Profile
Profile
The Institute for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies – lucernaiuris is a hub for leading-edge teaching and research that crosses traditional boundaries between law, the humanities and the social sciences. It holds a distinctive position within the national and international academic landscape as a vibrant site for critical and creative thinking.
The institute’s main priorities are to:
- provide a rallying point for inter- and transdisciplinary work on the foundations of law and justice
- foster intellectual and methodological innovation in teaching and research
- promote the training of postgraduate and early career researchers in interdisciplinary legal studies
- stimulate collaborative activities with national and international partners
To borrow a distinction from the late legal historian Marie Theres Fögen, the institute has long seen its role as more that of ‘troublemaker’ than ‘troubleshooter’. A consistent priority has been to undertake work that critiques and unsettles accepted categories and concepts, norms and discourses, practices and methods. This impulse continues to shape the identity of the institute today. Faced with the urgency of our present moment, however, we also turn our attentions increasingly to the future – to pursuing new forms of future-oriented critical thinking; to imagining future alternatives or alternative futures; to asking not just what is happening now, but what happens next.
A Note on Our Name
During the Middle Ages, ‘lucerna iuris’ – or ‘lantern of the law’ – was a term given to the most important Bolognese jurists. In taking the name for our institute, we of course lay no claim to it – we are mere dwarves on the shoulders of giants. Rather, the designation acknowledges a connection to one of the historic centres of legal studies in Europe and signals our commitment to the enduring task of casting light on the law and the worlds that surround it.
History & Outlook
The Institute for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies – lucernaiuris was established in 2004 as a flagship initiative of the Faculty of Law in Lucerne. The goal was to provide a dedicated space for thinking in new ways about the foundations of law, connecting insights from legal history, legal philosophy, legal sociology and legal theory, and combining these with ideas and impulses from other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.
The institute was formally opened in autumn 2004 with an inaugural conference that attracted over 50 academics from 13 different countries. Under the directorship of Michele Luminati (2004-2012), lucernaiuris as we know it today began to take shape, emerging as a hub for theoretically attuned and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of law. In 2009, the institutional lecture series ‘laboratorium lucernaiuris’ was initiated, which continues to thrive as a venue for bringing scholars to Lucerne to share their research and scholarship. In the same year, the institute also joined an EU-funded consortium to successfully relaunch the European Academy of Legal Theory’s LLM programme, designed around an innovative curriculum of seminars and workshops taught by leading international scholars. During this period, lucernaiuris also began to gain its reputation for staging major conferences and events, often in cooperation with national and international partners. A significant milestone in this respect was the hosting of the 39th Deutscher Rechtshistorikertag (German Legal Historians’ Day) in September 2012 with over 200 participants.
The following phase of the institute’s development, under the leadership of Paolo Becchi (2012-2016), Malte Gruber (2021-2023) and, especially, Vagias Karavas (2012-2021 and 2023-Present), was shaped by a particular focus on internationalization. In 2013, a new visiting fellows programme was introduced, which has since welcomed over 25 early-career scholars from across Europe, Asia, Australasia, North America and South America. 2019 saw the institute deliver another landmark event – the 29th World Congress of the International Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR), which took place over a full week, at venues across Lucerne, and drew more than 1300 participants. In 2020, funding was acquired to launch the Critical Times programme of international summer schools, which take place annually in Lucerne, and which each year bring together a cohort of outstanding scholars, postdocs and doctoral candidates for a week of thinking – deeply, critically and creatively – about urgent matters of law, politics and justice.
The next watershed was the twentieth anniversary of the institute in 2024. This was marked by an international workshop that speculated on some possible futures for interdisciplinary legal studies – and for lucernaiuris. Alongside its ongoing international focus, the latest chapter of institute life has brought a new energy to local and national cooperations. A 2025 collaboration with the Swiss Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (SVRSP) and the Obwaldner Institut für Justizforschung brought the biannual SVRSP Rousseau Lectures to the University of Lucerne. In 2026, the institute initiated, together with the Art-Law Centre at the University of Geneva, a new Swiss Law and Humanities Hub, designed to enable better connection between Swiss-based scholars with shared critical interests around the intersections of law and the humanities.
Now in its third decade, lucernaiuris continues to provide a space in which critical, theoretical and interdisciplinary legal studies can flourish. It remains committed to facilitating cross-disciplinary inquiry, collegiality and scholarly collaboration, and to encouraging new ideas and initiatives. Both within Switzerland and beyond, the institute builds connections across disciplinary and institutional borders, upholding its original mission and vision, while remaining responsive to the challenges of the present.
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Contact
Institute for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies – lucernaiuris
Faculty of Law • University of Lucerne
Frohburgstrasse 3 • CH-6002 Lucerne
Tel: +41 (0)41 229 54 23 • lucernaiuris@unilu.ch
