What is your research about?

As a constitutional law scholar, my research is focused on the response to the Covid-19 pandemic and how our legal systems have attempted to cope with it, starting from the Italian case. However, in the context of a globalized world, a perspective limited to a single nation-state no longer appears sufficient to grasp complex phenomena, which frequently have transnational dimensions. This is why I am interested in studying the influence on national emergency law of international organizations, such as the Council of Europe and the human rights standards set up by the ECtHR, and the way other states have handled the same crisis. This primarily entails studying their constitutions along with their legal framework for emergencies. Switzerland represents an intriguing case from this standpoint, given the coexistence in its Constitution of emergency clauses alongside robust federalism and direct democracy, all of which played a role during the pandemic. This stay at the Institute of Federalism will allow me to delve deeper into these elements and their impact. The aim is also to gain a better understanding of the suitability of our legal theories on emergencies in the context of the novel challenges currently facing our constitutional systems.

What is your background?

I am currently a doctoral candidate in Italian and Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Genoa, Italy. The provisional title of my thesis is “On States of Emergency: The Evolution and Sustainability of Theoretical-Legal Paradigms of Emergency Management in the Face of Contemporary Risk Factors”. I am also a lecturer (“cultore della materia”) in Constitutional Law at the University of Turin, where I previously completed a Master's degree in Law with a thesis on constitutional doctrine at the time of the Weimar Republic. In particular, I studied the conceptions of constitutional justice in Carl Schmitt and Hans Kelsen.

Since 2022, I became a member of the Editorial Board of the Italian Constitutional Law Review Consulta Online.

In addition to my academic activities, I also undertook a traineeship at the Turin Court of Appeal, which enabled me to gain first-hand experience of the application of the law.