The everyday life of law in the Anthropocene

• Department of Law

The Law Department hosts its inaugural event of the 2025-2026 Academic Year, featuring a conversation with Professor Emanuele Coccia (EHESS Paris).

Does the recognition of the Anthropocene shake the anthropocentric foundations of law? If the impact of human activity on a planetary scale is recognised, how should law be reconceptualised? Legal scholars have examined these questions, not only advocating for the rights of nature, but also reimagining law beyond the human.

During the inauguration of the Academic Year 2025-2026, we will explore these questions from the perspective of the everyday life of the law. How does law shape the everyday life between and beyond humans? How might legal scholarship reimagine everyday life in the Anthropocene?

We will address these questions in dialogue with the philosophical explorations of Prof. Emmanuele Coccia. We are particularly interested in two set of ideas:

• In 'Metamorphoses'. Prof. Coccia proposes understanding life as the relationship binding the living and nonliving, from bacteria and viruses to plants to animals. If we understand ourselves –human and non-human– as product of the metamorphosis of all preceding life, how might we reimagine the law, rights and obligations to reflect our interconnected existence?
• In 'Philosophy of the Home: Domestic Space and Happiness'. Prof. Coccia identifies the home as a crucial site for philosophical exploration that may unlock the secret to happiness. While philosophical reflection has mostly been articulated from the polis, Prof. Coccia looks at the home, at how, in order to live, we fill empty spaces to build a home, from the rooms we inhabit, to the planet that hosts us all. Should we also shift our attention away from the lawgiver and search for the life of the law in how it shapes the construction of home? In an era where law translates interests, allocates powers, resolve disputes, can legal reflection turn towards the process of building a home as a way to reconnect the everyday life of law with the happy life of humans and non-humans?

Welcome: Prof. Nicolas Petit, Head of the Law Department

Opening remarks: Prof. Patrizia Nanz, President of the European University Institute