by Regional Organizations"
    Arnaud VAN WAEYENBERGE
  • "What Kind of Legal Education Today?"
    Massimo VOGLIOTTI

Call for papers for workshops

RCSL - Working Group : Civil Justice and Dispute Resolution

Session 1

• Responsable(s) / Chair : Masayuki MURAYAMA (Columbia Law School) (on leave from Meiji University)
• Thème /Subject : Comparative investigation of national surveys on access to justice
• Mots-clé / Keywords : Civil Justice - Dispute Resolution - Comparative Study - Disputing Behaviour
• Description : Since 1980’s, there have been conducted nationwide surveys on access to justice and/or experience of legal problems in both common law countries and civil law countries. We have been trying to compare survey results and to find a common theoretical scheme for explaining behavior in different countries. In this session, we plan to discuss on recent developments of our efforts in this field.

Session 2

• Responsable(s) / Chair Masayuki MURAYAMA (Columbia Law School) (on leave from Meiji University)
• Thème /Subject Comparative study of disputing behavior with qualitative research
• Mots-clé / Keywords Dispute Resolution - Disputing Behaviour - Comparative Study
• Description : This session is a qualitative research counterpart to session (1) with quantitative research. Members of our WG have conducted interviews and other qualitative research to find how disputes are pursued and handled in various countries. We will look at what resources disputants can mobilize and what institutional channels disputants can choose, in order to find why certain disputes are handled in particular ways.

Session 3

• Responsable(s) / Chair : Masayuki MURAYAMA (Columbia Law School) (on leave from Meiji University)
• Thème /Subject : Comparative study of legal aid and access to justice
• Mots-clé / Keywords : Legal Aid, Access to Justice, Comparative Study
• Description : Legal aid has been most developed in common law countries, though legal aid has also been expanding in civil law countries. Yet, legal aid systems have faced difficulties and obstacles in recent years. We will discuss how social and political factors have shaped different types of legal aid and how different ways of providing legal service would affect access to justice, taking into consideration a structure of legal profession.

How To Do A Rule And What To Do With It? Bureaucrats Between the Fabrication and Usages of Legal Rules

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Gildas TANGUY (LaSSP - Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Toulouse)
• Jean-Michel EYMERI-DOUZANS (LaSSP - Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Toulouse)

Description

This workshop wants to question the relationship between civil servants and legal norms. In the continental Weberian model as in the “Westminster model”, the bureaucracy of civil servants appointed by, obedient to, but reputedly independent from political power is supposed, ex ante, to prepare sine ira ac studio the draft projects of legislations or regulations, and, ex post, to “execute” loyally the norms edicted by those in power. Far from this theoretic model, empirical observation of real governing processes reveals, in all countries and at all layers of government (from local to European and international), the close association of political governors and co-governing top public officials in the production of public policies, including the writing of legal norms. Moreover, all the researches devoted to “middle (public) managers” and “street-level bureaucrats” demonstrate the extent to which those implementers, in the field and at the front-desk of bureacracies, are not passive servants of a “dead future” of the law, but real actors of its continuous production in the course of its enforcement, who develop a rich variety of social usages of the rule: “ritualism”, “negociated arrangements”, “secondary norms of application”, and other (re)translations and (re)qualifications… 

With an explicit interdisciplinary and comparative perspective, this bilingual (Anglo-French) workshop is welcoming proposals from colleagues who, building on empirical case studies, could enlighten the logics of such a “legal work” of bureaucrats, at various hierarchical levels, who are often co-producers of the rules, and always implementers of the rules. We want to question in common the complex and differentiated forms of the relationship between the law and the servants of the rule of law/Rechtstaat/Etat de droit.

The papers (40 to 50 000 characters) will have to be delivered in advance. The proposals (two pages giving the title, the foreseen content, the empirical ground and a short biography of the author) are to be sent to the two co-chairs for the 1st February 2013.

Version française : Comment faire la norme et qu’en faire ? Les fonctionnaires entre fabrique et usages du droit

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Gildas TANGUY (LaSSP - Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Toulouse)
• Jean-Michel EYMERI-DOUZANS (LaSSP - Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Toulouse)

Description

Cet atelier se propose de revenir sur les rapports que la fonction publique entretient avec la norme. Que ce soit dans le modèle weberien continental ou dans le « modèle de Westminster », la bureaucratie des fonctionnaires nommés par, soumis au mais censément indépendants du pouvoir politique est supposée s’en tenir ex ante à préparer sine ira ac studio les projets d’actes normatifs (qu’il s’agisse de textes de valeur réglementaire ou de projets de lois), et ex post à « exécuter » loyalement les normes édictées par le pouvoir, législatif ou réglementaire. Loin de la belle simplicité de cette théorie pratique de la bureaucratie en régime représentatif moderne, l’observation empirique de la réalité des processus de gouvernement contemporains donne à voir, dans tous les pays et à tous les « niveaux de gouvernement », depuis le local jusqu’à l’international en passant par les institutions de l’Union européenne, la « soudure fonctionnelle » entre gouvernants politiques et hauts fonctionnaires co-gouvernants dans la production des politiques publiques, y incluse la rédaction des normes de droit qui les organise. Dans le même temps, tous les travaux de recherche consacrés aux  « fonctionnaires intermédiaires » et aux « street-level bureaucrats » ne cessent de mettre en lumière que les « implementers » de terrain et de guichet ne sont en rien les fonctions en action d’un « futur mort » de la norme de droit, mais des acteurs pleins de sa production continuée au fil de son application, et ce au travers d’une riche palette d’usages sociaux du droit : « ritualisme », « arrangement négocié », production de « normes secondaires d’application »  et autres (re)traductions et (re)qualifications, etc.

Adoptant une perspective résolument interdisciplinaire et comparative, cet atelier souhaite convier à débattre des collègues qui, à partir de travaux empiriques concrets, seront en mesure d’éclairer les logiques à l’œuvre dans tout ce « travail juridique » des bureaucrates de divers niveaux hiérarchiques, à la fois co-producteurs de la norme souvent, et metteurs en œuvre de celle-ci toujours. L’on interrogera ainsi ensemble les rapports, forcément complexes et différenciés selon les niveaux et les lieux, qu’entretiennent avec le droit les serviteurs de l’Etat de droit.

Les communications écrites (40 à 50 000 signes) devront être remises à l’avance et seront discutées. Les propositions (une à deux pages indiquant un titre, la problématique générale du propos et le terrain accompagnée d’une courte notice biographique) sont à envoyer à deux responsables scientifiques de l’atelier

Comparative Law as Communication

• Responsable(s) / Chair : Antonios Emmanuel PLATSAS (University of Derby)
• Thème /Subject : Comparative Law, Legal Theory, Languages in Comparative Law Policy Making
• Mots-clé / Keywords : Comparative Law - Legal Theory - Law and Language - Semiology - Legal Sociology

Description

 ‘Comparative lawyers are called on to do everything our domestically focussed colleagues do, but we also have to master an entire foreign legal system, in another language. In our domestic work we can be hedgehogs, but in our foreign law work we must be foxes.  How many of us are to it?’  (Merryman 1999, 31-32)

The subject of comparative law, now widely recognised as operating at the forefront of modern legal research, is one which incorporates schools of thought which are as diverse and multifaceted as the modern subject of comparative law is.  This very multiplicity of sources is one of the key strengths of the subject of comparative law.  Close to such multiplicity of sources in the subject of comparative law comes the fact that modern comparative legal analysis is one which comes very close to the investigations of the subject area of law and language studies.  By extension, comparative law is a subject area which directly links to semiology.  After all one needs to comprehend foreign legal semiology to proceed with the use of such semiological matter elsewhere, that is beyond the domestic.  In the examination of foreign legal matter one observes, therefore, the indispensability of language material as communication matter.  The workshop will, therefore, seek to highlight the links between comparative law, language (especially  in comparative law policy making) and the synthesis of the two but not in a fashion which is linear or automatic.  Rather the workshop will seek to explore the bridging which comparative law offers in communicative terms to the semiologist, the comparative lawyer, the legal sociologist, the legal translator, the legal interpreter, the legislator in their research beyond the domestic.  Comparative law, one is reminded, is a Wortwissenschaft, a ‘science of words’, as Pound has maintained sometime ago.  By extension, comparative law is a subject which acts as a tool of communication, as a sort of a bridging subject of different worlds.  These different worlds are worlds which are divided by language and law but on occasion, albeit more rarely, united by language and law.  Jurisprudence for the French does not have the same meaning as the word ‘jurisprudence’ has for the English.  Two words written in exactly the same way in two different languages came to mean two very different things.  Equally, Vertrag in German, contract/contrat in English and French, symbasis in Greek are phenomenologically different or very different, that is in their lectic forms, in four different languages.  However, these words result in direct linguistic equivalence, even though in strictly communicative terms the Civilian would seek the subjective agreement of the wills in a given contractual arrangement, whilst the Common lawyer would seek the objective meetings of minds in the same contractual arrangement.  In any case, effective communication is reached, if one detects not only linguistic equivalence but also, more importantly, semiological equivalence, legal equivalence.  Comparative lawyers are accustomed to identifying these types of semiological equivalence in their operations, as they actively seek functional legal equivalents (based on the now well-established presumptio similitudinis).  Semiologically, though, that functional legal equivalence has to be communicated by linguistic legal equivalence but as Kahn-Freund reminds us that may not always be automatic an exercise.  As exemplified, homonyms should not be taken as legal/linguistic equivalents.  Synonyms might be helpful but they may not semiologically come with the same ideological or theoretical connotations.  Comparative law strives to detect those subtle differences.  Ontologically, therefore, comparative law is about communication. Comparative law is communication.

Contemporary Issues in Legal Education

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Liora ISRAEL (EHESS - Centre Maurice Halbwachs)
• Rachel VANNEUVILLE (Triangle - CNRS)

Thème / Subject Legal education

Mots-clé / Keywords Formation juridique - professionnels du droit - réformes des curricula - conscience du droit - internationalisation / Legal training - legal professions - curriculum reforms - legal counsciousness - internationalization

Description

Stories in The New York Times are devoted to a "law school" crisis in the U.S. In the meantime transformations are sweeping the field of legal education in France, and unprecedented reforms are being implemented in Japan that are reshaping legal training.  The subject of legal education has become a central topic of discussion and debate.  The investigation of law teaching, long reserved for professionals, needs to be addressed using social science methods. One objective of such studies should be to overcome the traditional dichotomy between papers based on the self-reflection of teachers, and those devoted more generally to criticism or reform proposals.

Recent studies based on the observation of law courses, especially those of E. Mertz, have shown how empirical approaches to legal education open new perspectives. We therefore propose to develop this theme in the RCSL, focusing on fieldwork and comparison (between educational institutions, among fields of law, and between countries and legal traditions).

This call papers seeks to focus on three avenues of research.

•  - First and foremost career opportunities, as they influence the reconfiguration of academic space. The issue of articulation of training with the "needs", real or perceived, of legal professions is at the core of the debate. What is the relationship between the "needs" and the "products" in legal training? How are new curricula conceived and modified? Who are the groups involved in the process, and what are their objectives?
•  - A second issue, related to the first, is that of globalization or internationalization of law. It raises the question of the transnationalization of contents and training. Who are the actors, vectors, with which models? To what extent the internationalization of students affects circulations of knowledge? Are we witnessing a growing hegemony of the U.S. model or the emergence of new centres of legal training in emerging countries?
• - A third issue involves the question of investigating the effects of legal training on lawyers and even non-lawyers who attend law classes. What are the effects of such training on the "legal consciousness" of students, especially when it comes to economic elites? How are the methods of legal education related to the professional and secular uses of law by law school graduates?

These questions, which also raise methodological and theoretical issues, are central in restoring the place of the study of legal education in the sociology of law.

Political Subversions and Contestations of the Trial "Form"

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Laure Blévis (ISP-CNRS-Université Paris Ouest)
• Deborah Puccio Den (GSPM-EHESS-CNRS)
• Violaine Roussel (Labtop-Université Paris 8 / ISP)

Thème / Subject The trial is analyzed here as a form, sometimes invested by various types of actors and mobilized groups in court, sometimes distorted through its uses in artistic performances or hybrid “conflict resolution” devices.

Mots-clé / Keywords Procès - Investissement de formes - Mobilisations - Usages du droit - Systèmes judiciaires Trial - Investment in forms - Mobilizations - Law in action - Judicial systems

Description

Political Subversions and Contestations of the Trial "Form" (Workshop - 3 sessions)

Recent works have explored the social uses of law and judicial action, especially on the part of legal and judicial professionals (judges, lawyers). They have drawn on the Anglo-American debates about « cause lawyers » and have contributed in a critical way to the analysis of judicial/legal mobilizations. Mobilizations for causes in court and their effects on the professionals at work in these contexts have been scrutinized. Nevertheless two dimensions have been a lot less investigated so far, and we would like to focus on them in the present workshop:

• 1. The judicial sphere is the place of a confrontation between professionals and other protagonists who work at shaping/framing the situation according to their own goals and interests. The trial is not only changed into a (series of) mobilization scene(s) – by activists, “victims” who fight for their own recognition etc. It is the place of tensions and conflicting framing activities. Such practices have often been associated with the movements of the 70s but should be decrypted in more recent contexts as well and in a comparative perspective. We would like to investigate the institutional, legal and political contexts within which such mobilizations occurred and became socially consequential.
• 2.  We would like to shed light on another type of use of the trial form, which consists in the importation and reproduction of the form (sometimes in a voluntarily distorted way) in an entirely different social configuration and space. We are thinking, for instance, of the artistic use of trials as a setting for public performances (installations, plays etc.), mimicking the role distribution proper to the trial, explicitly with a politically subversive intention (among many possible illustrations: the fake trials of G. Bush for his crimes in Iraq etc.). Other examples are the hybrid tools of conflict resolution, borrowing some elements to the form of the trial, which have been set up in some countries experiencing a “democratic transition.”

In both cases, we mean to question what such practices do to the form “trial,” how they model the public representations associated with it and the common perceptions of what one can do (or not) in such arenas. Both dimensions will be closely connected in this workshop’s discussions, and comparative perspectives are especially welcome.

The workshop will be organized in 3 sessions. Written papers sent beforehand to discussants will be presented by them and collectively discussed.

Version française : Contournements et contestations politiques de la forme ‘procès’

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Laure Blévis (ISP-CNRS-Université Paris Ouest)
• Deborah Puccio Den (GSPM-EHESS-CNRS)
• Violaine Roussel (Labtop-Université Paris 8 / ISP)

Thème / Subject Le procès est ici examiné en tant que forme, tantôt investie dans le cadre juridictionnel ordinaire par différentes catégories d’acteurs et de groupes mobilisés, tantôt détournée dans des performances artistiques ou à travers des dispositifs hybrides de résolution des conflits.

Mots-clé / Keywords Procès - Investissement de formes - Mobilisations - Usages du droit - Systèmes judiciaires / Trial - Investment in forms - Mobilizations - Law in action - Judicial systems

Description Contournements et contestations politiques de la forme ‘procès’  (atelier de 3 sessions)

Une série de travaux récents a exploré les usages sociaux du droit et de l’action juridictionnelle, tout particulièrement lorsque ceux-ci étaient le fait de professionnels du procès (magistrats, avocats). Ils ont pris acte des débats anglo-saxons autour du cause lawyering, et ont contribué de façon critique à l’analyse des mobilisations de juristes. Les questions de la défense de causes en justice et de ses effets en retour sur les professionnels en action ont été au cœur de ces recherches.

Néanmoins, il reste au moins deux dimensions qui nous semblent mériter que la discussion se poursuive, et que nous proposons de mettre au centre du présent atelier :

1) Il s’agit de la confrontation dans des espaces judiciaires entre des professionnels du procès, d’une part, et d’autres types de protagonistes qui entreprennent de modeler la situation conformément à leurs propres enjeux, d’autre part. Le procès n’est pas alors simplement transmué en scène-s de mobilisation (par des militants, tels que des faucheurs d’OGM etc., par des malades entendant mettre en cause des défaillances de santé publique ou d’autres « victimes » luttant pour être reconnues comme telles), il devient avant tout le lieu de tensions entre des cadrages différents (voire antagoniques). Ces activités, qui sont souvent associées aux luttes des années 70 (procès de groupes d’extrême gauche recourant à la violence, « juges rouges », etc), gagnent à être explorées également (et comparativement) dans des contextes et sur des terrains plus récents. Ces mobilisations et leurs effets sur la forme « procès » gagnent aussi à être questionnés en relation aux contextes institutionnels, juridiques et politiques plus larges dans lesquels ils prennent place.

2) On veut également placer ces usages du procès en regard d’un autre type de détournement, consistant à reproduire (plus ou moins fidèlement, et quelquefois de manière volontairement distendue) la forme du procès dans de tout autres contextes et espaces. C’est par exemple le cas dans les représentations artistiques (éventuellement satiriques) de certains procès, dans les « installations publiques » à visée politiquement subversive qui miment la distribution des rôles propre au procès à des fins de mobilisation (mise en procès fictive de G. Bush pour ses crimes etc), dans les expériences de formats hybrides de résolution de conflits politiques de certaines sociétés en transitions démocratiques ont pu connaître, etc.

Dans l’un comme l’autre cas, on interroge ce que ces pratiques font à la forme « procès », la manière dont elles modèlent les représentations publiques qui s’y attachent et les visions communes de ce qu’il est possible ou non de faire sur de telles « arènes ». Les deux dimensions seront étroitement articulées dans les discussions de cet atelier et les aspects comparatifs seront privilégiés.

L’atelier s’organisera en 3 sessions, au cours desquelles des présentations écrites transmises à l’avance sont présentées et discutées par des répondants.

Droit et action politique face aux conflits environnementaux / Rule of Law and Political Action Facing Environmental Conflicts

• Responsable(s) / Chair Ferdinando SPINA (Université du Salento, Italie)
• Thème /Subject Conflits Environnementaux / Environmental Conflicts
• Mots-clé / Keywords Conflits Environnementaux - Justice Environnementale - Droit de L’environnement - Mouvements Sociaux - Rôle des Juges / Environmental Conflicts - Environmental Justice - Environmental Governance - Social Movements - Role of the Courts

Description

Environmental conflicts are social phenomena that reflect the complexity of contemporary society and its climate of uncertainty. They involve public questions about human interaction with the natural environment and about the use of natural resources. Examples include disputes over protected area, the protective actions that are required to prevent the extinction of a species, the respect of tribal sovereignty, disputes related to pollution, facilities siting and so on. So, we are facing a list a là Borges, that is difficult to define, classify, compare.

Environmental conflicts are a challenge both to the sociology of law and to the political science. They convey the tension between “law on the books” and “law in action” showing the great influence of the political ideology and enforcement style expressed on the one hand by the government and on the other hand by the judges.

What are, at this point, the general strategies of the law and of political action to answer to this condition of uncertainty and anomie dealing with the environmental risks and conflicts?  How it is possible to deal with the "democratic dilemma" of our times, that is the tension between system effectiveness and citizen participation?

The aim of this workshop is to discuss about environmental conflicts through theoretical analysis and empirical researches in order to obtain a comparison between nation-states or different legal cultures and in order to advance alternative modes of regulation.

Law and the Social Construction of Uncertainty

• Responsable(s) / Chair Pierre Guibentif ISCTE-IUL (Lisbon) / Faculdade de Direito da Universidade Nova (Lisbon)
• Comité de recherche Études socio-juridiques - Sociologie du droit (CR03) de l’AISLF-Association internationale des sociologues de langue française
• Mots-clé / Keywords Incertain - Expérience - Évaluation - Risque - Conflit  / Uncertainty - Experience - Evaluation - Risk - Conflict

Description

This Workshop continues discussions started at the occasion of a workshop held by the CR03 in Rabat, July 2011, at the occasion of the 19th AISLF Congress, organized under the heading « Thinking Uncertainty » (for more details, visit http://w3.aislf.univ-tlse2.fr/cr3/index.htm ).

Let us remember the original justification of our topic :

Over centuries, one of the law’s main functions was to produce certainty. Sociology of law, since its early beginning, aimed at questioning legal certainties. To focus on “non-law” (“non-droit”), on the “uneffectiveness” of legal rules, on normative “pluralism”, a set of realities that the national legal systems were supposed to have definitely eliminated, indeed means to emphasize uncertainty.

Even entities involved in the production law had their doubts over legal certainties. Several issues currently under discussion are linked to the notion of uncertainty:

• – Are our certainties about the law well grounded? Today we question our faith in the efficacy of the legal tools. This is why we develop sophisticated mechanisms for the evaluation of the impact of legal rules.
• – To what extent can we trust the law? Legal tools are nowadays used in domains still poorly known, where the notions we have of ourselves and of the world we do belong to prove to be uncertain. Tackling these domains, jurists have to use the notion of risk, and to formulate new principles, such as the principle of subsidiarity and the precautionary principle.
• – Should we really maintain our certainties, and among them legal certainties? Shouldn’t we accept uncertainty? Remember the relevance of “soft law”, or, within the European Union, procedures like the “Open method of coordination”. Actually, we regret the rigitity created by “vested rights”. Isn’t law deemed to become “liquid” too, just as other “solid” modern realities?

Sociology of law, once a puzzled observer of legal certainties, now discovers with new motives of puzzlement a legal culture where uncertainty, under various new concepts, seems to become a category of crucial relevance.

We take the topic of the Toulouse Congress, “Law and Political Action”, as an invitation to elaborate on these reflections. Indeed, the three above formulated questions do acquire their full meaning when embedded in a political setting. The impact of legal rules is an issue because political actors are evaluated on the basis of the impacts of the legal rules they have enacted; by the citizenry, as well as by external entities in condition to assess State governments’ activities. Law is used in new domains as a result of forces emerging in the political arena. The potentialities of law are re-evaluated as compared to other tools of political action. Therefore, the explicit consideration of the political dimension enriches the discussion of our contemporary experience of uncertainty. Conversely, to emphasize the topic of uncertainty, on the basis of evidence gathered in the legal domain, is likely to benefit the discussion of the political reality. Indeed, uncertainty might be considered as inherent to every human agency and, precisely for this reason, its construction to be at stake in every social relationship, in particular in every relationship of conflict.

Version française :  Droit et construction sociale de l’incertain

• Responsable(s) / Chair Pierre Guibentif
• ISCTE-IUL (Lisbon) / Faculdade de Direito da Universidade Nova (Lisbon)
• Comité de recherche Études socio-juridiques - Sociologie du droit (CR03) de l’AISLF-Association internationale des sociologues de langue française
• Mots-clé / Keywords Incertain - Expérience - Évaluation - Risque - Conflit / Uncertainty - Experience - Evaluation - Risk - Conflict

Description

Ce Workshop s’inscrit dans la suite d’un atelier organisé par le CR03 en juillet 2012 à Rabat, dans le cadre du 19ème Congrès de l’AISLF, dont le thème général était « Penser l’incertain » (pour des précisions : http://w3.aislf.univ-tlse2.fr/cr3/index.htm ).

Rappelons la justification initiale de notre thème :

Une fonction du droit a longtemps été de produire des certitudes. La sociologie du droit, dès ses origines, s’efforce de remettre en question les certitudes juridiques. S’interroger sur le « non-droit », sur l’« ineffectivité » des lois, sur le « pluralisme » des normes auquel prétendaient mettre fin les ordres juridiques nationaux, c’est bien mettre en évidence l’incertain.

Les doutes quant aux certitudes juridiques n’ont pas manqué de rejoindre les instances de production juridique elles-mêmes. Beaucoup des préoccupations qui s’y affirment aujourd’hui renvoient en effet à la notion d’incertain :

• –  Nos certitudes quant au droit sont-elles fondées ? La foi en l’efficacité de l’instrument juridique est remise en question, d’où la mise en place de mécanismes très élaborés d’évaluation de l’impact des lois.
• – Jusqu’où peuvent aller ces certitudes ? L’instrument juridique est aujourd’hui mobilisé dans des domaines encore mal connus, où l’expérience que nous avons de nous-mêmes et du monde auquel nous appartenons se révèle incertaine. À l’approche de ces domaines, les juristes doivent faire intervenir la notion de risque ; élaborer de nouveaux principes, tels les principes de subsidiarité ou de précaution.
• – Faut-il vraiment cultiver les certitudes, notamment juridiques ? Ne faudrait-il pas accepter l’incertain ? Pensons au soft law, ou encore, dans le cadre européen, à des dispositifs tels la « méthode ouverte de coordination ». Par ailleurs, on s’inquiète de la rigidité des « droits acquis », trop « certains ». Le droit n’est-il pas voué, lui aussi, à devenir « liquide » ?

La sociologie du droit, naguère observatrice perplexe des certitudes juridiques, découvre avec une nouvelle perplexité une culture juridique dans laquelle l’incertain, sous des concepts divers, semble être devenu une catégorie de première importance.

Nous comprenons le thème du congrès de Toulouse, « Droit et action politique » comme une invitation à approfondir nos réflexions. Les trois questionnements évoqués, en effet, prennent tout leur sens lorsque resitués dans un contexte politique. Les effets du droit font problème parce que les acteurs politiques sont jugés sur l’impact des lois qu’ils ont voulues, par les citoyens, mais aussi par les instances externes en mesure d’évaluer les gouvernements. Le droit est étendu vers des nouveaux domaines par l’action de forces qui se forment dans les arènes politiques. Les virtualités du droit sont réévaluées par comparaison avec d’autres outils de l’action politique. La prise en compte explicite de la dimension politique enrichit donc la réflexion sur notre expérience actuelle l’incertain. Inversement, la mise en valeur du thème de l’incertain, traité par le moyen d’observations recueillies dans le domaine juridique, pourrait bien bénéficier à la pensée du politique. L’incertain n’est-il pas inhérent à tout agir, et, pour cette raison même, sa construction un enjeu dans des rapports sociaux conflictuels ?

Between the Social and the Judicial: Tension, Absorption or Cooperation?

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Emmanuelle Bernheim (Université du Québec à Montréal)
• Pierre Noreau (Centre de Recherche en Droit Public - Université de Montréal)

Thème / Subject Judiciarisation du social et adaptation institutionnelle

Mots-clé / Keywords Judiciarisation - juridicisation - expertise - juridictions spécialisées

Description

The growing role of justice in regulation of social relations and problems seems today to be an everyday, if not generalized, phenomenon, the symptom of a transfer of power from the political arena to the courts. (Commaille, 2010a; Commaille and Dumoulin, 2009; Kalunszynski, 2006). Recourse to law and the courts to solve social problems is presented as a panacea, the “rights revolution” characterizing a civil society that is both dynamic and mobilized. (Commaille, 2010b) 

In so far as the courts have to defend and protect individuals (Martinez, 2003) while assessing their needs and abilities in light of economic and social hazards and constraints (Ost, 2007), the structural and functional discrepancy between the institution and its new “mission” is constantly evolving. (Noreau, 2010; 1998) We seem thus to be observing an adaptation trend with three stages that are both overlapping and inter-related: (1) the opening; (2) judicialization; and, through repeated rebalancing, (3) resocialization of law and judicial practices.

These three stages are linked in the following way: (1) first, the opening of the institution to realities that had until then been overlooked by judicial practices, which is a result of courts' attempts to adapt to the specific realities of certain sectors of social activity; (2) then, by extension, the judicialization of these realities, which supposes redescribing in legal terms realities that used to escape law; and (3) in response to the institution's difficulties in adapting, the resocialization of law and judicial practices through the establishment of new procedures and practices: creation of specialized tribunals, recourse to different forms of conciliation, systematic intervention of new practitioners at every stage in the legal system, etc.

Bibliography

• COMMAILLE, J., a) “La juridicisation du politique. Entre réalité et connaissance de la réalité,” in COMMAILLE, J., DUMOULIN, L. and ROBERT, C. La juridicisation du politique – Leçons scientifiques, (Paris: LGDJ, 2010), p.
• COMMAILLE, J., b) “La justice et les transformations des sociétés contemporaines. Quelles politiques de justice?,” in Pierre NOREAU, Révolutionner la justice – Constats, mutations et perspectives, (Montréal: Thémis, 2010), p.
• COMMAILLE, J. and DUMOULIN, L., “Heurs et malheurs de la légalité dans les sociétés contemporaines. Une sociologie politique de la "judiciarisation",” L’Année sociologique 59, 1, 2009, p.
• KALUSZYNSKI, M., La judiciarisation de la société et du politique, speech given at the Association Internationale de l’Assurance de Protection Juridique Colloquium, Paris, 2006.
• PECES-BARBAS MARTINEZ, G, Théorie générale des droits fondamentaux, (Paris: LGDJ, 2003).
• NOREAU, P., “Accès à la justice et démocratie en panne: constats, analyses et projections,” in Pierre NOREAU, Révolutionner la justice – Constats, mutations et perspectives, (Montréal: Thémis, 2010), p.
• NOREAU, P., “La superposition des conflits : limites de l’institution judiciaire comme espace de résolution,” Droit et société 40, 1998, p.
• OST, F., Dire le droit, faire justice, (Brussels: Bruylant, 2007).

Version française : Entre le social et le judiciaire : tension, absorption ou coopération ?

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Emmanuelle Bernheim (Université du Québec à Montréal)
• Pierre Noreau (Centre de Recherche en Droit Public - Université de Montréal)

Thème / Subject Judiciarisation du social et adaptation institutionnelle

Mots-clé / Keywords Judiciarisation - juridicisation - expertise - juridictions spécialisées

Description

Le rôle croissant de la justice dans la régulation des rapports et des problèmes sociaux apparaît aujourd’hui comme un phénomène courant, sinon généralisé, symptôme d'un transfert de pouvoir du politique vers le judiciaire. Le recours au droit et aux tribunaux pour régler les problèmes sociaux est présenté comme une panacée, la « révolution des droits » caractérisant une société civile à la fois dynamique et mobilisée.

Dans la mesure où les tribunaux doivent défendre et protéger les individus tout en appréciant leurs besoins et leurs aptitudes à la lumière des aléas et des contraintes économiques et sociales, le décalage structurel et fonctionnel entre l'institution et sa nouvelle « mission » évolue de façon continue. On observerait ainsi un mouvement d'adaptation en trois temps à la fois superposés et interreliés: 1- la réception; 2- la juridicisation; et, par voie de rééquilibres successifs, 3- la resocialisation du droit et de la pratique judiciaire.

Ces trois temps s'articulent de la manière suivante:

• 1-D'abord la réception par l'institution à des réalités jusque-là ignorées par la pratique judiciaire, issue de la tentative des tribunaux de s’adapter aux réalités spécifiques de certains secteur de l’activité sociale. L’avortement est-il un crime, l’organe transplanté est-il un bien meuble, l’errance des sans-abris est-elle une forme de vagabondage, les toxicomanes sont-ils aptes à subir un procès ? L’institution judiciaire se trouve ainsi par défaut à gérer tous les problèmes que lui cèdent les autres institutions.
• 2-Puis, par voie d’extension la juridicisation de ces réalités, qui suppose la requalification de faits qui échappaient jusque-là au droit. On traite ici de l’incompatibilité des catégories juridiques avec ces réalités nouvelles et changeantes, mais surtout de l’extension du sens de certains concepts juridiques fourre-tout ou susceptible de connaître une nouvelle définition juridique, sociale, ou jurisprudentielle. C’est souvent ici qu’intervient l’expert, passeur entre le social et le juge et arbitre implicite des situations.
• 3-Finalement, en réponse aux difficultés d'adaptation de l'institution, la resocialisation du droit et de la pratique judiciaire par la mise en place de procédures et de pratiques nouvelles : constitution d’instances spécialisées, recours aux différentes formes de la conciliation, intervention systématique de nouveaux professionnels tout au long de la trajectoire judicaire, etc.

Lors de ce workshop, ces trois thèmes feront l’objet de trois temps de discussion successifs, traités selon des perspectives théorique ou empirique, selon la nature des propositions soumises.

Environment and the Law: Popular Struggles, Popular Epidemiology and Other Forms of Resistance "From Below" in Worldwide Areas at Risk

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Pietro Saitta (University of Messina)
• Ilaria Lazzerini (University of Milan)

Thème /Subject The theme of the workshop concerns the relation between environment and populations in areas at risk. It aims at exploring how lay-actors’ reactions to environmental manipulation attempted by states and corporations challenge the law, the policies concerning the development of the areas, the notion of general interest, etc. The workshop, then, is interested in shedding light on the interplay, the techniques and the effects of the struggles for environment and development.

Mots-clé / Keywords Environment - Movements - Resistance - Methods - Risk / Environnement - Mouvements - Résistance - Méthodes - Risque

Description

Environment is at the center of struggles taking place in a number of different countries and for different reasons, connected, for instance, to the effects of industrialization on public health or the land. Often, the discovery of significant epidemiological rates related to the presence of industrial plants produces forms of reaction among the population of polluted areas. Such reactions generate a need for responses that involve courts, the law and experts, and produce a subsequent cycle of uncertainty. When different and contradictory interests are at stake (especially those related to labor and the economy of the areas), populations can become divided and the communities’ perspectives about themselves are thus severely affected. Likewise, the planning of mega-infrastructures (bridges, tunnels, highways, and so forth) is often opposed by the inhabitants of the territories where these projects are to be implemented. Again, in most cases, locals argue, for example, that the infrastructures will affect the environment, or the health conditions of the communities. Often, they also oppose a certain use of the land, the commodification of natural resources, and the decisional process leading to institutional choices. In other cases, land is eroded for construction purposes. Urban sprawling, for example, causes the corrosion of increasing parts of the territory, and housing is at the center of speculative games involving politicians and other decision-makers. As a consequence, the land becomes fragile, and landslides and other similar phenomena are frequent occurrences for many populations across the world. Catastrophic events, then, determine periodical  insecurity, and a complex game of reciprocal accusations between citizens, constructors and authorities concerning the responsibility for these tragic events.

All in all, such examples show that the natural environment has become the field where a number of different struggles are conducted. It is, in fact, the space where positivist visions of science are frequently shut down, either as a result of the practical impossibility of ascertaining in a definitive way the correlations between pollutants and diseases, or due to the strategic interactions of the experts – whose task consists of providing different reconstructions of reality in accordance with the interests they represent. Even so, the natural environment is a new frontier of citizenship – a space where top-down decision-making processes are opposed, and the citizens claim their right to decide about the destiny? of the land where they live. In other cases, the environment is mostly a strategic resource that different actors use for private purposes and try to appropriate, generating unexpected consequences.

In all of these cases, the traditional role of law and politics, which consists of reducing complexity, making choices in accordance with general interest and producing truths, is placed in a situation of crisis.

For the present workshop, therefore, research studies that inquire into the nature of environmental struggles, and show how they challenge the law and politics are to be encouraged. In particular, postcolonial reflections on the relations between space, “development” and the law are welcomed. Finally, the workshop is open to any kind of method, but it especially favours qualitative and ethnographic investigations on the subject.

Espaces de Justice et Architecture Judiciaire : une question d’action politique ? / Spaces of Justice and Courthouse Architecture: A Matter of Political Action?

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Patrícia BRANCO (Centro de Estudos Sociais, Univ. Coimbra, Portugal)
• Paula CASALEIRO (Centro de Estudos Sociais, Univ. Coimbra, Portugal)

Thème / Subject Courthouse architecture, spaces of justice, access to law and justice, judicial institution

Mots-clé / Keywords Justice - Architecture - Accès - Communication - Legitimité / Justice - Architecture - Access - Communication - Legitimacy

Description

The architectural evolution of courts - from Roman times and roman fora, passing by the tree of justice in the medieval period, whose shadow would host the king-Judge; from church halls to taverns and town halls; from the neoclassical, greek and gothic revival temple/palace of justice to the fascist apparatus of the dictatorships (as was the Portuguese case), and leading to the new construction projects taking place - responded historically to the gradual empowerment of the judicial function, the imposition of new professions (architects and lawyers), changes in the trial process and last, but not the least, the political, juridical and economic power of each period.

The aesthetic dimensions of the courthouse, far from being a-political and incidental, actually ensure the strength and force of an institutional order (Haldar, 1994). Thus, through the medium of architecture, the building reveals much about prevailing notions of the relationship between the State, law, lawyers and legal subjects (Mulcahy, 2008). Or, in other words, how and what law means is influenced by where it means (Manderson, 2005), which also makes the cartography and the territorialization of justice so important and a debatable subject in several countries. And still… the theme of courthouse architecture is still regarded as something vague or abstract and few researches have devoted attention to it.

It is, thus, important to consider what kind of spaces will be fit to serve communication, legitimacy and accessibility to law and justice in the 21st century. This means reflecting about courts as spaces that legitimize political action; as spaces that legitimize legal culture(s) and the judiciary; as spaces dependent of current architectural tendencies; as spaces of professional affirmation and as workspaces; spaces of civic and social mediation of the individual with the community and as spaces that serve to compensate (or aggravate?) social inequalities; as spaces of vulnerability and spaces of (in)accessibilities; and as spaces of technology. Therefore, several questions arise: What is the relationship between the material representations of justice and the enactment of justice in diverse legal systems and settings? Can the courthouses’ space(s) (their architectural, symbolic, organizational space) contribute towards the effectiveness of law and justice? Are glass and technology the markers of an iconography for democratic adjudication? Or have architecture, decoration and imagery turned into silent abstractions? And what are the tensions behind all these processes? What kind of political action is envisaged or needed?

This workshop welcomes submissions from multiple positions and points of view, seeking to analyze from an interdisciplinary point of view a series of problems related with the subject of justice’s institutions, the evolution and history of courts and courthouse architecture, law and aesthetics, justice’s iconography and other related issues, having in mind that all these matters have to viewed in articulation with a political action perspective.

Version française : Spaces of Justice and Courthouse Architecture: a matter of political action?

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Patrícia BRANCO (Centro de Estudos Sociais, Univ. Coimbra, Portugal)
• Paula CASALEIRO (Centro de Estudos Sociais, Univ. Coimbra, Portugal)

Thème / Subject Courthouse architecture, spaces of justice, access to law and justice, judicial institution

Mots-clé / Keywords Justice - Architecture - Accès - Communication - Legitimité / Justice - Architecture - Access - Communication - Legitimacy

Description

L'évolution architecturale des tribunaux - de l'époque romaine et des fora romains, en passant par l'arbre de la justice de la période médiévale, dont l'ombre accueillit le roi-juge; des salles paroissiales aux tavernes et aux mairies; de la renaissance néoclassique, du revivalisme grecque et gothique du temple/ «Palais de justice» à l'appareil fasciste des dictatures (comme ce fut le cas du Portugal), et jusqu’ aux nouveaux projets contemporains - a répondu historiquement à l'autonomisation progressive de la fonction judiciaire, à l'imposition de nouvelles professions (architectes et avocats), aux changements dans le déroulement du procès et, finalement, a fait système avec les pouvoirs politique, juridique et économique de chaque période.

 Les dimensions esthétiques du palais de justice, loin d'être a-politiques et incidentes, garantissent effectivement la puissance et la force d’un ordre institutionnel (Haldar, 1994). Ainsi, par l'intermédiation de l'architecture, les bâtiments révèlent beaucoup sur les notions dominantes à propos de la relation entre l'Etat, le droit, les juristes et les sujets de droit (Mulcahy, 2008). Ou, autrement dit, le comment et le quoi du droit sont influencés par son où (Manderson, 2005), ce qui rend la cartographie et la territorialisation de la justice si importantes et font de celles-ci un sujet à forte valeur heuristique pour nombre de pays. Et pourtant,  le thème de l'architecture de justice est toujours considéré comme quelque chose de vague ou d’abstrait et peu de recherches y sont consacrées.

Pourtant, ce type de réflexions constitue un préalable indispensable pour penser les espaces susceptibles de favoriser la communication et l'accès au droit et à la justice du 21ème siècle et, par conséquent, de renforcer leur légitimité. Il convient donc d’approfondir la réflexion sur les tribunaux dans la mesure où : ceux-ci participent du processus de légitimation de ces derniers et contribuent à construire les représentations sociales  de la ou des culture(s) juridique(s) et du pouvoir judiciaire; dans la mesure encore où la conception de ces espaces dépend des tendances architecturales actuelles. Concrètement, les espaces de justice sont tout à la fois des espaces d'affirmation professionnelle en même temps que des espaces de travail et d’usages de technologie. Ils sont aussi des espaces de médiation sociale et civique entre les individus et la communauté et des espaces qui servent à compenser (ou aggraver?) les inégalités sociales, à renforcer ou à atténuer les situations de e vulnérabilité et d’(in)accessibilités.

A partir de tels constats surgissent logiquement des questions: Quelle est la relation entre les représentations matérielles et la performativité de la justice dans divers systèmes juridiques et différents lieux? Dans quelle mesure l'espace du « Palais de justice » (son architecture, la symbolique qu’il porte, l’espace organisationnel qu’il constitue) contribue-t-il à l'efficacité du droit et de la justice ? Les usages du  le verre et de la technologie peuvent-ils être les surligneurs d'une iconographie visant à consacrer une justice démocratique? Ou, au contraire,  l’architecture, la décoration et l'iconographie se sont-elles  transformées en abstractions silencieuses et sans autre signification qu’esthétique ? Quelles sont les tensions à l’œuvre au sein même de  tous ces processus? Quel type d’action politique est-elle sous-jacente à tout cela et avec quelles finalités?

 Cet atelier est conçu de telle façon qu’il puisse accueillir des approches et des point s de vue différents, complémentaires ou opposés, permettant d’ analyser, à partir d'un regard interdisciplinaire et indissociable de sa dimension politique, une série de questions liées au thème des institutions de la justice, de l'évolution et de l'histoire des tribunaux/ «Palais de justic » et de l'architecture de justice, du droit et de l'esthétique, de l'iconographie de justice et autres questions connexes.

RCSL - Working Group : Comparative Studies of Legal Professions

Subgroup : Legal Education

• Exploring Legal Education
• Responsable(s) / Chair Fiona COWNIE (Keele University)
• Mots-clé / Keywords Education du droit - les profs du droit - femmes dans l’academie du droit / Legal education - legal academics - women in the law school

Description

This session will focus on the broad field of legal education, looking at the changing nature of the legal professions and assessing what impact this will have on the nature of legal education as a whole.  Arguments about the nature of liberal education and the role that it plays in the university and its law school will be examined.

The session will also explore the position of women in the legal academy, both in contemporary instiutions of higher education and by looking at the historical position of female academics in the legal academy. It will draw on two research projects currently being conducted (on contemporary legal academics in Germany and on the historical position of female legal academics in the U.K.) to explore the issues still surrounding the acceptance of women into the legal academy, analysing the theories which might help us understand both their position and the strategies they might utilise to deal with any difficulties they encounter. Issues such as ‘cultural capital’, ‘the performance of self’, the role of mentors/sponsors and so on will be examined, in an attempt to introduce new thinking to contemporary debates about the position of female academics within the legal accademy. 

Subgroup : Family, Policy and the Law

Responsable(s) / Chair 

• Mavis Maclean (Oxford University)
• Benoit Bastard (Institut des sciences sociales du politique, ENS de Cachan)

Thème /Subject Le thème de la conférence correspond aux intérêts de notre groupe qui soutient les recherches comparatives sur les pratiques professionnelles et les politiques dans le champ de la famille. Nous serons d'accueillir toute proposition de communication. / The Conference theme "Sociology of Law and Political Action" fits well with our interest in comparative research on professionals, Family Law and Family Policy. We invite you to send to us your proposal for a paper.

Mots-clé / Keywords Familles / Politiques familiales / Professionnels de la famille / Divorce et après-divorce / Intervention sociale // Family / Family policies / Family lawyers / Divorce and post-divorce / Welfare intervention

RCSL - Working Group :  Gender and Law

Gender Renewal(s)?

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Barbara Giovanna Bello (University Statale of Milano)
• Alexandrine Guyard-Nedelec (Université de Cergy-Pontoise)

Mots-clé / Keywords Genre - théories féministes du droit - intersectionnalité / Gender - feminist legal theory - intersectionality 

Description

Taking as a starting point the transformations of the nature, role, and place of law today, the objective of this workshop is to foster and promote debate on their gender implications. Therefore, and so as to conform with the main topic of the congress, papers strengthening the connections between law and politics and their gender consequences will be given preference. As an example, sociologists of law probably know better than most that the impact of the Arab revolutions on women gives a striking example of the interconnections that may exist between politics, law and women’s experience and highlights the ambivalence of political and legal changes when looked at through the gender lens.

As this session will also symbolize the relaunch and a form of renewal for the Gender and Law WG, we would also like to set it up as an opportunity to map the body of knowledge and new or updated approaches to gender which are coming into being (e.g. intersectionality, globalization, transnationalism, super-diversity, etc.) and which may help reshape the WG for the coming years.

Short bibliography

• Collins, P.H., 2010. Toward a New Vision: Race, Gender and Class as Categories of Analysis and Connection. Spade, J.Z. & Valentine, C.G. (Eds.), The Kaleidoscope of Gender. Prisms, Patterns, and Possibilities. 3rd Edition, Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, pp. 69-75.
• Crenshaw, K.W., 1991. Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Colour. Stanford Law Review, 43, 6, pp. 1241-1299.
• Fraser, N., 2010. Injustice at Intersecting Scales: On “Social Exclusion” and the “Global Poor”. European Journal of Social Theory, 13, 3, pp. 363–371.
• Lutz, H., Herrera Vivar, M.T. & Supik, L. (Eds.), 2011. Debates on a Multi-Faceted Concept in Gender Studies, London: Ashgate
• Sen, A., 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Vertovec, S., 2009.  Transnationalism.  London & New York: Routledge.

RCSL - Working Group  : Social and Legal Systems

Hidden Structures of the Law and the Role of the Politics

Responsable(s) / Chair Germano SCHWARTZ (Unilasalle, FADERGS, FSG)

Mots-clé / Keywords Politics - Law - Hiddens Structures - Social System - Law-making

Description

The purpose of this session is to propose a debate about the role of the politics in what Podgorecki used to denominate as the hiddens structures of the Law. In this sense three points are the focus of the discussion : (a) Is Politics still a major factor in the law-making and so in the effectiveness of the Law ? (b) How can we understand the development of the Law in a multidimensional society with (or without) the political action ? (c) The interconnections between Law and Politics are still based on the modern notion of State-Modern or is it necessary to search for another – complexity – alternative ? 

Innovations politiques de gouvernance territoriale et démocratie locale

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Laure ORTIZ (LaSSP - Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Toulouse)
• Philippe RAIMBAULT (LaSSP - Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Toulouse)

Thème / Subject Sociographie juridique des innovations politiques dans la gouvernance des territoires et la démocratie locale

Mots-clé / Keywords Citoyenneté - démocratie - gouvernance - territoire - innovation / Citizenship - democracy - governance - territory - innovation

Description

Le Workshop se propose d’explorer les relations entre Sociologie du Droit et Action Politique à travers une sociographie juridique des innovations politiques dans la gouvernance des territoires  et la démocratie locale.

Deux axes sont privilégiés autour desquels pourront être organisées deux tables rondes :

• -« Nouveaux  modèles de gouvernement local, cultures territoriales  et démocratie locale » : réflexion sur la manière dont le droit y est convoqué,  instrumentalisé,  inventé, recréé dans les changements, mouvements et expérimentations qui entrainent ou manifestent un renversement paradigmatique du droit de l’action publique.
• -« Reinventer la démocratie locale, démocratiser le gouvernement local » : sociographie des innovations tendant d’une part à promouvoir le pluralisme, pluriculturalisme, dynamique différenciée des territoires et d’autre part à promouvoir la représentation et la participation at a grassroots level governance .

Concernant le premier axe, le lieu et le moment du  Congrès seront propices à un retour sur la place du droit dans les métamorphoses de la gouvernance territoriale, puisqu’à l’automne 2013, en France, la réforme territoriale battra son plein.  Les controverses que suscite « l’Acte III de la décentralisation » sont révélateurs des mouvements telluriques qui ébranlent le modèle d’Etat unitaire (pression à la différenciation ou hiérarchisation des territoires, etc).  Ils sont aussi révélateurs de la force des représentations juridiques dans les mobilisations politiques et projets de territoires. Le droit se révèle comme ressource et contrainte forte dans l’argumentation (ex.  « réformer à droit constitutionnel constant »). Un peu partout dans le monde les réformes territoriales sont un mélange de compromis nationaux précaires et de standards internationaux - managériaux ou démocratiques – en faveur de la décentralisation. Elles oscillent, presque partout, entre affirmation du statut politique de l’institution locale et son instrumentalisation comme rouage de l’administration étatique. Cependant, d’équivoques en ruptures, se produisent des révolutions épistémologiques, plus ou moins discrètes. Quelles révolutions ? Quels en sont les acteurs, les déterminants ? Quelle place faire aux juges ? « Politisation versus fonctionnalisation » ; « Différenciation versus uniformité » ; « Autonomie versus solidarité » ; « Régionalisation versus décentralisation » ; « Hiérarchisation versus spécialisation » : ces pôles opposés entre lesquels se déchirent les projets de territoire  sont des tensions contradictoires déjà à l’œuvre dans le droit existant.  Qu’est-ce qu’une rupture épistémologique en droit quand il y a si peu de consensus sur la  nature de l’objet dont on parle ?  Comment se concrétisent ces ruptures ?

Concernant le deuxième axe, les administrations territoriales et gouvernements locaux sont, partout dans le monde, les pouvoirs qui ont connu les transformations juridiques les plus profondes au cours des trente dernières années. Aujourd’hui, de plus c’est la capacité d’innovation juridique en matière de gestion publique dont témoignent les sociétés locales, les citoyens et communautés d’habitants qui retient l’attention. Le « local » est devenu un terrain d’expérimentation politique et juridique de nouveaux droits et de renouvellement de l’exercice des pouvoirs dont nous voulons rendre compte.

Le workshop est ouvert à tous les chercheur.es s’intéressant à la thématique. Les contributions seront présentées synthétiquement et discutées dans les tables rondes qui  réuniront  chercheurs, élus, dirigeants de collectivités territoriales, magistrats, préfets…

Interculturality and Multiculturalism

Responsable(s) / Chair Gilles FERREOL (C3S Culture, Sport, Santé, Société, EA 4660, Université de Franche-Comté)

Thème / Subject INTERCULTURALITY AND MULTICULTURALISM. Conceptual approaches and case studies (with comparisons of European and North American models)

Mots-clé / Keywords Interculturalité - Multiculturalisme - Lien social - Intégration - Altérité / Interculturality - Multiculturalism - Social nexus - Integration - Alterity

Description

In contemporary debate, an important place is reserved for the problematics of cultural relativism and measures of positive discrimination. This workshop proposes to illuminate—from an angle both philosophic and socio-historic—these discussions, notably those addressing communitarianism, the right to difference, and political recognition.

The ascent of the phenomenon of disaffiliation or segregation must be repositioned in a context marked by reconsideration of the welfare state and the breakdown of social relationships. If there are many subjects of contention—let’s think about giving the right to vote and eligibility to  foreigners, about procedures for asylum and conditions of granting nationality in the country of residence, or about the even more recent debates surrounding the memory of slavery or the Contrats d’accueil familial (civics and language requirements for new arrivals)—the spectrum of positions is the widest, moving from stigmatization to cosmopolitanism, from nostalgia to acrimony, from victimization to recognition. In these conditons, a challenge is sent to lawmakers: finding a balance between respect of the rights of individuals and collective modes of expression, such that the former remains intact.

The time is now for transformations and recompositions, reparations and interrelations with, in the background, the rise in power of fundamentalism and tribalism, the question previously formulated by Isaïa Berlin (how to reconcile the “legacy of the Enlightenment”  with the “pluralism of norms and values”) being today more relevant than ever.

Conceptual approaches and case studies (with comparisons of European and North American models) are welcomed.

Version française : Interculturalité et Multiculturalisme

• Responsable(s) / Chair Gilles FERREOL (C3S Culture, Sport, Santé, Société, EA 4660, Université de Franche-Comté)
• Thème / Subject INTERCULTURALITE ET MULTICULTURALISME. Approches conceptuelles et études de cas (avec des comparaisons des modèles européen et nord-américain)
• Mots-clé / Keywords Interculturalité - Multiculturalisme - Lien social - Intégration - Altérité / Interculturality - Multiculturalism - Social nexus - Integration - Alterity

Description

Dans les débats contemporains, une place importante est réservée à la problématique du relativisme culturel et aux mesures de discrimination positive. Cet atelier se propose d’éclairer, sous un angle à la fois philosophique et socio-historique, ces discussions, notamment celles ayant trait au communautarisme, au droit à la différence et aux politique de reconnaissance.

La montée des phénomènes de désaffiliation ou de ségrégation doit être ici replacée dans un contexte marqué par la remise en cause de l’Etat-providence et la déstructuration des rapports sociaux. Si les sujets de discorde ne manquent pas (songeons à l’octroi du droit de vote et d’éligibilité aux étrangers, aux procédures d’asile et aux conditions d’octroi de la nationalité du pays de résidence ou bien encore aux récents débats sur la mémoire de l’esclavage ou la réception des contrats d’accueil familial), le spectre des positionnements est des plus vastes, allant de la stigmatisation au cosmopolitisme, de la nostalgie à l’acrimonie, de la victimisation à la reconnaissance. Dans ces conditions, un défi est lancé au législateur : comment trouver un équilibre entre le respect des droits des individus et les modes d’expression collective, sans que ceux-ci n’annihilent les premiers ?

L’heure est désormais aux « mutations » et aux « recompositions », aux « bricolages » et aux « métissages » avec, en toile de fond, la montée en puissance de « intégrismes » et des « tribalismes », l’interrogation jadis formulée pat Isaïa Berlin (comment conciler le « legs des Lumières » avec le « pluralisme des normes et des valeurs » ?) étant plus que jamais d’actualité.

Approches conceptuelles et études de cas (avec des comparaisons des modèles européen et nord-américain) seront les bienvenues.

RCSL - Working Group : Comparative Studies of Legal Professions

Subgroup : Judiciary

Judicial Cultures

Responsable(s) / Chair Tony BRADNEY (Keele University, UK)

Thème /Subject The Judiciary

Mots-clé / Keywords Judiciary - Culture - Education - History / Système judiciaire - Culture - Education - Histoire

Description

This session will look at the broad theme of judicial studies in a comparative context.

The session will look at how the judiciary are educated and trained. It will assess the notion of judicial culture. It will look at how judicial cultures vary in in different jurisdictions. It will look at how the judiciary relate both to other legal professsionals and to those outsuide the legal system. Finally the session will look at the history of the judiciary.

Judiciarisation et régulation publique du religieux / Judicialization and Public Regulation of Religion

Responsable(s) /Chair 

• Claire de Galembert (Institut des Sciences Sociales du Politiques - ENS de Cachan)
• Matthias Koenig (Université de Goettingen)

Mots-clé / Keywords

• - Judiciarisation / Judicial politics
• - Droit et diversité religieuse
• - Régulation juridique et politique du religieux
• - Politique publique du religieux
• - Droit et religion

Description

Contemporary European societies have witnessed an unprecedented increase in controversies over public religion, including contestations over places of worship, the presence of religious symbols of public spaces, equal recognition of religious communities, provisions on religious dress, ritual slaughter, religious practices at the workplace, proselytism, and religious family law. National as well as supranational or international courts (ECJ, ECtHR) seem to have become major arenas in the struggle over the place of religion in the public and private spheres and, not least, over various forms of religious discrimination. While this trend has been rather novel and, thus, remarkable in Europe, it has much broader, indeed global reach as evinced by a long-standing religious litigation and jurisprudence in North America and related developments in Israel, India and other regions.

This workshop is aimed to bring together empirical studies on the judicialization of conflicts over religious recognition in Europe and to analyze major conditions, forms, and consequences of this phenomenon. Indeed, judicial politics of public religion provide an important analytical perspective on normative uncertainties induced by the revitalization of religious identities and by increased religious pluralization. However, the same phenomenon also provides insights into broader transformations in the governance of modern societies – rearrangements of private and public sphere, the rise to power of judiciaries, legal transnationalization etc. – which taken together challenge nation-states’ former monopoly in the production of law.

Contributions to this workshop could address the following set of questions:

• 1-Who are the actors in the judicialization of public religion and what happens when religious conflicts are brought before legal courts? Answering these questions requires addressing legal and political opportunity structures, actors’ cognitive and normative frames, their organizational and material resources, as well as the role of religious experts and legal professionals who help transform a given conflict into a legal issue. To what extent do these actors profit from the global cultural diffusion of human rights vocabularies and from the legal mechanisms of implementation? How does addressing the legal arena figure among actors’ repertoires of contestation and how does it relate to alternative options of conflict resolution? Who are the winners and losers of the judicialization of religious recognition? Put differently: does judicialization affect religious and secular groups, religious majorities or minorities, established or new religious differently?
• 2-To what extent are the courts autonomous actors in the transformation of state policies toward religion? Academic debates on judicialization suggest different hypotheses ranging from a full-fledged autonomy of the legal field to the full-fledged subordination of court to political elite interests. To estimate the degree of courts’ autonomy and how it relates to their implicit or explicit secularist agendas, it is helpful to analyze the outcomes of legal controversies as evinced in case-law and jurisprudence on religious freedom and non-discrimination. However, it is without any doubt even more helpful to open the black box of judicial decision-making by scrutinizing the conditions and sequences of the decision-making process as well as the role of intervening actors such as experts and professionals how participate in the production of law. Situating jurisdictional tribunals within the legal field requires in particular paying attention to what happens before and after legal decisions. This also implies considering the implementation of judicial decisions as well as their potential social and political impact, including interventions of the legislator that may amount to a full-scale backlash as in the cases of the German crucifix, Swiss minaret, or French veil episodes. Also of interest in this context is to consider the degree to which the process of legislation occurs in the shadow of constitutional or international law and thus takes into account the risks of potential litigation.
• 3-To what extent does the internationalization of judicial power challenge national models of regulating religion? The rise to power of judicial tribunals is intricately linked to the global cultural diffusion of human rights vocabularies, constitutionalism, and rule of law ideas. The emergence of supranational and international forums protecting fundamental rights raises the question how different levels of jurisdiction affect the governance of religious diversity. In particular, it calls for analyses how these various levels are related in terms of resources and constraints experienced by the actors involved in struggles over religious recognition (judges, lawyers, religious activists etc.). A crucial question is whether supranational and international tribunals tend to develop new normative standards vis-à-vis nation-states or whether, as the famous Lautsi II decision seems to suggest, they ultimately depend on states’ political prerogatives.

This list of question, though certainly not comprehensive, is meant to stimulate contributions that connect insights from law and society studies with ongoing debates over the contours and challenge of secularism in liberal democracies. Contributors are thus invited to address these or other questions that are thematically related to the overall concerns articulated above.

Version française : Judiciarisation et régulation publique du religieux / Judicialization and the public regulation of religion

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Claire de Galembert (Institut des Sciences Sociales du Politiques - ENS de Cachan)
• Matthias Koenig (Université de Goettingen)

Mots-clé / Keywords

• - Judiciarisation / Judicial politics
• - Droit et diversité religieuse
• - Régulation juridique et politique du religieux
• - Politique publique du religieux
• - Droit et religion

Description

On assiste aujourd’hui en Europe à une hausse sans précédent du contentieux impliquant des questions aussi diverses que la construction de lieux de culte, la présence de symbole religieux dans des lieux publics, la reconnaissance du statut d’association confessionnelle, les normes vestimentaires, l’abattages rituel, la pratique religieuse dans le cadre professionnel, le prosélytisme, la discrimination religieux, le droit de la famille etc.  Les tribunaux nationaux et supranationaux (CEDH et CJUE) semblent être devenus des champs de bataille privilégiés entre les tenants de visions contradictoires s’agissant de la place de la religion dans la vie privée, l’espace public et l’ordre politique. Si le phénomène est particulièrement remarqué en Europe eu égard a son caractère relativement inédit, il est loin de lui être exclusif ainsi que le révèlent un certain nombre de travaux nord-américains ou de recherches portant sur d’autres aires culturelles.

L’atelier de recherche se propose de croiser des travaux empiriques sur cette judiciarisation des conflits autour du religieux afin d’analyser les tenants et les aboutissants de ce phénomène. Ce dernier a certes des choses à nous dire sur les incertitudes normatives induites par la revitalisation des identités religieuses et de la radicalisation de la pluralité religieuse. Mais il est également de nature à nous renseigner sur les transformations du gouvernement des sociétés résultant d’une redistribution des rapports entre espace public/espace privé, la montée en puissance du pouvoir judiciaire et  la globalisation autant de paramètres contribuant à la perte de centralité du monopole de l’Etat sur la production du droit.

Les contributions pourront s’articuler autour des lignes questionnements suivantes :

• 1-Qui sont les acteurs de la judiciarisation du religieux et comment s’opère la transformation d’un conflit touchant à une question religieuse en controverse dans l’arène juridictionnelle ? Ces interrogations posent la question de la structure d’opportunité juridique et politique, des cadres cognitifs et normatifs des acteurs, de leur ressources organisationnelles et compétences ainsi que du rôle des intermédiaires ou professionnels du droit qui accompagnent cette traduction judiciaire. Dans quelle mesure ces acteurs profitent-ils de la diffusion de la référence aux droits et des mécanismes favorisant leur effectivité ? Comment situer le recours à l’arène judiciaire parmi les différentes options (médiations par exemple) et les différents répertoires d’action dont disposent les acteurs ? Pour répondre à cette question il peut être tout aussi intéressant de réfléchir sur le non recours à l’arène juridictionnelle ou encore de s’interroger sur les stratégies déployées par certains acteurs (les administrations ou les entreprises) pour éviter le contentieux. Peut-on enfin distinguer des gagnants et des perdants de la judiciarisation selon les différentes religions concernées et notamment selon qu’il s’agit des groupes minoritaires ou majoritaires, anciennement établis sur le territoire ou nouveaux venus etc.? 
• 2-Dans quelle mesure les tribunaux sont-ils des facteurs autonomes de transformation des politiques religieuses ? Les débats scientifiques sur la judiciarisation suggèrent ici différentes hypothèses allant de l’autonomie du champ juridique à celle de l’encastrement des cours dans l’espace politique. Pour répondre à cette question, l’analyse de la production jurisprudentielle des cours peut-être riche d’enseignements. Mais il est sans doute plus fructueux encore d’ouvrir la boîte noire du processus décisionnel en prenant en compte l’ensemble des séquences, paramètres et acteurs interférant dans celui-ci et notamment des experts. Resituer la place des instances juridictionnelles dans la chaine de la production du droit exige en outre de prendre en compte l’amont et l’aval des décisions. Ceci implique de  considérer la mise en œuvre des décisions et/ou leur impact social et politique voire leurs effets backlash, y compris lorsqu’elles occasionnent l’intervention du législateur. Mais il peut se révéler intéressant aussi d’examiner la manière dont le travail législatif se judiciarise à son tour sous l’effet du risque de sanctions constitutionnelles ou conventionnelles (dans le cas de la CEDH par exemple).
• 3-Dans quelle mesure la judiciarisation met-elle à l’épreuve les modèles nationaux de régulation des religions ? La montée en puissance des instances juridictionnelles est indissociable de la consécration internationale de l’Etat de droit et de la diffusion de la référence aux droits.  Des nouveaux dispositifs de protection des droits ont vu le jour aussi bien à l’échelle nationale qu’internationale. Ceci pose la question de savoir dans quelle mesure les cours contribuent ou non à remettre en cause les modèles nationaux de régulation du religieux. L’émergence du niveau de régulation supranational pose évidemment la question de savoir comment les différents niveaux territoriaux s’articulent en termes aussi bien de ressources et de contraintes pour les acteurs concernés par la judiciarisation du religieux (justiciables, avocats, juges, tribunaux etc.) et comment la gouvernance du religieux s’en trouve affectée. On peut en outre se demander si des instances supranationales sont susceptibles d’être à l’origine d’un nouveau standard juridique s’imposant aux Etats et à l’inverse comment ceux-ci s’emploient à préserver leur d’autonomie par rapport aux ingérences éventuelles de tels acteurs.

Ces pistes de questionnements sont tout au plus indicatives. Elles ne limitent en rien les perspectives d’analyses susceptibles de nourrir la réflexion de cet atelier qui peut accueillir des contributions sur des thèmes connexes.

Transitional Justice and Political Peace Settlement

Responsable(s) / Chair Xavier Philippe (Institut Louis Favoreu - Université Aix-Marseille 3)

Description

Post-conflict societies engaged into political peace settlement are confronted with the challenges of State rebuilding. If some key issues draw priority and attention such as constitutional making process, elections or public services rebuilding, justice is often considered as a non-priority challenge. However, the gravest violations of Human rights perpetrated during the conflict often remain unpunished. Classical judicial treatment by criminal court usually fails, due to a lack of means, will, capacities to deal with these types of crimes and violations. It has become necessary, especially during the twenty past years, to think and deal with justice in post-conflict situations in another manner by moving out these issues from courtrooms in order to address social needs of victims and the society as a whole.  This is the aim of transitional justice defined as the whole set of actions aiming at answering to needs and demands of justice in a post-conflict society.

The relationships between ‘justice and peace’ are usually regarded as contradictory rather than complementary. Looking for justice before having reached a prior peace situation is quite often regarded as an impossible challenge, meanwhile international lawand standards are locked with the idea of fight against impunity and the idea that there cannot be peace without justice. This workshop will try to open the debate and facilitate exchanges of views on these various questions.

Based on a twofold objective, transitional justice seeks to concentrate on the needs of victims but also to consolidate peace in a society that remains quite often torn away in the aftermath of the conflict. The punishment of perpetrators is not anymore regarded as the unique aim of justice but as one of the parameters to be taken into consideration amongst other relevant important goals. The aim of this workshop will rest on critical thinking and debating on issues of transitional justice in its relationship with the search for political peace in reconstructing States. Areas of researches and examples are numerous in this regard on all continents: between Colombia, South Africa, Cambodia, to name but a few, answers to respond to these challenges may differ but are grounded on the same needs!

Three main issues will be dealt with in this workshop: the peace policy through the search for truth; the peace policy through the reparation programs addressed to victims; the peace policy through the flexibility of sanctions or punishment (including immunity from prosecutions and amnesty)

The first issue deals with the question of truth. Victims are often faced to silence and do not know about the fate of their relatives or missing persons. This first theme should allow for the discussion about the meaning of the search for truth in a non exclusively judicial perspective: is the search for truth only limited to legal or judicial truth? Is this search based on the will to build up a collective truth? Is the search for truth dedicated to create an historical truth? What is to be drawn from these various forms of expression of truth? The critical thinking axis could be based on methods, meanings and goals of the search for truth. One or several truths? How to write and report about these various truths?

The second issue is focused on reparations. In the framework of transitional justice, reparations cannot be assimilated to legal reparation based on torts where payment of compensation by the author is regarded as sufficient to be freed from responsibility. Reparations are quite often impossible to evaluate in the framework of transitional justice (how to evaluate the price of life?) and the various dimensions of reparations go beyond the only one direct victim but irradiate the whole group to which the victim belongs. From these multidimensional aspects, critical thinking could be orientated on the links to be established between the various types of reparations and their impact on the pacification of the society. The question then should be focused on how reparations can facilitate pacification? What kind of direct or indirect links could be established between these two concepts?

The third issue will focus on sanction or punishment of perpetrators and its flexibility. A post-conflict society can live in peace without being pacified! Can one link peace to fight against impunity and grant personal satisfaction to victims and the society by imposing retributive sanctions (punishment)? The general debate over these issues should lead to raise the question about the sets and diversity of sanctions as well as their effects in terms of pacification and the smoothing of relations between the various groups of the community. What is the role played by time and context on the feelings about sanctions, its weight and content? This should also lead to think critically about sanctions and punishments in post-conflicts societies for human rights violations and crimes committed during the conflict. This question should also take into consideration the adequacy of deprivation of freedom for perpetrators of human rights violations as well as the possibility to implement alternative sanctions such as participatory sanctions to the reconstruction of victim’s lives that allow for the reconstitution of social cohesion.

Finally, several transversal themes could also be considered through the study of more precise questions such as:

• The relationship between transitional justice processes and the re-legitimization of the new State or the new political regime
• The attitude of perpetrators of gross human rights violations through their acceptance of responsibility
• The acceptance or rejection of transitional justice process(es) by the parties or ex-parties to the conflict
• The attitude of victims through the transitional justice process and their evaluation of the process after its completion

The identification of effects of transitional justice on political pacification could also be considered through the perspective of historical reconstitution, acceptance and drafting of truths as a memory tool, as well as the transmission of sharing of responsibilities to the next generations.

Version française : Justice transitionnelle et pacification politique

Responsable(s) / Chair Xavier Philippe (Institut Louis Favoreu - Université Aix-Marseille 3)

Description

Les sociétés post-conflictuelles en proie à des phénomènes de pacification les obligent à traiter simultanément les défis de la reconstruction auxquels elles sont confrontées. Si certains sont classiquement traités en priorité (écriture constitutionnelle, reconstruction des services publics), la justice est souvent considérée comme le parent pauvre de ce traitement. Or, les violations les plus graves commises durant le conflit demeurent souvent impunies. Le traitement judiciaire classique par la justice pénale est souvent un échec faute de moyens, de volonté, de capacités à traiter la masse des crimes commis. Il a été donc nécessaire ces vingt dernières années de commencer à penser la justice ‘autrement’ en la sortant des prétoires pour pouvoir faire face à une demande sociale tant des victimes que de la société. Tel est le but de la justice transitionnelle définie comme l’ensemble des actions visant dans une société conflictuelle à répondre aux besoins et demandes de justice.

Les relations entre « justice et paix » sont classiquement présentées comme contradictoires entre-elles. Rechercher la justice sans avoir une paix préalable s’avère souvent illusoire alors que le droit international est aujourd’hui focalisé sur la lutte contre l’impunité et l’idée selon laquelle il ne peut exister de paix sans justice. Cet atelier tentera d’ouvrir le débat et les échanges sur ces différentes questions.

Fondée sur un double objectif, la justice transitionnelle cherche à se centrer sur les besoins de la victime mais également à pacifier une société souvent encore déchirée par les suites du conflit. La sanction du bourreau n’est plus perçue comme l’unique objet de la justice mais comme l’un des paramètres à prendre en considération parmi d’autres qui sont tout aussi pertinents et importants. L’objet de cet atelier consistera notamment à réfléchir et débattre sur les questions de justice transitionnelle dans ses relations avec la pacification politique d’un État en reconstruction. Les champs d’études ne manquent pas et se retrouvent sur tous les continents : entre la Colombie, l’Afrique du sud ou le Cambodge, les solutions envisagées et adoptées divergent mais se fondent sur les mêmes besoins.

 Trois axes seront envisagés au cours de cet atelier : la politique de pacification à travers la recherche de la vérité ; la politique de pacification à travers les programmes de réparation aux victimes ; la politique de pacification  à travers la flexibilité de la sanction.

Dans le premier champ d’études rentre la question de la recherche de la vérité. Les victimes sont souvent confrontées au silence et ne connaissent pas le sort de leurs proches ou des personnes disparues. Cette première thématique doit permettre de s’interroger sur le sens à donner à la recherche de la vérité dans une perspective non-exclusivement judiciaire : s’agit-il de la vérité judiciaire ? De la construction d’une vérité collective ? De la recherche d’une vérité historique ? Que retire-t-on de ces différentes formes d’expression de la vérité ? L’axe de la réflexion pourrait porter sur les méthodes, la signification et les buts de la recherche de la vérité. Une vérité ou des vérités ? Comment écrire ces vérités ?

Dans le deuxième champ d’études figure la question des réparations. Dans le cadre de la justice transitionnelle, la réparation ne peut être comparée à la réparation civile d’un dommage o il suffirait de payer pour se sentir délivré. Les réparations sont souvent impossibles à évaluer (comment évaluer le prix d’une vie ?) et les dimensions de la réparation dépassent la seule personne pour toucher le groupe auquel elle appartient. A partir de ces aspects multidimensionnels de la réparation, la réflexion pourrait s’orienter sur les liens à établir entre la ou les réparations (directes ou indirectes, individuelles ou collectives) et la pacification de la société. En quoi les réparations favorisent-elles cette pacification ? Quels liens directs et indirects peuvent s’établir entre ces deux concepts ?

Dans le troisième champ d’études figure la question de la sanction et de sa flexibilité. Une société peut vivre en paix sans être apaisée ! Peut-on lier la paix à la lutte contre l’impunité et à la satisfaction personnelle des victimes et de la société par les sanctions rétributives ? Cette réflexion amènera à s’interroger sur la diversité et la gamme des sanctions ainsi que sur leurs effets en termes de pacification et d’apaisement de la société. Quel rôle joue le temps et le contexte sur la perception de la sanction, sa rigueur et son contenu. Elle devra également amener à s’interroger sur la pertinence et l’adaptation des sanctions dans les sociétés post-conflictuelles. Cette question devrait notamment envisager l’adaptation des peines privatives de liberté aux situations post-conflictuelles ainsi que la possibilité de mettre en œuvre des sanctions alternatives comme les sanctions participatives qui permettent parfois de reconstituer le ciment social.

Enfin, des thèmes plus transversaux pourraient également être envisagés à travers l’examen de questions plus précises telles que :

• Les relations entre le processus de justice transitionnelle et la re-légitimation du nouvel État
• L’attitude des auteurs des violations face à l’acceptation de leur responsabilité
• L’acceptation ou le rejet du processus de justice transitionnelle par les parties ou ex-parties au conflit
• L’attitude des victimes face au processus de justice transitionnelle et leur appréciation du processus de justice transitionnelle

La détermination des effets de la justice transitionnelle sur la pacification politique pourra également être envisagée sous l’angle de la reconstitution de l’histoire, de l’acceptation et de l’écriture des vérités ainsi que de la transmission des partages de responsabilité.

L’enfance, entre droits et politique

Responsable(s) / Chair

• Valérie LARROSA (LaSSP - Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Toulouse)
• Delphine ESPAGNO (LaSSP - Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Toulouse)
• Gildas HIVERT (LaSSP - Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Toulouse)

Thème / Subject Sociologie politique et droit de l’enfance

Mots-clé / Keywords Enfance - action politique - politique de l’enfance et de la famille - normes juridiques, morales, scientifiques, sociales - droit de l’enfance, de la famille

Description

Il s’agirait de questionner l’enfance à travers une sociologie des normes (juridiques, sociales, religieuses, morales, médicales, psy, civiques, etc.) qui contribuent à sa construction comme catégorie sociopolitique. Si l’enfant est sujet de droits et objet du politique, c’est en partie parce qu’il est investi comme acteur politique en devenir. Cet investissement, différentiel, par une pluralité d’acteurs (la famille et l’école, bien sûr, mais aussi, les acteurs médico-sociaux, les associations, les juges, les pairs, etc.), produit d’abord la différenciation du normal et du pathologique, de l’ajusté et du déviant. Il s’exprime aussi par le recours à la figure de l’enfant-sujet, de l’enfant-personne, que le droit contribue à légitimer. 

Cette problématique ouvre différentes perspectives :

• -Concepts, méthodes, outils empiriques et théoriques pour travailler à l’articulation entre ces différents systèmes normatifs (l’internormativité, les champs, les dispositifs, etc.) ;
• -Production et délimitation de la catégorie « enfance » : ses frontières et ses passages (nourrisson, seconde enfance, préadolescence, adolescence, etc.) ;
• -Controverses et mobilisations autour de l’enfance (sexualité, déficience mentale et précocité, délinquance et dangerosité, violences et maltraitances, citoyenneté et religiosité, hygiène et alimentation, etc.) ;
• -Fabrique juridique de l’enfant-sujet et ses usages sociopolitiques (droit international et droit européen, droit comparé, formes de contestation du droit et par « les droits », etc.).

Cet atelier se propose ainsi de retrouver la tradition sociologique qui envisage la socialisation et le gouvernement de l'enfance comme un processus normatif et de questionner la contribution spécifique du droit et des normes juridiques dans ce double processus. Dans « l'archipel des normes » de l'enfance, on s'efforcera d'analyser les processus de production des normes, l'articulation entre les différents systèmes normatifs qui les produisent, leur appropriation par les acteurs des politiques de l'enfance et de la famille et par les enfants eux-mêmes. L'atelier est ouvert aux juristes et chercheurs des SHS concernés par l'enfance. Les communications seront questionnées par un discutant et suivis d'un débat avec l'assistance.