About the Journal

History, focus and scopus

The first issue of Sociologia del Diritto appeared in the Spring of 1974, inspired by its founder Renato Treves, who aimed to give a voice to a discipline in search of institutional recognition, even though its scientific roots had already been solidly established. It came out under the aegis of the Sociology of Law Commission of the Centro Nazionale di Prevenzione e Difesa Sociale (Cnpds – National Centre of Social Prevention and Defence). This body included high-ranking jurists, sociologists and legal philosophers. Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of Law at the University of Milan, where debates and research in law and society flourished, hosted its editorial board and staff. Yet, the Journal was intended to be the expression of not just one but of plural currents of thought, being open to any and also dissenting opinions, on condition that they were rigorously based and clearly expounded, as its editor-in-chief used to say. In this light, the first two issues hosted a debate on the epistemological status of the discipline itself, where details, consonances and dissonances with Treves’ own original proposals almost equalized, paving the way for discussions that thrived for decades.

The Journal appeared twice a year from 1974 to 1979 with the Publisher Giuffrè and became four-monthly in 1980 when it moved to another publisher, Franco Angeli. Over the years, it covered the wide disciplinary area of the sociology of law – which, as Norberto Bobbio said, “follows the law as if it were its shadow” – with theoretical contributions and empirical research devoted to the most diverse aspects of law’s social life, offered by Italian and, quite often, foreign scholars representing a wide range of countries and cultures. Like other similar journals – such as the Law and Society Review, the Journal of Law and Society, the Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie, Droit et Société, Hoshakaigaku, and later the Oñati Socio-Legal Series – it contributed substantially to the development of a typically critical way of looking at law, now practised by tens of thousands of scholars all over the world.

Sociologia del diritto, which in the meantime belongs not only to the CNPDS but also to the Universities of Milan and Urbino Carlo Bo, now celebrates its fiftieth anniversary by becoming available to its domestic and foreign readers in open access via Milan University’s Press platform, in keeping with the accelerated tempo and agile modes of today’s scientific debate. Without making any sacrifices in terms of spaces but focusing on facilitating the online publication of its materials, it has now resumed its biannual frequency while undertaking to publish a hard copy version with the same frequency with the Milanese Publisher LEDizioni .

Not just law but society as a whole is immensely different compared to fifty years ago. Thus, describing and evaluating them critically, without ideologically closed mindsets, but with methodological rigour proper to scientific research, has now become much more demanding yet fascinating and inevitable.

Publication frequency

Sociologia del diritto is a biannual publication.  In its digital version, articles are published in an open issue immediately after the editorial and review process ends.

Open access policy

This Journal gives open access to its digital contents. Readers can download, use, print, distribute and/or copy content according to the licence we adopt.

Sociologia del Diritto uses a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International)

This licence allows to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially) contents published by the Journal - provided that appropriate credit is given, a link to the license provided, any change made is indicated. Also, if you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same licence as the original.

Submitting an article to this Journal implies accepting that it will be published under this licence.

Sherpa Romeo

Preprint and postprint version of the articles can be archived anywhere under the same license.

Peer review policy

This Journal adopts a double-blind peer-review policy. The Referral Board conducts a preliminary evaluation of the contributions submitted to the Journal in terms of scientific adequacy and relevance to the thematic area of the Journal. The Editorial Staff then anonymously sends the contributions to referees who, unless otherwise agreed, provide their evaluation within 30 days.

Article Processing and Submission Charge

Articles in this Journal are published free of charge: no payments are required from the authors, as this Journal does not have article submission or processing charges (APCs).

Archiving

The University of Milan has an archival arrangement with the National Central Libraries of Florence and Rome within the national project Magazzini Digitali.

This Journal has enabled the PKP PN (Preservation Network) plugin to preserve digital contents through the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) project

Copyright policy

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The Author gives Sociologia del Diritto the right to publish the work within 1 (one) year from the submission and the perpetual right to distribute the work free of charge by any means and in any part of the world, including communication to the public through the journal website.

The Author retains the right to create derivative works and to reproduce, distribute, execute or publicly display her/his work at conferences and presentations, lectures, and in case of any other professional activity.

The Author retains the right to disseminate open access to her/his work through his website or an institutional or disciplinary repository.

The Author, in agreement with the Publisher, renounces any compensation provided to authors and publishers for not-for-profit photocopying rights and library loans following the Italian law in force.

Plagiarism prevention and contrast

Editors must act promptly in case of errors and misconduct, both proven and alleged. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers. In cases such as errors in articles or the publication process, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, appropriate steps will be taken, following the recommendations and guidelines from COPE. Corrections will happen with due prominence, including the publication of an erratum (errors from the publication process), corrigendum (errors from the Author (s)) or, in the most severe cases, the retraction of the affected work. Retracted papers will be retained online and prominently marked as a retraction in all online versions, including the PDF, for the benefit of future readers.

Research data

The University of Milan supports the adoption of FAIR data.
When published research is linked to data, authors are invited to make them available according to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and to provide the link to the FAIR-compliant repository where they have been archived.

Authors are encouraged to publish their data in recommended repositories; authors from the University of Milan can use dataverse.unimi.it, the institutional open-access repository of the University of Milan.
More information on the research data information page.

Printed version

The printed version of Sociologia del Diritto can be bought from the Publisher Ledizioni.

Contact information

For more information, please contact sociologiadeldiritto@unimi.it