Renato Treves was born in Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 of a Jewish family. According to Vincenzo Ferrari, Treves "devoted his first academic study to the diffusion of Claude Henri de Saint-Simon's (1760-1825) doctrines in Italy" before turning his attention to the neo-Kantian movement and Hans Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law

Pure Theory of Law

Pure Theory of Law is a book by legal theorist Hans Kelsen, first published in 1934 and in a greatly expanded second edition in 1960. The second edition appeared in English translation in 1967, as Pure Theory of Law, the first edition in English translation in 1992, as Introduction to the...

.

Treves also exerted considerable influence on the development of the sociology of law

Sociology of law

The sociology of law is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies...

 in Italy and is one of the founders of the Research Committee on Sociology of Law

Research Committee on Sociology of Law

Research Committee on Sociology of Law was established in 1962 by William M. Evan and Adam Podgórecki , with the support of Renato Treves during the Congress of the International Sociological Association , which was held in Weshington D. C...

.

Renato Treves kept faith with a Weberian and Kelsenian vision of sociology of law, as distinct from legal science. He advocated empirical research as a means of testing theories critically and favoured open as opposed to closed social portraits of law. Primarily, he argued in favour of a perspectivist and relativistic vision of law and society, combating all kinds of absolutism in both science and politics, from a liberal socialist stance that he upheld in many of his writings.

Primary Publications

• Treves, Renato (1933) Il diritto come relazione, Torino.
• Treves, Renato (1941) Sociología y filosofía social, Buenos Aires.
• Treves, Renato (1943) Benedetto Croce, filósofo de la libertad, Buenos Aires.
• Treves, Renato (1947) Diritto e cultura, Torino.
• Treves, Renato (1954) Spirito critico e spirito dogmatico, Milano.
• Treves, Renato (1962) Libertà politica e verità, Milano.
• Treves, Renato (1972) Giustizia e giudici nella società italiana, Bari.
• Treves, Renato (1977) Introduzione alla sociologia del diritto, Torino.
• Treves, Renato (1987) Sociologia del diritto. Origini, ricerche, problemi, Torino.
• Treves, Renato (1990) Sociologia e socialismo. Ricordi e incontri, Milano.

External links

• A Short Biography of Renato Treves: http://www.iisj.net/antBuspre.asp?cod=4146&nombre=4146&prt=1
• Renato Treves Grants http://www.iisj.net/antBuspre.asp?Cod=2059&Nombre=2059&prt=1&sesion=1347
• http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renato_Treves