The Limits of Equality: Special Law in the Age of Legal Monism in Italy (19th–20th Centuries)

The essay aims to study the relationship between diversity and legal protection in stages of legal experience characterised by the dominance of the principle of equality and more in general by the monistic configuration of the legal system in the 19th and 20th Centuries. After identifying some particular features of legal monism in relation to the issue of legal protection, the analysis provides a survey of how these kind of legal system addressed the problem of diversity; in particular, the purpose is to consider the function of special statutory law. To this end, considering in particular the Italian case, three different approaches to the issue will be taken in account: one relating to inclusion, another emphasizing exclusion, and a third focused on anti-assimilation.