Conference Site

Conference site:
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
- Campus Westend -
Grüneburgplatz 1
60629 Frankfurt am Main

Goethe-University Frankfurt/Main

The Congress will take place at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt. The university is relatively new by European standards, being founded in 1914. Its establishment was promoted by the mayor of Frankfurt at that time, Franz Adickes, and by the entrepreneur and social-reform advocate Wilhelm Merton - who also was a co-founder of the IVR. Besides Merton, numerous wealthy residents of Frankfurt, among them many of Jewish descent, donated substantial sums for the construction and expansion of the University. Subsequently, the University was taken over by the Hessian state. Since 2008 the University regained its original legal form of a public-law foundation (“Stiftungsuniversität”)

 The Congress will take place at the beautiful Westend Campus of the University, situated in the center of town right next to a large city park (Grüneburgpark). The Campus's principal  buildings were designed by the noted architect Hans Poelzig in the late 1920ies, and are a landmark of European architecture of the time. The buildings originally served as headquarters of I.G. Farben, then the world largest chemical company. After World War II and the divesture of the I.G.Farben the Poelzig-Building served as US military headquarters, under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 2001 the Goethe-University took over the building and to this day the Campus's main building is named the “Eisenhower-Hall”.

All Congress events will take place in the new buildings within the Westend Campus, that are well-equipped with modern facilities.

Hosts for the Congress are the holders of two Chairs within the Law Faculty: in Criminal law, Legal Philosophy and Sociology of Law (Professor Ulfrid Neumann) and in Theory of Law and Criminal Law (Prof. Klaus Günther). Both positions belong to the Institute for Criminal Law and Legal Philosophy within the Law Faculty. Another member of the Institute,,Professor Lorenz Schulz (teaching Criminal Law, Legal Philosophy and Sociology of Law) is working as co-organizer for the Congress. Within the Faculty of Law, a number of other scholars deal with jurisprudential aspects of their doctrinal fields, such as Thomas Duve (who is also Director of the Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History), Günther Frankenberg, Katja Langenbucher, Joachim Rückert, Thomas Vesting - as well as the Emeritus Professors Erhard Denninger, Winfried Hassemer, Klaus Lüderssen, Wolf Paul, Gunther Teubner, and Rudolf Wiethölter.

Members of other departments of the University are also involved in the Congress, most notably Prof. Rainer Forst of the Department of Social Sciences, and (as successor of Jürgen Habermas) Prof. Axel Honneth of the Department of Philosophy (who is also Director of the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research).

The Congress will operate in collaboration with the University's renowned interdisciplinary Excellence Cluster on the “Formation of Normative Orders” (of which Prof. Forst and Prof.  Günther serve as chairmen).

Frankfurt/Main and the IVR

The International Association for Philosophy of Law  und  Social Philosophy (IVR) was founded  1909 in Berlin as “International Association for Philosophy of Law and Economic Philosophy” and renamed as the „International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy " in 1933.  The IVR is the oldest, largest and most important organization in the field of philosophy of law and social philosophy. Founding chairmen were Josef Kohler (1849 - 1919), Fritz Berolzheimer (1869 - 1920) und Carl Fürstenberg (1850 - 1933). The patron of the organization was Wilhelm Merton (1848 - 1916), who also (as noted above) was one of the founders of the University.

The reorganisation of IVR into national sections was decided upon in Vienna in 1959 at its second World Congress. Today, IVR has more than 40 national member associations with over 2000 members worldwide. The Association is registered under German law, and has its headquarters in Wiesbaden. Its main purpose is to support and promote legal and social philosophy on a national and international level. The IVR holds its world congresses every two years.

Since 1907, the official publication of the IVR is an international journal, the Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie (“Archives de Philosophie du Droit et de Philosophie Sociale”, “Archives for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy”), until 1933 “Archiv für Rechts- und Wirtschaftsphilosophie”), which is one of the most significant publications in this field.  Articles are published in four languages – German, English, French and Spanish.

Among the national associations of the IVR, the German division has the most members. Beginning in 1960, there were two divisions, Germany and East Germany; in 1990, these were merged. The German division now has 400 members. In the beginning of the 90’s the “Young Forum of Philosophy of Law” was founded in Frankfurt; this is an initiative of young men and women that are active as legal philosophers in German-speaking countries.

Frankfurt

© Tourismus+Congress GmbH Frankfurt am Main

With a population of ca. 680,000, Frankfurt is the fifth-largest city in Germany. The city is  the center of the larger Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, having an estimated population of 2,300,000. Frankfurt has an excellent transportation infrastructure, and the Frankfurt International Airport is a major international aviation hub.

Frankfurt is the home of the European Central Bank, the central banking facility for the Euro and hence one of the world's most important financial institutions. The Frankfurt Stock Exchange is much the largest stock market in Germany and the second in Europe after  London's.

The city is an important center of education and research. Besides the Goethe University, there are three Max-Planck-Institutes (for biophysics, for neurosciences, and for European legal history), the German National Library and various universities of applied sciences. In terms of intellectual history, the Institute for Social Research (best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School and Critical Theory, with Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno as guiding spirits) played a crucial role in postwar Germany.

With its area of the “Museumsufer” (Museum Riverbank), where most of the museums in Frankfurt are located, the city provides an almost unique cultural setting,, including a Museum of Sculpture (Liebieghaus), the Städel (officially: Städelsches Kunstinstitut, the city's principal art museum, having one of the most important collections in Germany), the Museum der Weltkulturen, the German Museum of Architecture, the German Film Museum and other renowned art institutions.. Right across the river Main, there are also the Jewish Museum and the Historical Museum of the City.  Further attractions are the former residence of the Goethe family (Goethehaus), the Museum of Archeology, the Senckenberg Natural History Museum (the largest natural-history museum in Germany) and a number of modern art galleries, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Schirn Art Gallery.

The Frankfurt Opera is one of the most important opera companies in Europe. It was designated the German "Opera House of the Year" in 1995 and 2003. The famous old opera- house (Alte Oper), built in 1880, today serves as one of the leading concert halls of Germany.

Historically, Frankfurt was one of the principal cities of the Holy Roman Empire, especially after 1240, when Emperor Friedrich II granted the city Imperial privilege (protection by the Empire) to the visitors of the Frankfurt trade fairs. Book fairs have been held in Frankfurt ever since 1478. In 1372, Frankfurt became an Imperial City (Reichsstadt), and thus came . directly under the aegis of the Emperor and could no longer be beholden to a regional or local ruler.

From 855 on, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was elected in Frankfurt and crowned in Aachen. From 1562 the Emperor also was crowned in the Kaiserdom (Emperor's Cathedral) of Frankfurt, until the last such Imperial coronation (of Franz II) in 1792.

After the revolution of 1848, Frankfurt was the seat of the first democratically elected German representative body, the Frankfurt Parliament, which met in the Frankfurter Paulskirche (St. Paul's Church) and was opened on 18 May 1848. In 1849, this body proposed the first republican constitution for a unified Germany.

geändert am 03. Mai 2011  E-Mail: WebmasterS.Ziemann@jur.uni-frankfurt.de