SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This contribution discusses, from the perspective of global comparative law, how Mariano Croce’s English translation of a major book by an important early-Italian scholar, Santi Romano, allows helpful insights into early twentieth-century Italian thinking about the intrinsically plural nature of law. This debate connects directly to current worldwide discourses about legal pluralism, showing how Romano’s exciting project forms an early precursor of the gradual movement towards obtaining a better grasp of the inner nature of the deeply plural concept of law. Romano’s work, as a remarkably pertinent early contribution, of lasting relevance to global legal theorizing, indicates that a reductionist, positivistic conceptualization of law that ignores the legal agency of common citizens could easily lead to disastrous outcomes through abuses of state-centric powers. Connecting Romano’s early theorizing to many currently ongoing debates in different jurisdictions and legal orders about the plurality of laws, this article seeks to demonstrate the powerful impact that such kind of pioneering work can have even today. It strengthens, above all, the currently growing realization that law is certainly much more than state law, and that people’s laws and their diverse values and ethics should be treated with more respect by legal orders.