We will have the pleasure of hosting Cinzia Sciuto, director of MicroMega, for the presentation of her latest book titled “Law or Barbarism. Against the Rule of the Strongest” (Diritto o barbarie. Contro la legge del più forte). The event will feature an introduction by Olivia Guaraldo (University of Verona), followed by a presentation by the author.

Date and time: October 26, 5:00 PM

Location: Aula T1, Polo Zanotto – University of Verona (Viale dell’Università, 1)

The Book

For years, we have been hearing that international law is in crisis. But perhaps the question needs to be framed differently: is it truly the law that has failed, or have we stopped defending it?

Cinzia Sciuto starts from this inversion of perspective to analyze the first quarter of the 21st century: from the wars following 9/11 to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, from October 7th to the destruction of Gaza, up to the return of Donald Trump and his openly sovereignist and neo-imperial conception of power. What emerges is the story of a progressive crumbling: whenever a power claims an exception to the rule for itself, it contributes to weakening that rule for everyone.

Yet this book is neither an indictment against international law nor an exercise in nostalgia for an order that never fully delivered on its promises. On the contrary, it is a rigorous defense of the idea that only the law can rescue relations between States from the logic of revenge, permanent deterrence, and military superiority. Because there can be no law if the rules apply only against enemies and are suspended for allies, and there can be no lasting peace if every State resorts to taking justice into its own hands.

International institutions are weak, often impotent, and in profound need of reform, but their weakness does not prove that we can do without them; if anything, it demonstrates how urgent it is to build stronger, more democratic institutions truly capable of binding power. When the law yields to force, realism does not begin: barbarism does.