The Rule of Law, Justice and the Future of Democracy

We live in times of crisis – a crisis of the rule of law, of justice and democracy. The rule of law is being attacked in many countries around the world with the aim to solidify political power and weaken political opponents. The concrete meaning of the idea of justice is particularly contested in times of political and economic insecurity, of existential challenges created by climate change spanning over generations and of war. Democracy for a long time was held to be a self-evident guiding idea of political self-organization of human beings because it institutionalizes structures to exercise political autonomy. Today, it is in great danger to erode in political communities around the world.

In these times of crisis, a fundamental, historically informed, critical debate on the foundations of the rule of law, of justice and democracy is of great importance. The organizers of the IVR 2024 are doing, therefore, a great service not only to the international intellectual and scientific community of scholars reflecting upon the philosophy of law and social philosophy but also to a cultural lifeworld that supports and defends these great but fragile ideas which this congress will explore with as much passion as knowledge.

Matthias Mahlmann, President IVR



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Matthias Mahlmann, University Professor, Chair of Philosophy and Theory of Law, Legal Sociology and International Public Law, Faculty of Law, University of Zurich, Switzerland. 2005 – 2022 Recurrent Visiting Professor, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. Visiting professorships at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 2007, 2016; Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C., 2012; BOK Visiting International Professor, University of Pennsylvania School of Law, Philadelphia 2017; since 2018 German-Turkish University, Istanbul; 2021/22 Visiting Researcher Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, Oxford, Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford; 2024 Visiting Professor, National LawSchool of India, Bangalore, India.

Recent Publication: Mind and Rights. The History, Ethics, Lawand Psychology of Human Rights, Cambridge University Press, 2023.