About The Workshop
SW 36– Prospects for Legal Realism
Convenors: Evgenii Tonkov, Dmitrii Tonkov
Contact: e.tonkov@gmail.com; dmitrii.tonkov@gmail.com
Special workshop provides for further discussion on Legal Realism, including various movements of realistic jurisprudence: American, Scandinavian, Italian, French, etc. Furthermore, continuing special workshops “Legal Realism in Russia” (held during IVR 2022 in Bucharest) and “Evolution of Russian Legal Realism in Theory and Practice: Imperial, Soviet and Modern” (held during IVR 2024 in Seoul), it also aims to define specific characteristics of Russian version of legal realism and its conceptual connection with classic examples of realistic jurisprudence in the USA and Scandinavia from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day.
Content
In particular, the workshop intends to consider numerous points of view on Legal Realism in current jurisprudence: as a third way in law, different from natural law and positivist theories; as a modern version of legal positivism; as a prediction of judicial decisions; as a method of determining the ontological status of law; as an approach to the interpretation of law; as a theory of cognition of the legal order, etc.
In human history philosophical thinking preceded legal thinking, and sociological methods of managing society were already used during the formation of law as a phenomenon. The bodies of customs, conventional agreements, regulations, and other sources of law have evolved along with the development of ethnic groups. The state, as a form of organization of society, required not only philosophical and sociological foundations for its emergence and stable functioning, but also legal structures of governance and subordination, including mechanisms for the use of legalized coercion to a person.
Legal Realism as a concept of the theory and philosophy of law based on the amplification of law enforcement procedures, psychological perception of the factuality of law, denial of excessive metaphysics that contradicts empirical observations of the researcher. Legal realists emphasize that law is something more than just a logical and enclosed system of norms fixed “on paper”: it is a complex phenomenon consisted not only of prevailing ideas about the essence and functions of law, texts about legal norms, but also of a combination of acts of human behavior.
Moreover, the workshop intends to consider ideas about the formation and evolution of Russian Legal Realism, proposed by such scholars as A. Polyakov, A. N. Medushevsky, J. Stanek, E. Fittipaldi, E. Timoshina, M. Antonov, A. Zolkin, O. Merezhko, etc. Being introduced into world science in 2012 by E. Tonkov, Russian version of legal realism is still successfully develops in multiple national non-English and international English works, which are suggested to be analyzed.
The first printed edition of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR Encyclopedia) indicates the following “legal realisms”:
- Legal Realism, American: Development and Critique (Matthew X. Etchemendy).
- Legal Realism, American: Theoretical Aspects (Frederick Schauer).
- Legal Realism, French (Jérémy Mercier).
- Legal Realism, Russian (Dmitrii E. Tonkov, Evgenii N. Tonkov).
- Legal Realism, Scandinavian (Jes Bjarup).
- Legal Realism: Bologna (Carla Faralli).
- Legal Realism: Contemporary (Hanoch Dagan).
- Legal Realism: Genovese (Mauro Barberis).
To sum up, the workshop offers to discuss the past, present and future of the abovementioned and other variants of Legal Realism.
All researchers of realistic jurisprudence, world and Russian legal theory, philosophy, sociology and psychology are welcomed to the discussion.
Participation
Interested applicants are invited to send abstracts (max. 750 words) to dmitrii.tonkov@gmail.com before 31st May, 2026. Institutional affiliation and brief CV are requested. Please, indicate “IVR 2026” at the subject line of your e-mail.
If you are interested in taking part in the special workshop without presentation, please, also inform us via e-mail before 31st May, 2026.
Working language of the special workshop is English.
Information about convenors
Evgenii N. TONKOV – PhD in Law, Associate Professor, Department of Law, North-West Institute of Management – branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Lecturer, Department of Law, St Petersburg University (Saint-Petersburg, Russia), barrister. Participant of IVR 2011 (Frankfurt am Main, Germany), IVR 2015 (Washington D.C., USA), IVR 2017 (Lisbon, Portugal), IVR 2019 (Lucerne, Switzerland), IVR 2022 (Bucharest, Romania) and IVR 2024 (Seoul, Republic of Korea).
Dmitrii E. TONKOV – PhD in Law, Associate Professor, Department of Legal Theory and Comparative Law, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (Moscow, Russia). Participant of IVR 2019 (Lucerne, Switzerland), IVR 2022 (Bucharest, Romania) and IVR 2024 (Seoul, Republic of Korea).
