Units

Perelman Center for legal philosophy

Person in charge of the Unit : Oui

Henri Buch, Paul Foriers and Chaim Perelman created the Center Perelman for Philosophy of Law in 1967. The history of the Center is linked to the ''School of Brussels'' which was born of the meeting between the observation of the legal practice and the new rhetoric of Perelman. The Centre jointed the Faculty of Law in 1982. The Centre carries on the ''Brussels School 's spirit'' The centre develops its activities in the respect of the philosophy of '' Free Examination'' and with the three concerns of excellence, independence, and openmindedness, especially, on the international level. Transdisciplinary approaches are prioritesed. The main goal of the Centre is to further collective and individual researches in the field of philosophy of law in a large sense. It includes the followings: theory of law and legal methodology, legal logic and rhetoric, natural law, philosophy of law and political philosophy, and in general, all the aspects of the practical reason dealing with law.

Projetcs

Global Law - Coregulation

The aim of this research program on global law and coregulation is to define a theoretical model of ''Law and Globalisation''. The Perelman Centre for Legal Philosophy carried out comprehensive study on the new trans-national mechanisms used by global actors to challenge the limits of state's territoriality. A common reasoning - called the ''co-regulation'' paradigm - seems to command the regulation of issues such as environmental law, Internet regulation, labour law and corporate social responsibility. In that context, the Center is conducting various research programs, including a research on « Self-regulation and co-regulation of corporate social responsibility in Europe », sponsored by the European Commission. The co-regulation paradigm helps to explain both strategic and normative interactions as well as their regulation effects. Based on the results of theses previous research, the program ''Global law and co-regulation'' consists of an in-depth analysis of these interactions, in order to identify their characteristics and to understand their nature. The final results expected from the research are the drafting of a comprehensive theory on global law.

Reasoning, argumentation and legal interpretations

In the wake of Chaïm Perelman, who renewed study of rhetoric and legal philosophy, the Perelman Center Perelman for Legal Philosophy follows the study of legal and especially judicial reasoning in its philosophical, historical and practical dimensions. Two doctoral thesis were supported within the Centre on this topic, the one on the history of the models of interpretation (Benoît Frydman) and another one on judgement (Julie Allard). A third one is in progress on the proportionality (Jean-Claude Dupont). This global research program which put together lawyers, philosophers, linguists and specialists of argumentation, includes a double dimension: epistemological, centered on the study of modes of reasoning, and practice, centered on observation and training of the actors of the judicial world.