CROATIAN ASSOCIATION FOR LEGAL AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY AND THEORY OF LAW AND STATE (CALSP)
NEWS: Please see information on the online promotion of the first publication of the IVR Book Series, The Artifactual Nature of Law, on 17 October 2022.
Members and Contact Information
- Nikola Visković, emeritus, Faculty of Law, University of Split. Residence: Rendićeva 4, HR-21000 Split, Croatia. CALSP Honorary President, extra-ordinary member
CV: https://www.enciklopedija.hr/natuknica.aspx?id=64827 - Luka Burazin, Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Trg Republike Hrvatske 14, HR-10000 Zagreb. E-mail: luka.burazin@pravo.hr; CALSP president and contact person
CV: https://prvo.academia.edu/LukaBurazin - Žaklina Harašić, Faculty of Law, University of Split, Domovinskog rata 8, HR-21000 Split. E-mail: Zaklina.Harasic@xnet.hr
- Mario Krešić, Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Trg Republike Hrvatske 14, HR-10000 Zagreb. E-mail: mariokresic3@gmail.com; CALSP executive vice-president and CALSP secretary
CV: https://www.pravo.unizg.hr/en/mario.kresic - Ivan Padjen, retired, Faculty of Law, University of Rijeka & Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb. Residence and mail address: Boškovićeva 22, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia. E-mail: ivan.l.padjen@gmail.com
CV: http://www.pravri.uniri.hr/files/nastavnici/ipadjen_en.pdf - Zoran Pokrovac, retired, Faculty of Law, University of Split. E-mail: zoran_pokrovac@gmx.de
CV: https://intranet.pravst.hr/dokumenti/pokrovac_autobiografija_2017.doc - Ivana Tucak, Faculty of Law, University of Osijek, Stjepana Radića 13, HR-31000 Osijek, Croatia. E-mail: itucak@pravos.hr; CALSP vice-president
Associates
- Marin Keršić, Faculty of Law, University of Split, Domovinskog rata 8, HR-21000 Split. E-mail: marin.kersic@gmail.com
- Svan Relac, Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Trg Republike Hrvatske 14, HR-10000 Zagreb. E-mail: svan.relac@pravo.hr
CV: https://www.pravo.unizg.hr/en/svan.relac
Adjuncts
- Nenad Mišćević, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Education, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia
- Žarko Puhovski, retired, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb
Information on CALSP
Background and development of legal education in Croatia
While the beginnings of legal education in Croatia can be traced back to the Dominican studium generale in the 14th century Zadar, the first modern Croatian law school was founded in 1776 and reconstituted as a Faculty of Law at University of Zagreb in 1874. The Faculty taught political economy, finance and, by the first Austria-Hungarian chair in sociology (1905-), sociology and criminology, and even practical philosophy, as a required course in three terms taught by a philosopher. Nonetheless, the Faculty offered, due to the Austrian grounding of legal education in Roman law and German legal history, philosophy of law and/or theory of law till 1933 only as optional courses. However, a Hegelian course in the General History of Law and State performed the function of legal philosophy and/or legal theory.
Legal philosophy/theory became a cornerstone of Croatian legal education due to, bizarrely, Soviet communism after the Second World War, when the Sovietized German Theory of Law and State became a compulsory course of the undergraduate law curriculum. Berislav Perić (1921-2008) of Zagreb Faculty of Law established himself by a dissertation on autonomy and heteronomy in law in writings of Immanuel Kant and Rudolf Laun (1955), at the time when his colleagues in the University department of philosophy were writing on Marx and Plekhanov. Nikola Visković of Split Faculty of Law (1938-) in his Pojam prava (Concept of Law) (1976, 1981) construed, following chiefly Carlos Cossio, an integral theory of law, which has been adopted by several Croatian legal theorists. It starts from professional experience of lawyers but with a view of also providing a Marxist critique of ideology, including a critique of the self-image of lawyers. To that end Visković’s integral theory conceptualizes law as a unity of legal standards of conduct, both positive and extra-positive, and social relations, that is, social conduct.
“The Working Group Law and Society: Fundamental Problems” of the Yugoslav (since 1990 Croatian) Academy of Sciences and Arts, led by Natko Katičić and Eugen Pusić, with the assistance of Ivan Padjen, engaged in the 1980s in a Croatian-styled Methodenstreit, publishing proceedings in five volumes of Pravo i društvo (Law and Society) (1980-89). Miomir Matulović and Nenad Miščević were developing analytical philosophy of law in Rijeka in the 1980s and 1990s. Matulović, who introduced theories of human rights in Yugoslavia and Croatia, made many translations of texts in legal philosophy and edited special issues of periodicals on the subject. Zoran Pokrovac, who expanded integral theory of law by doctrine of free law, convened thirteen Croatian-German juristic symposia in Split from 1997 to 2008. The topics included „Education of Lawyers and Notaries“ (2000), „Sources and Methods of Law“ (2001), and „Transfer of Laws“ (2006). Legal theorists from all Croatian faculties of law, namely, Rijeka, Split, Osijek and Zagreb, accompanied by colleagues in political science and philosophy and led by Ivan Padjen, conducted a joint research project “Theoretical and Methodological Framework of Legal Research and Legal Pluralism” in 1986-90. It was continued on a smaller scale (“The Rule of Law”, 1990-95, and “The Legal System: Fundamental Problems”, 2006-2014). Padjen and Miomir Matulović edited Croatian Critical Law Review (1996-99), with Zoran Pokrovac as a member of the editorial board.
CALSP and its activities
It is against this background that Croatian Association of Legal and Social Philosophy and Theory of Law and State (CALSP) was founded in Split in 2007 by Ž. Harašić (Split), M. Matulović (Rijeka), I. Padjen (Zagreb, Rijeka), Z. Pokrovac (Split, Frankfurt a.M.), N. Visković (Split) and D. Vrban (Osijek, Rijeka).
Among its first activities, the CALSP sponsored the 12th Croatian-German Juristic Symposium “Academic Rights between the Humboldt University and the Bologna Process” (Split, 2008), 4th Central and Eastern European Network of Jurisprudence Annual Meeting (Rijeka, 2008), and “The Concept of Law: Visković’s Integral Conception of Law” (Rijeka, 2009).
Pokrovac and Padjen edited Zabrana uskrate pravosuđa i prava: 11. Njemačko-hrvatski pravnički simpozij, Split, 27.-28. travnja 2007. / Justiz- und Rechtsverweigerungsverbot: 11. deutsch-kroatisches Jurisensymposium, Split, 27.-28. April 2007 (Split: Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta u Splitu / Rechtswissenshaftliche Fakultaet der Universitaet zu Split i Hrvatska udruga za pravnu i socijalnu filozofiju / Kroatische Vereinigung fuer Rechts- und Sozialphilsophie, 2010).
Duško Vrban, Metodologija prava i pravna tehnika <Methodology of Law and Legal Technique> (Osijek: Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta J.J. Strossmayera, 2013) was presented at a conference in Osijek in 2014.
Luka Burazin of the Faculty of Law at University of Zagreb has (co-)convened the 6th Central and Eastern European Forum of Young Legal, Political and Social Theorists (Zagreb, 2014), 2nd Revus Conference “The Province of Jurisprudence Naturalized“ (Krakow, 2016), 13th Central and Eastern European Network of Jurisprudence (Zagreb, 2018), Law, Language and Philosophy Summer School (Dubrovnik, 2021), and a number of visiting lectures at his home faculty (among others, lectures by Kenneth E. Himma, Robert Alexy, Matthias Klatt, Dan Priel).
CALSP, Croatian Academy of Legal Sciences (CALS), and University of Split Faculty of Law held the conference Theory and Methodology of Law: Work in Progress, including a presentation of Ivan Padjen, Metodologija pravne znanosti: pravo i susjedne discipline, with a summary in English Methodology of Legal Science: Law and Related Disciplines (Rijeka: Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta u Rijeci, 2015), at the Faculty of Law, University of Split, in 2016.
CALSP and CALS held the conference „Hohfeldova teorija prava“ <Hohfeld’s Legal Theory>, including a presentation of Ivana Tucak, Hohfeldova analitička teorija prava <Hohfeld’s Analytical Legal Theory> (Osijek: Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta J. J. Strossmayera, 2016), at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, in 2017.
CALSP and CALS also held the international conference „Slobodno stvaranje prava“/„Free Law-Making“, including a presentation of Zoran Pokrovac, Slobodno stvaranje prava: Ulrich M. Kantorowicz i slobodnopravni pokret < Free Law-Making: Ulrich M. Kantorowicz and the Free Law Movement> (Zagreb-Split: Naklada „Breza“ i Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta u Splitu, 2018), at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, in 2018.
CALSP members have been regular participants in annual conferences of the Central and Eastern European Network of Jurisprudence. Tucak, Padjen, Burazin and Krešić are serving on its International Advisory Board, while Burazin and Krešić convened the conference held at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, in 2018. CALSP members have also been active participants in the IVR World Congresses: Burazin, Padjen and Pokrovac in Frankfurt a.M. in 2011, Tucak in Washington D.C. in 2015, Burazin, Krešić and Tucak in Lisbon in 2017 and Luzern 2019. At the IVR World Congress in Luzern, July 2019, three CALSP members are co-convenors of special working groups: Tucak of SW 63 „Legal Education in the Era of Globalisation“, Burazin of SW 64 „Law as an Artifact“, and Krešić of SW 52 „Ethnic Diversity, Plural Democracy and Human Dignity in Europe“.
Regarding recent and upcoming publications by the CALSP members, Mario Krešić co-edited the book “Ethnic Diversity, Plural Democracy and Human Dignity – Challenges to the European Union and Western Balkans”, Springer, 2022. Luka Burazin co-edited the book “The Artifactual Nature of Law”, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022, the first book in the new series “IVR Studies in the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy”. Burazin, along with Michael S. Green and Giorgio Pino, is the co-editor of the forthcoming book “Jurisprudence in the Mirror. The Civil Law World Meets the Common Law World”, Oxford University Press, 2023.
You may also download the above information as a pdf-file.
Past news items
In 2021, Josip Guć defended a doctoral thesis at the Zagreb Faculty of humanities and social sciences on the work of the CALSP Honorary President Nikola Visković “Poticaji za bioetičko promišljanje odnosa prirode i kulture u djelu Nikole Viskovića”. In the same year, the book “Nikola Visković: pravo-politika-bioetika”, edited by Josip Guć and Hrvoje Jurić, was published (Pergamena, Zagreb, 2021).
“Ideje” debate: Zagreb, 23 May 2019
The E-journal “Ideje” is organizing a debate on the relationship between law and ethics. The speakers are Ivan Padjen and Žarko Puhovski. Padjen’s thesis is “Professional ethics – most notably occupational, scientific and university ethics – has metastastized into ethisation of virtually all activities”. Puhovski’s thesis is “An ethical commission is competent to appraise a court of law, no court of law is competent to adjudicate an ethical commission”. The debate is taking place in Zagreb, Florijana Andrašćeca 18A, 1st floor, on 23 May 2019 at 5 PM.
Kroatische IVR-Sektion / Tagung „Freie Rechtschöpfung“
Anlässlich der Veröffentlichung des Buches ihres Mitgliedes Prof. Zoran Pokrovac Slobodno stvaranje prava: Hermann U. Kantorowicz i slobodnopravni pokret /Freie Rechtschöpfung: Hermann U. Kantorowicz und Freirechtsbewegung/ (Zagreb,Naklada Breza, Bibliothek Rechtstheorie, Bd. 10 (Sonderausgabe), 2018, 815 S.) veranstaltet die Kroatische IVR-Sektion in Zusammenarbeit mit der Kroatischen Akademie der Rechtswissenschaften die wissenschaftliche Tagung „Freie Rechtschöpfung“ (7. Dezember 2018, Juristische Fakultät der Universität Zagreb). Die Arbeitssprachen der Tagung sind englisch, kroatisch und slowenisch. Anmeldungen bitte bis zum 1. Dezember 2018 per E-Mail an Herrn Ass. Prof. Mario Krešić (mario.kresic@pravo.hr). Zu Beginn der Tagung findet die Präsentation des Buches statt.
Croatian IVR Section / Conference „Free Law-Making“
On the occasion of the publication of a new book by a Section member – Prof. Zoran Pokrovac, Slobodno stvaranje prava: Hermann U. Kantorowicz i slobodnopravni pokret / Free Law-Making: Hermann U. Kantorowicz and the Free Law Movement (Zagreb: Naklada Breza, 2018, 815 p.; Series ‘Legal Theory’, vol. 10, special edition) – the Section and the Croatian Academy of Legal Sciences are convening jointly the scholarly and professional conference „Free Law Making“ at University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law, Zagreb, Trg Hrvatske Republike 14/II, on 7 December 2018 at 3 PM. The Conference working languages are Croatian, Sloveian and English. Applications can be submitted till 1 December 2018 to Ass.Prof. Mario Krešić (mario.kresic@pravo.hr). The Conference will be opened by a presentation of the new book.
Call for Paper: 13th Annual Conference of the Central and Eastern European Network of Jurisprudence (CEENJ): Jurisprudence in Central and Eastern Europe: Work in Progress 2018, Zagreb, 13-14 September 2018.
Conference website: https://ceenjzagreb2018.wordpress.com/
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