International Projects

Legisprudence. Interdisciplinary Approach (2005-7)

The ongoing intertwinement of legisprudence and normative activity opens new perspectives on their interdisciplinary study. Like in the former project Legislation, the Disciplines and the Branches of Law (2004-2006) this project again focuses on the theoretical issues in legislation (Legisprudence), Legisprudence and the branches of law, Legisprudence and the disciplines, and Legisprudence and special topics in the domain of legislation.



IVR Encyclopaedia of Jurisprudence, Legal Theory, and Philosophy
of Law (2004-  )

A lot of international researchers are involved in this project that aims at the elaboration of an encyclopaedia consultable through the internet. The main objective with this is to present le-gal theory as an independent discipline, different from both legal dogmatics and philosophy. Legal research is often carried out through some philosophical and theoretical presuppositions as regards argumentation, interpretation and legitimacy. The knowledge of the average re-searcher however is often fragmented or outdated. That is why this encyclopaedia, on the one hand, tries to open up the legal theoretical repertory, this possibly causing philosophical or theoretical divergences of views. The legal researcher, on the other hand, can give a better insight to the legal philosopher or legal theorist as regards practical legal knowledge. The website can be consulted under the following link (password needed).



The Transformation of Politics into Law (2004-7)

The CLRL is actively involved in the research on the comparative and sociological aspects of legislative law creation. The researchers working on this project are assigned to Ukrainian, Belgian, Polish and Swedish universities or civil services. The project aims at establishing how the new EU member states apply legisprudence in the restructuring of their legal sys-tems. This includes more than the study of the implementation of European Union law into national law. Also questions concerning the supposedly necessary character of regulative sanctions, the consequences of the textual character of law and the adequate formulation of legal rules are object of this research project. The social entrenchment of law is of greatest importance since the communist ideology belongs to the past while the social structure has not been tailored yet to new forms of economic and social interaction. The recent constitu-tional crisis in Ukraine, taking on the relationship between law and politics in a different as-pect, clearly shows indeed that democratic regulation is not evident at all.



Legislation, the Disciplines and the Branches of Law (2004-2006)

This research project discusses to what extent act theory, semiotics, logic, sociological and economic analysis of law can contribute to the elaboration and production of legislation. Al-though these disciplines deal with law all separately, the question arises whether they can be integrated into one independent disciplinary matrix. The project includes research on several fields of law, such as constitutional law, penal law, European Union law and corporate law. This project also investigates how the assumed regulatory objectives and effects can be as-sessed and to what extent, from a practical point of view, the conduct of those who have to either enforce or apply the legal rules is taken into account (compliance management).



Theory and Practice of Legislation (1999-2003)

The increasing internationalisation of legal regulation calls for a comprehensive analysis of the underlying regulatory theories. The rational character of legal regulation underpins why these theories have to be elucidated and evaluated. Contemporary legal systems are indeed characterised by excessive normative density, affecting legal and legislative security. That is why this project brings into focus the relevant theoretical aspects of regulation, constitutional-ism and democracy. Especially the legitimacy of law as product of the political power strug-gle has to be kept in mind. Finally, some practical issues concerning legislation are dealt with.



Rationality and Legislation. Legal Theory from a Legisprudential Perspective (1996-1998)

Contemporary continental legal theory is to a large extent contributory to the work of some Scandinavian and Dutch authors. A first Benelux-Scandinavian symposium has thus been organised at the University of Antwerp in 1983. This brought into being a new network of legal theorists, all working on the elaboration of a valuable alternative for classical legal dog-matics. This same platform took the initiative in 1996 to draw up a status quaestionis as re-gards legal theoretical research (history, epistemology, sociology, heuristics, computer sci-ences and so on). These results were brought together and were critically evaluated. A further definition and demarcation of the theory of legislation has been based on these results and new research questions have since then been articulated.



My Philosophy of Law (1995-1999)

In the starting up phase of the CLRL, an international research project was set up in which the most important contemporary legal theorists were asked to present their own work in a com-mon publication. The book gives a good survey of how the persons in question consider legal philosophy and legal theory, which questions challenged their minds and which persons ex-erted a strong influence on them. The results of this project are addressed to young research-ers in the field of law and other social sciences. Concerted action made it indeed possible to discuss the most important issues within current legal theory. What is more, the fact that the most prominent legal theorists present their own work and provide a comprehensive bibliog-raphy on which their work is mainly found, makes this book highly original.

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