Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Culture, Politica e Società

The course will provide students with a foundation in law and society in Asia, as one of the most important, but also challenged and challenging, area in the world today. Our objective is to facilitate a critical understanding of how law operates in Asian societies, and to prepare students for future engagement with the legal-political systems of (selected) Asian countries in various professional contexts.

In particular, the course will focus on South-East Asia, particularly Islamic countries, and India, in light of the complex social, legal and economic fabric that characterizes these areas, both building on historical and cultural heritages going back thousands of years.

The goal is to make the students familiar with the following topics:

- What observers of cultures and trends mean when they say that the 21st century will belong Asia? Is that correct to discuss the current economic prosperity of many Asian nation, using the label "Asia", "Asian Values", etc., to refer to specific qualities, such as strong family ties, hard work, etc? How the inherent cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and social diversity of Asia fits in with the world's perception of Asia as a cultural unit?

- Indian socio-legal history

- Current trends in Indian feminist movements and indigenous issues

- Have acquired a sound knowledge of Asian legal systems and an understanding of their origins and functions.

- Be able to evaluate the role of Asian legal, political and cultural spaces as means of achieving social change and social justice.

- Be able to illustrate how Asian laws are embedded in social life and to identify the nexus between law and culture, identity, religion, economy, and politics.

- Be able carry out interdisciplinary analysis of Asian legal issues, with an appropriate awareness of the purposes and limits of such a methodological approach.

- Have acquired a deeper knowledge of various social science approaches to research into Asian laws, and an understanding of their usefulness in relation to more narrowly legal approaches.

The teaching will be mixed, combining live-streaming (recorded) lessons, PowerPoint presentations, live Q&A sessions and reading materials.

The slides of the lessons and the related materials will be uploaded on the Moodle platform in advance, in order to allow the students to prepare themselves on the topic that will be discussed during the class. Students are therefore invited to sign up on the Moodle platform as any communication will be circulated via Moodle.

Students will take the exam in a written form.

In order to qualify as attending students, students will have to attend 70% of classes per module (therefore, 13 hours per module). Failing to do so (in one or both modules), they will be considered as non-attending students for the purpose of the final exam.

ATTENDING STUDENTS

The final mark, expressed in a 30-point scale, will be composed as follows:

- Attendance and class participation: 10%

- Group Presentations: students will be asked to deliver a group presentation during each module (so, on the overall, there will be 2 presentations, one per module) on the topics and materials proposed. The topics and the groups will be communicated at the beginning of each module. Each presentation will account for 15% (overall: 30%) of the final mark

- The students will be asked to write two final essays (one per module, 3000 words each), each accounting for 30% (overall: 60%) of the final mark.

NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS

Students who decide not to attend the course will be asked to write two longer essays. Non-attending students should contact the professor(s) for further information on the papers.

The course will be articulated in two modules.

Module one (18 hours- Dr. Chiara Correndo) will focus on:

• Legal pluralism: the interplay between law and society
• The Indian legal tradition, with specific attention to the Hindu one
• Colonialism in India: burden and impact on the contemporary Indian legal culture
• Insights on currently challenging legal issues
• The Adivasi communities in India
• Feminist movements in India
• The LGBT struggle for rights

Module two (18 hours- prof. Sanjay Rajhans) will tackle the following topics:

- the question of cultural relativism;

- regional and sub-regional level institutional cooperative efforts;

- Asian contribution to the human rights regime;

- incorporation of international human rights norms into domestic legal settings.

In particular, it  will focus on:

1. Different legal systems approach to human rights;
2. Framing Empire: Law, People and Institution;
3. Law and Colonial Modernity & Law, People and Colonialism;
4. Colonizing Law;
5. Administering Law;
6. Engagement: Law Reform;
7. Law and Knowledge Production;
8. Law and Colonial Encounter;
9. Constitutionalism and rule of law;
10. Domestic treatment of international human rights law in Asia

Texts and documents (for attending and non-attending students) will be communicated before the beginning of the course on the Moodle platform.