Title: Natural Law, Nature Without Law. Antiquity is another World not a World of Conquest

Speaker: Prof. Dario Mantovani (College de France)

Moderator: Prof. Laurent Cases凱羅榮助理教授 (National Taiwan University)

Time: 10:00 am ~ 12:00 pm, Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Venue: College Auditorium, College of Liberal Arts, NTU (臺大文學院演講廳)

Abstract: In the 21st century, many states throughout the world have placed nature in the same legal category as humans or human groupings. Ideas of granting rights to nature under the law mobilize texts and concepts from Antiquity, mainly from Roman jurisprudence. But could the Romans, with the notion of ius naturale, really have conceived of “eco-contracts” or “rights of nature”? Weaving through the strands of Roman jurisprudence, this talk will highlight the specificities of the juridical relationship of the Romans with nature and the natural order to show precisely how ancient jurisprudence informs modern discourses, and how modern discourses reform and deform the thoughts of the ancients. Far from being guides for the future, the Romans must recover their alterity. This presentation will help us to reconsider and rethink our relationship to the past when engaging in the debates on ecological transition.