Date: 2008

This seminar will be composed of a group of conferences with the objective of ascertaining the contribution of John Rawls' political thought to the conceptualization of the European Union.
The two models of institutional ordering set by Rawls – principles of justice for a domestic society, proposed in A Theory of Justice, and principles to be applied to international relations, postulated in The Law of Peoples – have a possible parallel in the opposition between the two basic orientations through which the European integration is commonly conceived: the supranational model, of cosmopolitan tenor, and the intergovernmental model, in accordance with the confederal form of governance.
It is hence within this frame that the sessions will take place, seeking to clarify the rawlsian propositions in order to illuminate the analysis of the constitution of Europe.