Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The essay analyzes some aspects of the freedom of religion enshrined in the Italian Constitution in relation to the principle of secularism as supreme principle of the Italian Republic, according to the definition of the italian Constitutional Court; and the extension of religious symbols and, in particular, the crucifix. First of all, the essay analyzes the question of «Italian» secularism, verifying the disparities and similarities among the various declinations of this principle, reconstructing the debate in the constituent assembly and the main jurisprudential approaches of the Italian Constitutional Court in this matter. Secondly, the essay analyzes the issue of religious symbols in public spaces and, in particular, a leading case concerning the exhibition of the crucifix in the classrooms, both at the jurisprudence level (Administrative Judge, Constitutional Court, EDU Court), and at doctrinal one. The essay, then, notes the cd. Bavarian solution, adopted by the Government of the homonymous German region, in search of a reconciliation between the religious freedom of each person and the quantitative factor per single religion. There is also an excursus on the main case law of the European Court of Human Rights about secularity, religious freedom and religious symbols.

This paper aims to analyze the bonds that occur between the notion of academic freedom and religion, from the scope of the dogmatic core of the right, but in the line of their historical relations and the emergence of modern academic freedom as well. The examination is performed in the context of german research university, which strongly contrast with scholastic period, but also in the context of its further development in the American university. This process ends with the AAUP 1915 Declaration, which shapes the present status of relationships between denominational and public universities. The main proposal of the paper is that academic freedom and faith, despite they seem opposed to modern mentality, actually are inseparable at the essence of the right, either from a negative or a positive point of view.

The article presents a historical and critical reflection of the theoretical and cultural premises of the key principle of liberalism, freedom of expression, its developments and the current challenges that challenge it. From the exposition of the three main elements (a belief in the sacredness of the vocation of the press and of communication in general as a vehicle for public enlightenment, a stoic and humanist vision of the human mind and the duties of the citizen, and a philosophy of history according to which the error will eventually lead to truth and evil will produce good), the author exposes the problems he considers decisive in the near future: forgetting classical antiquity and the elegant notion of the citizen-soldier (linked to the decadence of the culture of the printing press); loss of confidence in moral progress; the globalization; the transformation of media infrastructure and communication; the resurgence of religion.

This paper, clarified that there is no "secular state" but so many lay states as the ordinances that have decided to separate the temporal order from the spiritual one, according to the historically diverse and changing variables, is at the root of the problem arising from the tension —inherent in the legal phenomenon—; between kratos (power, strength), and ethos (justice, law as a limitation to the power). In particular, he studies in the historical and the theoretical way the function of judgment of power (and, consequently, the reawakening of force and moralization of politics) that governs religion, and clarifies the current semantic ambiguity of the secular term in one political-juridical culture (even in canon law) strongly conditioned by the dominant positivism and the absence of effective limits to the spread of power.

In France, secularism is identified with the Republic. No religion is recognized by the State. Secularism is liberal in so far as it recognizes any kind of religious expression in the private sphere, nevertheless it controls it or even prohibits it in the public domain. The struggle for secularism was elaborated under the III Republic (1875-1940) and, since then, it has become a symbol of the French Republic. Nowadays, Muslim religion is in tension with the legal limitations of religious sign’s bearing in public areas. In addition, Muslim communitarianism is perceived as a threat to the values of the Republic. The question is how to modernize French secularism? The Concordat in force in Alsace-Moselle could be a source of inspiration.

The essay presents a critical analysis of the historical and theoretical foundations of secularization, demonstrating the fragility of the secularist option (whatever form it takes: that of "furious laicism", that of soft agnosticism, or the various versions of functional substitutes, among which in jurisprudence there is normativism). The proposal is to go back to neutralizing the right from a religious and sacred vision, certainly up to postmodernity, but equally necessary in a speech about rights and rights that honestly does not circumvent the need for a foundation.

In this paper I argue for a conception of toleration as asymmetric recognition. I start from an analysis of the concept of toleration, and of the reasons that underpin such an act; then, the distinction between toleration and recognition is highlighted, and it is linked both to the different degree of cogency that these reasons reveal, and to the different structure of the relationship between the subjects involved. I argue that toleration is a form of asymmetric relationship, that may be granted with regard to ‘divergent’ practices because of the condition of vulnerability of the claimant group, rather than in virtue of their intrinsic value.

Governments, emerging from periods of intense political violence, wars and dictatorships, confront multiple, delicate choices. One of these concerns is the field of memory and, specifically, the question: which collective memory should the identity of the nation be built upon? The answer varies from country to country, yet one feature spans across many realities, often very different from one another: the difficulty of those in power to face the past of their nation in a non-ideological way. This paper analyzes an example of this phenomenon: the representation of the last Argentine dictatorship promulgated by the Kirchner administrations which, in the last fifteen years, has constituted the dominant version of the memory of the ‘70s in the country of Cono Sur, as well as on the international stage. In the article, this memory is first analyzed in its most problematic aspects, highlighting silences and inaccuracies; then linked to its social effects, above all the consolidation of a binary logic, which manifests itself in the division of the Argentine society into two antagonistic and apparently irreconcilable fields.

The implementation of binding norms and the search for effective remedies for victims of serious human rights violations committed by transnational corporations have been and continue to be the objectives of the most difficult struggle that human rights defenders are facing all over the world. At the international level, many attempts have been made to create binding rules on human rights and business. The “dead angle” of international law refers to the fact that actually there are no hard law norms capable of holding corporations responsible for the serious internationally wrongful perpetrated extraterritorially by their supply chains. The purpose of this work is to become aware of this problem, while evaluating other mechanisms, strategies and actions from a civil perspective, to guarantee the right of access to justice in an attempt to fill partially this “dead angle” of international law.