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2005 Masterclass Series

What is the ALPSA MASTERCLASS SERIES?

The ALPSA Masterclass Series was established to provide students with the opportunity to study a specific topic in legal philosophy in a time-intensive small-group environment.The Eastern European Legal Theory Masterclass took place on the 14 and 15th of May, 2005.The three presenters were all renowned legal philosophers:

• Prof. Martin Krygier

Martin Krygier is Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. In 1995-96, he was Visiting Fellow at the Collegium Budapest/Institute for Advanced Study, where he participated in a focus group on the political psychology of post-communism. He has been Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, the Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, and the Central European University, Budapest. He has been invited to lecture in universities in North America, Great Britain, and Europe. He is chairman of the editorial board of East Central Europe - L’Europe du Centre Est, eine wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift, a journal published jointly by the Collegium Budapest and the Central European University.

His undergraduate degrees are in philosophy, politics, and law, and his doctorate is in the history of ideas. His work is interdisciplinary and he has published several books and some 90 papers in a number of areas: among them, politics, law and society after communism; political and legal philosophy; sociology of law; the history of legal and political thought. His work has been translated into French, Hungarian, Italian, Polish Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Spanish. Apart from academic publications, he also writes for journals of public debate.

His writings are generally concerned to explore the moral characters and consequences of large institutions, among them law, state and bureaucracy, and the interrelations between such institutions and particular social practices, among them civility and decency. A particular focus of his research is institutional and social development in post-communist Europe.

At present he is writing a book on Philip Selznick’s normative social theory for the Stanford University Press series on Jurists, and has been invited to prepare a book of his non-academic essays for publication in 2005.

He was co-editor (with Eugene Kamenka) of Bureaucracy: The Career of a Concept (Edward Arnold, London; St. Martin's Press, New York, 1979). He edited Marxism and Communism. Posthumous Reflections on Politics, Society, and Law, (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, Rodopi, Amsterdam 1994). He is co-editor, (with Dr Adam Czarnota) of The Rule of Law after Communism, (Ashgate, UK, 1999), and with Robert Kagan and Kenneth Winston, of Legality and Community. On the Intellectual Legacy of Philip Selznick, (Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley, Rowman and Littlefield, 2002). In 1997, he was invited to deliver the Boyer lectures  for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. These lectures appeared as a book, Between Fear and Hope. Hybrid Thoughts on Public Values (ABC Books, 1997).

 

• Prof. Alex Ziegert

Born 1944 in Germany, Professor Ziegert has completed studies in law, sociology, economics, history, Nordic and Slavonic languages and literature, and communication research at the University of Frankfurt (1966-1967) and the University of Münster (1967-1973). He was awarded Dr. phil by the University of Münster (Germany) in 1975 and was a DAAD-Grant Research Fellow at the Institute for Sociology of Law at the University of Lund, Sweden from 1973 to 1974. He was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), University of Bielefeld in 1975 and a Research Officer at the Max-Planck-Institute for Comparative Private Law in Hamburg/FRG, from October 1975 to July 1982. Professor Ziegert has been a Lecturer in Jurisprudence in the Department of Jurisprudence, University of Sydney since August 1982 and was apptointed as. Associate Professor in Jurisprudence in 1989. He was the Head of the Department of Jurisprudence from January 1988 to January 1999 and Dean of the Faculty of Law from 1992 to 1993.

 

• Dr. Adam Czarnota

Adam Czarnota teaches philosophy of law and sociology of law in the School of Law at the University of New South Wales. He is the co-director of the European Law Center at the same University. He is member of the editorial board of Ius et Lex journal devoted to legal philosophy.

He previously held positions in Macquarie University and N. Copernicus University Faculty of Law and the Institute of Sociology.

He was visiting fellow in Oxford University, University of Edinburgh, European University Institute, Florence and senior fellow in the Collegium Budapest -Institute for Advanced Studies. He has lectured at universities in Australia, United Kingdom, Belgium, Poland, South Africa, Hungary and Georgia.

He is member of the Board of the Research Committee on the Sociology of Law and Chair of the Working Group on Transformation of law in postcommunist societies.

He has been published extensively in Polish and English in fields of sociology of law, legal theory, philosophy of law and history of ideas, and political theory.

He is currently working on the book on collective memories and legal strategies of dealing with the past.

Some of his recent publications include:

• 'Globalization, legal Transplant and Unhappiness: Post-Commnist Experiences’ in Jurisprudence for an Interconnected Globe edited by Catherine Dauvergne, Ashgate 2003, pp. 213-231
• 'Law quasi-judicial institutions and collective memories' in: E. Christodoulidis, S. Veitch (eds.), Lethe’s Law: Justice, Law and Ethics in Reconciliation, Hart Publishing - Oxford 2001
• Does law kill our morality? Ius et Lex No 2 (2003)
• Moral and Legal Problems of dealing with the past. Between retributive and restitutive justice, Ius et Lex No2 (2003)
• A few reflections on globalisation, and the constitution of society UNSW Law Journal (No2, 2001)
• Exclusion, inclusion and constitutionalism, Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy, No2 (2000)

What WAs the topic for the first masterclass?

The overall topic was Eastern European Legal Theory. The topics as provided by the speakers were as follows:

• Prof. Martin Krygier

What Oxford Won't Tell You about the Rule of Law, but Krakow, St Petersburg, and the Bukowina will. The Legacy of Ehrlich, Malinowski, and Petrazycki.

 

• Dr. Adam Czarnota

Central-Eastern European Legal Theory in Context: An Historical Overview.

 

• Prof. Alex Ziegert

Eugen Ehrlich and European Realism - the call for sociological enlightenment.

 

(above) Discussion of legal philosophy continues over lunch.