Introduction

It is enough to think of the ius commune of tenth-century continental Europe to realize that the concept of law has been undergoing an irreversible process of maturation towards rational universality, at least on the level of ideas, a process which has been particularly intense in the twentieth century. The stage currently reached is best characterized by the three predicates that the essay attempts to clarify: supra-statutory law, supra-national law, universally enforceable law.