Table Of ContentIus Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice 105
Matteo Nicolini
Legal
Geography
Comparative Law and the Production
of Space
Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law
and Justice
Volume 105
SeriesEditors
MortimerSellers,UniversityofBaltimore,Baltimore,MD,USA
JamesMaxeiner,UniversityofBaltimore,Baltimore,MD,USA
EditorialBoardMembers
MyroslavaAntonovych,Kyiv-MohylaAcademy,Kyiv,Ukraine
NadiadeAraújo,PontificalCatholicUniversityofRiodeJaneiro,RiodeJaneiro,
Brazil
JasnaBakšic-Muftic,UniversityofSarajevo,Sarajevo,BosniaandHerzegovina
DavidL.CareyMiller,UniversityofAberdeen,Aberdeen,UK
LoussiaP.MusseFélix,UniversityofBrasilia,FederalDistrict,Brazil
EmanuelGross,UniversityofHaifa,Haifa,Israel
JamesE.HickeyJr.,HofstraUniversity,SouthHempstead,NY,USA
JanKlabbers,UniversityofHelsinki,Helsinki,Finland
CláudiaLimaMarques,FederalUniversityofRioGrandedoSul,PortoAlegre,
Brazil
AnicetoMasferrer,UniversityofValencia,Valencia,Spain
EricMillard,WestParisUniversity,NanterreCedex,France
GabriëlA.Moens,CurtinUniversity,Perth,Australia
RaulC.Pangalangan,UniversityofthePhilippines,QuezonCity,Philippines
RicardoLeitePinto,LusíadaUniversityofLisbon,Lisboa,Portugal
MizanurRahman,UniversityofDhaka,Dhaka,Bangladesh
KeitaSato,ChuoUniversity,Tokyo,Japan
PoonamSaxena,UniversityofDelhi,NewDelhi,India
GerrySimpson,LondonSchoolofEconomics,London,UK
EduardSomers,UniversityofGhent,Gent,Belgium
XinqiangSun,ShandongUniversity,Shandong,China
TadeuszTomaszewski,WarsawUniversity,Warsaw,Poland
JaapdeZwaan,ErasmusUniversityRotterdam,Rotterdam,TheNetherlands
IusGentiumisabookserieswhichdiscussesthecentralquestionsoflawandjustice
fromacomparativeperspective.Thebooksinthisseriescollectthecontrastingand
overlappingperspectivesoflawyers,judges,philosophersandscholarsoflawfrom
the world's many different jurisdictions for the purposes of comparison,
harmonisation, and the progressive development of law and legal institutions.
Each volume makes a new comparative study of an important area of law. This
book series continues the work of the well-known journal of the same name and
providesthebasisforabetterunderstandingofallareasoflegalscience.
TheIusGentiumseriesprovidesavaluableresourceforlawyers,judges,legisla-
tors,scholars,andbothgraduatestudentsandresearchersinglobalisation,compar-
ative law, legal theory and legal practice. The series has a special focus on the
developmentofinternationallegalstandardsandtransnationallegalcooperation.
Matteo Nicolini
Legal Geography
Comparative Law and the Production of Space
MatteoNicolini
DepartmentofLaw
UniversityofVerona
Verona,Italy
ISSN1534-6781 ISSN2214-9902 (electronic)
IusGentium:ComparativePerspectivesonLawandJustice
ISBN978-3-031-19409-2 ISBN978-3-031-19410-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19410-8
©TheEditor(s)(ifapplicable)andTheAuthor(s),underexclusivelicensetoSpringerNatureSwitzerland
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They also that dwell in the uttermost parts
are afraid at thy tokens :
thou makest the outgoings of the morning
and evening to rejoice.
Psalm 65:8 (King James Version)
Dedicated to my beloved children,
Tobia Libero and Valeria Assunta,
whose very acts of geo-graphing
have completely reshuffled the world
Preface1
I had been pondering the idea of examining the ‘special relationship’ between law
andgeographyforalongtimebeforethePandemicbrokeintoourlivesin2020.
Bythen,IhadalreadymadeafewpresentationsonthetopicattheUniversitiesof
Nicosia (2013), Verona (2014 and 2019), Tübingen (2017), Lille (2018), and
Preston (2019). In 2018, Gabriele Abels invited me as a guest lecture scholar at
Eberhard Karls University Tübingen to deliver a course of lectures on ‘The Legal
Geography of Multi-Level Contexts: The Case of the EU Territorial Constitution’.
TogetherwithmyfriendsandcolleaguesChiaraBattisti,SidiaFiorato,andThomas
Perrin, I also hosted an International Conference on ‘Islands and remoteness in
Geography,LawandFiction’inVerona(2019).
It goes without saying that, by then, I had also published some essays on the
relationbetweencomparativelawandgeography,addressingitthroughtheangleof
federalsystems,suchasinAccommodatingDividedSocietiesThroughConstituent
Units? A Comparative Survey of Regional Demarcation and Territorial Alteration
(2013); Regional Demarcation, Territorial Alteration, and Accommodation of
Divided Societies (2015); Boundaries and Identity: The Legal Geography of the
European Union and the United States of America (2015); and Reforming the
Territorial Constitution in Italy: Some Reflections on Durability and Change
(2019).Ihadalsoexamined theimpactofglobalideo-logicalspaces in‘Inequality
ofGoodsandLands’inMortgagedDemocracies:ParadigmsandEffectsofGlobal
Comparative Law (2020); whereas the spatiality of law had been explored in
Monstrosity‘Overseas’?Civilisation,TradeandColonialPolicyinConrad’sAfri-
can Tales (2019). Finally, I perused Cyprus as a case for legal geography in
Territorial and Ethnic Divide: A New Legal Geography for Cyprus (2016) and A
1This book pertains to the activities of the IEL (Innovative Education Laboratory) GEOLawB,
whichispartoftheresearchexcellenceproject‘Law,ChangesandTechnology’,sponsoredbythe
MinistryofEducationandcarriedoutbytheLawSchooloftheUniversityofVerona.
ix
x Preface
‘New’ Legal Geography for the ‘Old’ Cyprus Question: Regional Demarcation,
Power-Sharing,andDividedSocieties(2016).
Yet, the analysis of legal geography required a broader theoretical framework,
which could allow me to reframe the ‘special relationship’ between law and geog-
raphyintermsoflegalgeography.Thiswouldhavemeantengaginginatruecross-
disciplinary project, following in the footsteps of, say, Irus Braverman, Nicholas
Blomley,SandyKedar,andDavidDelaney.
Amonglawyers,inparticular,IrusBravermanshowedusallhowtoachievethe
goal of cross-disciplinarity. In a fruitful exchange of emails some years ago, she
pointedmetoherCoralWhisperers.ScientistsontheBrink(2018),whichIconsider
animpressivescholarlyachievementinclimate-changerelatedresearch.There,she
worked out how global warming had been affecting the ‘political’ communities of
theseaswhicharecoralreefs,alsoundertaking‘massiveresearch...thatstretched
acrosscontinentsanddisciplines’withcoralexperts,whomshelabels‘thevanguard
of conservation in the Anthropocene’. To this book and to the collection Blue
Legalities. The Life & Laws of the Seas that she edited with Elizabeth R Johnson
in 2020, I owe the approach I subsequently adopted in Law, the Humanities and
PoliticalIncertitudeinaTimeofClimateChange(2021).
Whilecross-disciplinaryinspirationsdidnotlack,Istillhadtomakeupmymind
about the methodology applicable to my research. The occasion for doing so was
prompted by the publication of the collection Legal Geography: Perspectives and
MethodseditedbyTayanahO’Donnell,DanielFRobinson,andJosephineGillespie
in 2020. The book also comprised Liesel Spencer’s chapter on Comparative legal
geography:contextandplacein‘legaltransplants’.LieselSpencerquotedmyessay
TerritorialandEthnicDivide:ANewLegalGeographyforCyprus,alsopointingto
itsallegedweakness.Although‘illustrativeofwhatlegalgeographyhastoofferto
comparativelaw’,sheconsideredmychapter‘notinconversationwitheither legal
geography or comparative law scholarship about developing new methodological
approaches’ (at p. 151). In particular, she highlighted that I did not quote Sandy
Kedar’s essay Expanding Legal Geographies: A Call for a Critical Comparative
Approach published in Braverman et al (eds) The Expanding Spaces of Law. A
Timely Legal Geography (Stanford UP, Stanford 2014) on transplants and the
comparativelegalapproachtogeography.
Liesel Spencer was quite right. And Sandy’s essay is now quoted in this book.
Yet, I remain convinced that cross-disciplinary research requires (or, at least, falls
under)agooddoseof‘disciplinedsubjectivity’.
AsIanWardputsit,certainly‘everydisciplinehasitsownhigh-road,chartedby
generations of scholarly pioneers. Which occasionally intersect’, thus generating
fertilesoilforcross-disciplinaryconversation(Law,LiteratureandHistory,inLaw
&Literature,2021).‘Itis’,Iancontinues,‘attheseintersectionsthatyoutendtofind
the greatest mess. All the litter lying about. And all the curiosity, the variously
brilliant things glinting in the ditch, the fragments of this and that tossed aside by
thoseotherwisedistractedbythegreaterurgetogetwheretheyaregoingasfastas
theycan’.Culturalbackground(inmycase,evidently,thatofacomparativelawyer
engaged with methodological issues) becomes our strength, allowing us to cross
Preface xi
disciplinaryborderswithoutappearingamateurish.IsubscribetoIan’spredicament
infull:‘Inthebuildingtradewemightbecalledskip-rats.Re-cyclingsoundsbetter;
re-purposingperhaps.Re-shapingfromfragments.Re-imagining’.
Whilst writing this book, I also had the possibility to present some chapters
during conferences and seminars. Chapter 2 was discussed at the Society of Legal
Scholars (SLS) Annual Conference, Durham University, under the banner ‘Com-
parative Law and Geography: A Special Relationship’ (September 1st, 2021).
Chapter 3 was presented at the University of Turin (Italy) at the Conference
‘Geographies of the law. Inquiries into the space-law tangle’ as ‘Law, power, and
the production of natural Geography’ (December 14th, 2021). On that occasion,
SandyKedarandIactedasdiscussantsofthekeynotespeechbyNicholasBlomley.
ThankstoNicholasforreadingChap.5.Chapters6and7weredeliveredduringthe
seminar‘LegalGeographiesandTheProductionofFederalSpaces’attheUniversity
ofNicosia(March16th,2022).Chap.4waspresentedatthethirdLegalHistoriesof
Empires Conference ‘Beyond the Pale: Legal Histories on the Edges of Empires’
(July1st,2022)heldatMaynoothUniversity(Ireland)withthetitle‘Manufacturing
Imperial Spatialities. The British Integrated Legal Geography of Land and Sea’.
Chap.8wasfinallypresentedattheSLSConference(September8th,2022)heldat
King’s College London with the title ‘The Legal, the Digital, and the Global
ProductionofSpace’.
Writing a book is an individual journey. Yet, it is also a collective task
encroaching upon (not to say interfering with) the lives of our families. A special
thanks,then,tomywifeLisaforherendurance,patience,andresilience.
ThankstoGiuseppeMartinicoforreadingthewholemanuscript.
IoweabigdebtofgratitudetoFrancisGordon,whosepatience(again!)andgood
exampleofBritishhumourassistedmeintheexhaustingactivityofhavingthebook
proofread.
Verona,Italy MatteoNicolini
