"Distinguished colleagues, incoming researchers, esteemed members of our academic community,
It’s my pleasure to welcome you all to what promises to be a thrilling year at the EUI’s Law Department. As we gather here today, we stand at a crossroads in the history of legal scholarship – one that invites us to reflect not only on where we have been, but on where we are headed as guardians, interpreters and critics of this intellectual tradition.
Law stands among the most ancient of academic disciplines. From the earliest codifications in Mesopotamia to the sophisticated legal systems that govern our interconnected world today, the study of law is lucky to have maintained an almost unquestioned relevance throughout human history. This endurance stems first of all from the fact that law has always served the practical purpose of training professionals who shape society’s institutional framework, and it itself occupies a central role in organising human communities.
Law schools have been the training grounds for judges, advocates, legislators, and legal advisors – professionals whose work directly translates academic inquiry into the governance of societies. More deeply, law serves as the very architecture of social organisation. It is through legal frameworks that we define rights and obligations, establish procedures for resolving disputes, and create mechanisms for collective decision-making. Law transforms the raw potential for human cooperation into structured, predictable patterns of social interaction.
Yet today, as we embark on this new academic year, this traditionally stable foundation is experiencing unprecedented pressures. Three particular forces are reshaping the landscape in which legal scholarship operates, and each demands our serious intellectual attention.
The first challenge comes from the political and geopolitical spheres. We are witnessing a troubling disregard by certain political forces for established legal principles, in the domains of international and humanitarian law, but more generally regarding the rule of law and the very idea of governance through law. From violations of territorial sovereignty to the targeting of civilian populations, from the erosion of diplomatic immunity to the abandonment of multilateral agreements, we see actions that seem to treat law not as binding obligation but as mere suggestion. This phenomenon forces us to confront an uncomfortable question: has the power of law – especially international law – ever been more than a temporary illusion, effective only when convenient to those in power?
The second transformation is digital. Here we face a paradox. The rapid advancement of digital technologies creates an urgent need for legal regulation. Artificial intelligence, data protection, algorithmic decision-making, digital currencies, cybersecurity – these domains cry out for legal frameworks that can provide clarity, protection, and accountability. Yet simultaneously, digital technologies are fundamentally transforming how law operates. Smart contracts execute automatically without human intervention. Blockchain systems create immutable records that challenge traditional concepts of legal evidence. Global digital platforms operate across jurisdictions in ways that render traditional territorial concepts of legal authority increasingly problematic. The very technologies that demand legal regulation are also questioning law’s traditional methods and scope of influence. But there is also a profound dilemma, as the needed regulation risks eroding individual freedoms, and potentially isolating us from the rest of the interconnected world.
The third challenge emerges from what is called the Anthropocene – The era in which human activity can act as a force of planetary change, as our guest Emmanuele Coccia will address shortly. Traditionally legal frameworks were designed to govern human relationships and non-human lives within defined political territories and human lifespans: that make them ill-suited to cope with the undergoing ecological catastrophe and the degradation-devastation of the planet. In response, legislators, scholars, and judges worldwide are exploring new approaches to hold actors – especially states and corporations –accountable, on a global scale; they are developing perspectives that incorporate alternative relationships with land, including indigenous ones. At the same time, the current crisis opens new avenues to question Law’s own role in perpetuating a model of society conducive to environmental harm.
Now, this analysis might sound somewhat discouraging. But I want to suggest precisely the opposite.
What we are witnessing is not the decline of law, but its mutation – and mutation requires the kind of deep, critical, innovative thinking that can only emerge from institutions like ours. The challenges I have described are not reasons for despair; they are invitations for more intellectual engagement.
Here in our Law Department, we are extraordinarily fortunate to host scholars who have precisely the tools needed to engage with these transformations constructively. Our faculty hosts some of the most audacious legal minds in Europe and beyond – scholars who do not merely react to change, but who actively shape how we understand and respond to it. Let me emphasise this point, as it is a key feature of legal research: without compromising academic integrity and intellectual honesty, it embraces a normative stance, openly acknowledging and advocating for the trajectory it seeks to chart.
How can international legal institutions adapt to maintain legitimacy and effectiveness in an era of rising unilateralism? What new forms of legal reasoning might emerge to govern technologies that operate at speeds and scales unprecedented in history? How can the law address long-term, global environmental degradation that exceeds its traditional scope?
These are not merely academic puzzles, they are among the most pressing intellectual challenges of our time. And you, our incoming researchers, are uniquely positioned to tackle them. You arrive here at a moment when legal scholarship has never been more vital, never more needed, and never more intellectually exciting.
Your mission over the coming years will be to think deeply about these transformations, to develop new theoretical frameworks for understanding them, and to imagine pathways forward that preserve what is essential about law while adapting to what is inevitable about change. You will work under the guidance of professors who are not only outstanding scholars but also committed mentors, dedicated to supporting your intellectual development and helping you make meaningful contributions to legal scholarship.
The EUI’s Law Department is more than an academic program – it is a community of scholars united by the conviction that rigorous legal thinking can help build a more just, more stable, and more humane world. As we face the uncertainties and opportunities of this new academic year, that mission remains as relevant as ever.
The future of law – and indeed, the future of the societies law serves – depends on the quality of thinking that will emerge from rooms like this one, from minds like yours, in the months and years ahead. Let us begin."