PhD Defence in Sociology of Law: Carlo Nicoli Aldini

Legal and Lethal

Lawfare and Legal Mobilization in the Conflict over the Steel Plant of Taranto, Italy

Legal and Lethal examines the conflict in Taranto, a city in Southern Italy that has hosted one of Europe’s largest steel plants, Ilva, since the 1960s. Over the decades, Ilva has reshaped Taranto’s socioeconomic and environmental landscape, causing severe pollution that epidemiological studies have linked to elevated mortality and morbidity. This crisis has led to a conflict fought also through legal means: while the Italian government used law to protect its politico-economic interests tied to Ilva, broad segments of the local population mobilized to demand emission cuts and the stop of production, both outside formal institutions and in domestic and European courts. Drawing on lawfare and legal mobilization theory, the thesis analyzes the conflict in Taranto against the backdrop of the historical process through which Southern Italy came to be constructed as a “question” during Italy’s state formation. It shows that the Ilva conflict exemplifies the contradictions generated by state efforts to “solve” the “southern question”, which led Ilva to acquire a central position within Italy’s steel economy. The thesis contributes to sociolegal research by offering new typologies of lawfare to analyze institutional uses of law in social conflicts; by examining how lawfare interacts with the rule of law, shedding light on how societal conflicts can generate incentives for nondemocratic institutional tendencies; and by problematizing the possibilities and limits of pursuing social change through European institutional channels. 

External discussant

Professor Siri Gloppen, University of Bergen