The legal scholarship of the National Socialist and Fascist period of the 20th century and its subsequent reverberation throughout European law and legal tradition has recently become the focus of intense scholarly discussion. This volume presents theoretical,historical and legal inquiries into the legacy of National Socialism and Fascism written by a group of the leading scholars in this field. Their essays are wide-ranging, covering the reception of National Socialist and Fascist ideologies into legal scholarship; contemporary perceptions of Nazi Law in the Anglo-American world; parallels and differences among authoritarian regimes in the Third Reich, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Vichy-France; how formerly authoritarian countries have dealt with their legal antecedents; continuities and discontinuities in legal thought in private law, public law, labour law, international and European law; and the legal profession's endogenous obedience and the pains of Vergangenheitsbewältigung. The majority of the contributions were first presented at a conference at the EUI in the autumn of 2000, the others in subsequent series of seminars.

Fascist legal theory, its uncritical acceptance of fascist legal thinking by American and British scholars of the time, and the continuing remnants of its system in extant institutions all point to the uncomfortable fact that questions of fascism, Nazism, and legal practice and theory need to be understood as a European problem of contemporary rele.

This book, written by leading scholars, presents theoretical, historical and legal inquiries into the legacy of National Socialism and Fascism.

In this important compendium, one of the leading scholars of EU law and its legal framework, reflects on his previous writings in the context of current challenges the European project is facing. More than a simple restatement, it offers an important theoretical comment at this defining time for EU law. The author offers a welcome counterbalance to what some perceive to be a surfeit of optimism when assessing the EU and its development. In so doing, Professor Joerges identifies three flaws in the current European ideology. Firstly, he points to the intellectual weakness of the “integration through law” ideology. Secondly, the book sets out the systematic neglect of “the economic” and its political dynamics. Finally, it addresses the complacency with respect to Europe's darker legacies. This is an important critical (and candid) assessment of Europe at its half century.

Fascism was one of the twentieth century's principal political forces, and one of the most violent and problematic. Brutal, repressive and in some cases totalitarian, the fascist and authoritarian regimes of the early twentieth century, in Europe and beyond, sought to create revolutionary new orders that crushed their opponents. A central component of such regimes' exertion of control was criminal law, a focal point and key instrument of State punitive and repressive power. This collection brings together a range of original essays by international experts in the field to explore questions of criminal law under Italian Fascism and other similar regimes, including Franco's Spain, Vargas's Brazil and interwar Romania and Japan. Addressing issues of substantive criminal law, criminology and ideology, the form and function of criminal justice institutions, and the role and perception of criminal law in processes of transition, the collection casts new light on fascism's criminal legal history and related questions of theoretical interpretation and historiography. At the heart of the collection is the problematic issue of continuity and similarity among fascist systems and preceding, contemporaneous and subsequent legal orders, an issue that goes to the heart of fascist regimes' historical identity and the complex relationship between them and the legal orders constructed in their aftermath. The collection thus makes an innovative contribution both to the comparative understanding of fascism, and to critical engagement with the foundations and modalities of criminal law across systems.