Maastricht Foundations of Law Colloquia

17/03/2026

Join us tomorrow!

The Maastricht Centre for Law & Jurisprudence cordially invites you to a colloquium with Damiano Canale (Bocconi University) on 'When Experts Make the Law'.

Canale will present a paper in which he examines a form of expert deference in legal decision-making that gives rise to what I call “the opacity of law.” An authoritative legal text is opaque when it incorporates technical terms or expressions that are not fully understood by either the legislators who enact the text or the judges who is called upon to apply its content. In such cases, epistemic deference shifts into semantic deference: experts effectively determine the content of authoritative legal texts and, in that sense, make new law. I argue that opacity undermines the legitimacy of statutory law in constitutional democracies and hampers judicial reasoning. Drawing on a case-law example, the article traces the sources of opacity and assesses its pernicious effects.

Date: Wednesday, 18 March 2026
Time: 16:00-18:00h
Venue: Faculty of Law, Bouillonstraat 1-3 Maastricht, room B1.019 (bestuurskamer) and via Teams

If you want to join, either in person or via Teams, please register here:

All events are hybrid. In case you can attend physically, the location is Maastricht University, Faculty of Law. The room will be communicated a few days before each seminar. If you attend the colloquia online, you will receive the Teams link a few days before each seminar.

19/02/2026

Join us for our next colloquium with Guilherme Vasconcelos Vilaca!

25th of February from 16-18h at the Maastricht University Faculty of Law or online. Hope to see you there!

Registration via:
https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/events/maastricht-foundations-law-colloquia

21/01/2026

The Maastricht Centre for Law & Jurisprudence invites you to a colloquium with Professor Ingo Venzke (University of Amsterdam)!

Event details
Date: Tuesday, 27 January 2026
Time: 16:00-18:00h
Venue: Faculty of Law, Kapoenstraat 2, Maastricht (KAP2 0.009) and via Zoom

If you want to join, either in person or via Zoom, please register here: https://www.aanmelder.nl/169090/subscribe?survey_id=199377

For the full 2025-26 colloquia program, use this link: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/about-um/faculties/faculty-law/departments/foundations-and-methods-law/maastricht-foundations-law

18/11/2025

The Maastricht Centre for Law & Jurisprudence (Faculty of Law, Department of Foundations of Law) invites you to a special colloquium featuring André Nunes Chaib (Maastricht University).

In this colloquium, we will discuss his paper 'Law, Markets and the Valuation of Nature: Legal Infrastructures, Financial Instruments, and the Contest over Ecological Value.'

When: Wednesday, 19 November 2025
Time: 16:00–18:00
Where: Faculty of Law, Bouillonstraat 1-3 Maastricht, room B1.019 (Bestuurskamer) & via Zoom

For more information and registration: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/events/maastricht-foundations-law-colloquia

15/10/2025

📣 Upcoming Colloquium – Maastricht Centre for Law & Jurisprudence

Join us for our next colloquium featuring Anne Ruth Mackor, Professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Groningen.

🧠 Topic: On Bayesian modelling of criminal cases as a whole
📅 Date: Wednesday, 22 October 2025
🕓 Time: 16:00–18:00
📍 Location: Faculty of Law, Bouillonstraat 1–3, Room B1.019 (bestuurskamer) or via Zoom

👉 Register here to join (in person or via Zoom): https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/events/maastricht-foundations-law-colloquia

For the full 2025–26 program, visit: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/about-um/faculties/faculty-law/departments/foundations-and-methods-law/maastricht-foundations-law

04/09/2025

We are excited to start the new academic year with a new series of our Foundations of Law Colloquium! We will kick off this year at September 10 (16:00) with the paper of Massimo Fichera (Maastricht University) on Communal Constitutionalism. To register, go to: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/events/maastricht-foundations-law-colloquia

15/05/2025

🎓 Upcoming Colloquium: An Institutional (Re)turn in Legal Scholarship 🎓

The Maastricht Centre for Law & Jurisprudence, in the Department of Foundations of Law, warmly invites you to our next colloquium featuring Prof. Anna Beckers (Maastricht University), Chair of Private Law and Social Theory. Prof. Beckers will present her latest work, "An institutional (re)turn in legal scholarship."

🗓 Date: Wednesday, 21 May 2025
⏰ Time: 16:00–18:00
📍 Venue: Faculty of Law, Bouillonstraat 1-3 Maastricht, Room B1.019 (bestuurskamer) & online via Zoom

🥂 Drinks:
Join us afterwards for drinks at De Preuverij (Kakeberg 6) from 18:30–20:30.

Registration:
Please register to attend in person or via Zoom via https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/events/maastricht-foundations-law-colloquia.

We look forward to seeing you there!

11/03/2025

Next up in our colloquium series is Inge van Hulle (KU Leuven). To register for this event on March 19 (16-18h) on her chapter 'The O***m Wars, International Drug Control and the Fragmentation of International Law', go to

Maastricht Foundations of Law Colloquia 26 February 2025 16:00 - 26 February 2025 18:00 The Department of Foundations of Law in the Faculty of Law cordially invites you to the next meeting of our Maastricht Foundations of Law Colloquia. On 26 February, our speaker is Alejandro Calzetta from ...

24/02/2025

🎓 Join us for our next Maastricht Foundations of Law Colloquium!

📢 Speaker: Alejandro Calzetta (University of Genova)
📖 Topic: Eugenio Bulygin and the Evolution of the Theory of Competence Norms

Abstract:
The purpose of this work is to give an account of the theoretical path taken by Eugenio Bulygin in trying to establish a theory for the norms of competence and how the results of his research served as a starting point for two of the most interesting approaches to norms of competence in legal theory (at least in what we call the civil law tradition). These are, namely, the approaches of Jordi Ferrer Beltrán and Jorge Rodriguez. Given the apparent similarity of these, a comparison will be made between both to demonstrate that, although there is a clear similarity since both arise from the same theoretical trunk, the options pursued by each author make these approaches different enough to be considered independent of each other. Finally, a solution will be offered to the problems of the approaches that combine elements of Bulygin and his two successors, and those of Riccardo Guastini’s in a Buenos Aires-Genoese synthesis. To this end, use will be made of the notion of constitutive system developed by Calzetta and Rábanos in 2022 to present an account of legal competence based on a multi norm approach.

Format:
The colloquium follows a pre-read format. Participants are expected to read the paper beforehand. The first hour will focus on a general discussion, followed by a more detailed analysis in the second hour.

🗓️ When: Wednesday, 26 February 2025
⏰ Time: 16:00-18:00h
📍 Where: Faculty of Law, Bouillonstraat 1-3, Maastricht, Room B1.019 (Bestuurskamer) & via Zoom

💻 Registration required: Whether you plan to attend in person or online, please register here: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/events/maastricht-foundations-law-colloquia

27/01/2025

🎓 Join us for our next Maastricht Foundations of Law Colloquium!

Speaker: Eva Bernet Kempers (University of Antwerp)
Topic: "Do rights of nature include animal rights?"

Abstract:
This article examines the intersection of the Rights of Nature (RoN) and animal rights, two increasingly influential paradigms in both academic discourse and judicial practice. While RoN has gained global recognition, with various jurisdictions attributing legal personality and/or rights to natural entities, the inclusion of individual wild animals within this framework remains contested. Animal rights scholars have expressed concerns that RoN might subsume or even undermine animal rights, reducing them to species-level protections and potentially leading to a form of “environmental fascism”. Environmental law scholars, on the other hand, are generally reluctant to accept the basic premises of animal rights, as this framework tends to privilege individual parts of the ecosystem (sentient animals) over others, thereby potentially endangering the ecological equilibrium. This article addresses these tensions by examining whether and how individual animals can be recognized as rights-holders within the RoN framework. It argues that, despite the apparent philosophical divergence between RoN and animal rights, the two paradigms can be reconciled in legal practice. By operationalizing RoN as a three-dimensional concept, the article seeks to transform the theoretical animosity between the two schools of thought into a juridically amicable relationship, ultimately proposing the recognition of individual animals as subjects of rights under the normative framework of Rights of Nature.

📅 When: Wednesday, February 12, 2025
⏰ Time: 16:00-18:00
📍 Where: Faculty of Law, Bouillonstraat 1-3, Maastricht
Room: B1.019 (Bestuurskamer)
💻 Also available via Zoom

Registration required via https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/events/maastricht-foundations-law-colloquia