Our doctoral program is structured on the basis of three curricula and it’s aimed to provide a complete theoretical/practical legal education, and the mastery of cultural and methodological tools that can allow an adequate approach to general and specific legal issues. For that purpose, the courses are primarily focused on building adequate theoretical and practical skills and on raising awareness of the incisiveness of law in society, mainly through learning those elements that are not only related to a functional interpretation, but are especially oriented to a legal hermeneutics – extemely useful for the legal professions, especially in those areas where the evaluation/decision-making skills are are indefectible for jurists.
An other important target is an overall knowledge of the national and international legal system, in its unity and various regionalized components. The Doctorate program offers a legal training that includes the innovative opportunities provided by the new technologies, that will be declined through each specific curricula.
Students who have obtained the Ph.D have engaged in specific activities, according to the chosen curriculum, that have resulted in scientific publications. Doctoral dissertations were competently performed. Each tutor has provided all the methodological tools intended to support the students in the processing of final work.
The doctoral students of the second year, as can be inferred from the forms, have continued their research activities, aimed at training professional figures capable of predicting, managing and controlling concrete cases: this is the result of a solid education in juridical sciences. According to the doctorate objectives, all the disciplines of the three curricula have been oriented towards the achievement of a solid legal preparation, ranging from the basic concepts of juridicity to the capability of dealing with complex legal cases.
The doctorate program promotes the interdisciplinarity, interpersonal cooperation among scholars, with a special attention to osmosis of professionalism. Because of the high professionalism achieved, some doctoral students have become lecturers themselves in the Master program on “Legal Informatics, New Technologies, Information Technology Law”. This has been a source of encouragement for the students to deepen the effectiveness of the algorithmic application in the legal experience. International relations have fostered the mobility of teachers and the enrichment of structures through a mutual collaboration with the European Law School (Department of Legal Sciences). The transversal skills (legal, economic, organizational, technological-legal), the in-depth study of key issues, has implemented scientific relationships with the associations of reference of the individual curricula.
The professors of the individual curricula have encouraged activities of publication and text editing in series and journals of reference for each individual discipline. Attending several scientific events has led to the publication of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year doctoral students’ reports into the collection of the conference acts.
Furthermore, concerning the current year, It can be found a greater consistency of common research lines characterized by interdisciplinary and with a strong impact both nationally and internationally.
In order to offer the clearest and most complete picture of the research activity, it’s useful to point out the lines of research for each field of study and, secondly, to highlight the significant interdisciplinary issues, consolidated over the years through habits of collaboration between teachers and scholars belonging to different scientific disciplines.
I Curriculum
Among all the initiatives promoted, those concerning the scientific collaboration with University of Wuhan stand out, through a cycle of international seminars on the "history of codifications in the West", online lectures and publication of the world’s first translation of the new Chinese Civil Code (realized by Huang Meiling, edited by O. Diliberto, D. Dursi, A. Masi, Pacini Giuridica, Pisa).
In addition, in the first year of the training course, activities were carried out related to courses, seminars and exercises (mainly within the Higher Education Course in Roman Law) concerning the following topics: Ancient Near Eastern law, Byzantine law, Roman commercial law, Common Roman law, Law of persons, Jewish law, Roman criminal law, Codification in the Roman law system, Roman public law, Late antique Roman law, Epigraphy and legal papyrology, Roman jurisprudence, Roman civil process, Property and real rights, History of sources.
Doctoral students had also taken part in initiatives organized by other universities and external organizations. Among the held conferences, the scientific initiatives promoted through the ERC ‘Scriptores Iuris Romani’ in the Law Faculty are particulary significant and remarkable.
II Curriculum
The research in this area has been characterized by the variety of topics addressed by each scholar, declined in a time span between antiquity and the contemporary age. Among the main topics of interest, are especially noteworthy those studies on systems and legislation, institutions and doctrine – such as the origin and evolution of law, the development of specific institutions of canon law, the legislation of war, the pursuit of justice. Researches in the philosophical-legal field have been oriented on the thought of the classics, focused on the questions of the principles of law and characterized by an international profile.
Specifically, topics of interest were: phenomenological genesis of law; principle of equality; principle of fairness; thirdness of law; law in complex society; theory of social and legal systems; differences between law and economics; legality and the pursuit of justice; data system civilization and legal algorithms; legal hermeneutics and functional hermeneutics; legal form and formalism; legal textuality, theory of discourse and language; legal argumentation; theory of legal interpretation; legal informatics; general theory of law. First-year doctoral student training consisted in providing methodological tools for bibliographic source retrieval. The doctoral students have deepened the topics of philosophy of law, general theory of law, human rights, theory of interpretation, as well as topics related to the Master of II level that took place in the Section of Philosophy of Law and is closely related to this curriculum. Participation in the seminars was enhanced by the research work identified through national and international scientific reports. Doctoral students reported on a bimonthly basis on the status of bibliography retrieval and on the progress of the research project. Several webseminars have been organized for doctoral students with the participation of national and international speakers and the involvement of other universities (Bari, Pavia, Turin, etc.). The PhD students have edited the Opera Omnia of Bruno Romano consisting of 48 volumes published by Giappichelli and some translations published in the Series of Studies of Philosophy of Law.
Researches in this field are characterized by variety, multidisciplinarity and a strong international slant. Among the topics covered, could be mentioned: work relations, trade union law, social security law; private law and comparative commercial law; commercial law and economics. All the PhD students worked on the organization of the Law Philosophy Conference "The philosophy of the right to Sapienza after World War II. Analysis of principles, evaluation of methods, investigations on changes" to be held next September 2022.
III Curriculum
The research activities called the 1st year doctoral students to take part to special thematic seminars: coordinated from time to time by experts of the specific subjects, every student had the opportunity to produce a series of reports/essays on issues related to the subjects of their study. The seminars, characterized by a strong interdisciplinary slant, have focused mainly on the following topics: issues of general theory of contract (agreement, cause, subjects, object, effects, form); contractual facts and remedies; market and consumer protection: problems of legal theory of the market; rules of competition and economic system; Economic analysis of law: theoretical models and application profiles in the general theory of the contract; management of for-profit companies and peculiarities of management of non-profit companies; governance of the enterprise and responsibility of managers; legal persons with profit and non-profit purposes (companies, cooperatives, associations and foundations); discipline of companies; corporate structures and contractual autonomy; discipline of business crisis and insolvency procedures.
Doctoral students have also participated in congress, seminars and scientific conferences related to their research activities; in addition to those organized by the Faculty of Law, LUISS, the Court of Cassation, etc., mention should be made of those organized by the Department of Law and Economics of Productive Activities.
At the end of 2019, the Legal Observatory on Digital Innovation - JODI/OGID was established at the Department of Law and Economics of Productive Activities with the aim of examining the interactions between technology and private law, considering digital innovations from the point of view of classical legal concepts such as contract, torts, personality, etc., which has provided doctoral students with up-to-date literature, regularly hosting seminars (the list of initiatives is at the web pages https://web.uniroma1.it/deap/ogid) run by doctoral students, researchers, professors from Sapienza and other Universities, external researchers. Doctoral students have also participated in conferences, seminars and scientific meetings of interest in the subjects of their research activity, organized by the Department of Law and Economics of Productive Activities and the Department of Legal Sciences.
The doctoral students have also participated in the various institutional activities, held at a distance (degree courses, master's degree in business crisis law, high-level training courses in Managment of overindebtedness crisis), agreed upon with the tutors of the specific chosen curriculum.