By: Maria Chhabria, Director of Academic Programs,
International Judicial Academy
Pasquale Stanislao Mancini was a prominent lawyer,
professor, journalist, statesman, and one of the greatest jurists of the
nineteenth century. He is the founder of the Italian School of International
law, and the author of the private international law theory based on the
principle of nationality. He also played a central role in the process of
unification of Italy, serving in various positions in the new government, and
contributing to the reform of the Italian Civil Code adopted in 1865.
Professor Mancini was born in Castel Baronia, near Avellino,
in the Campania Region, at the time part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. He
was the son of Count Francesco Saverio Mancini, a prominent lawyer and a
descendant of a noble Italian family. Mancini
was initially home schooled and later earned a law degree from the University
of Naples. He began his career in Naples as an editor and publisher of numerous
newspapers and journals. After the publication of his correspondence on the
right to punish with Terenzio Mamiani Della Rovere, Mancini gained fame in the
legal community. While fighting for freedom and democracy through his writings
and scripts, he was also elected as a deputy in the Neapolitan parliament.
During the revolutionary movements in 1848, he was forced into exile by the
restored Bourbon government. He moved to Turin where he accepted a chair of
public and private international law at the University of Turin.
Mancini laid the foundations for the Italian School of
International Law during his inaugural lecture at the University of Turin
in 185, titled Citizenship as the Foundation of the Law of Peoples. He
argued that the nationality principle is the basic rule of international law. Accordingly, the nation is the legitimate foundation of any independent State,
and forms the legal entity in
International
Judicial Monitor