Rights and Freedoms in the Age of Emergencies

Arianna Vedaschi, Full Professor at Bocconi Department of Law, obtained a PRIN (Progetti di Ricerca di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale) funding of around €690K from The Ministry of University and Research (MUR) for a research project focused on rights and freedoms in times of emergency. The project took the fourth place over 200 applications.

The aim of this 3-year project is to understand how rights and freedoms have changed in a period characterized by emergencies, in order to identify the logic behind their recognition, regulation and balancing under emergency pressure. It is important to note that the objective is not to evaluate whether there has been progress or regression in the protection of these rights, but to comprehend the patterns that have prevailed in producing changes affecting them.

This study focuses on Western countries - members of the EU, the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand. The reason for this methodological choice lies in the need to proceed step by step. In fact, it is appropriate to first analyze the recent evolution of the contemporary protection of individual rights, since Western constitutional theories have been their cradle, and then apply the potential research outcomes to other systems.

PRIN was launched with the goal to promote the national research system, strengthen interactions between universities and research bodies, and encourage Italian participation in initiatives related to European Union's Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

The project stands out for the geographical and dimensional diversity of the universities the five investigators come from and for having women in charge of four research units out of five. The project puts together researchers from the University of Florence (Vittoria Barsotti), LUM University (Patrizia De Pasquale), University of Turin (Michele Graziadei), and University of Naples "L'Orientale" (Emma Annamaria Imparato).