Host: "Professor Calabresi, first of all, allow me to congratulate you on the well-deserved recognition of ISSNAF for your splendid career through the assignment of the Life Time Achievement Award. 

What are your personal feelings in receiving this recognition from ISSNAF, a Foundation that since its inception in its mission has set itself the goal of creating a bridge between Italy and North America in the field of scientific research?"

Guest: "I am really happy to receive the Life Time Achievement Award from ISSNAF, above all because in a certain sense I believe I am playing a role as a bridge between Italy and America. Although I and my family moved to the United States in 1939, where I did all my studies, we have always continued to speak Italian among us. Since the end of the war I have returned to Italy regularly, and I now have an apartment in Florence. To those who ask me which nationality I feel most attached to, I always answer that I am both Italian and American. To a student who wanted to know for which country I rooted in the last football world championship, I replied that of course it was for Italy, but not because the Italian players played better, actually on that occasion they were pretty bad, but because football is the national sport of Italy. If there were a world championship in baseball, in that sport I'd be cheering for America. Returning to the award that ISSNAF is giving me, I am delighted because it is a significant recognition of what I have tried to do to help many young people who have come here from Italy and also what I have tried to do when I was in Italy."

Host: "About this last point, what are the aspects of your work connected to Italy over the years and how has your thinking influenced the disciplines concerned in Italy?"

Guest: "In Italy, law was traditionally very formal and, not open to relationships with other disciplines such as economics. In my contacts with scholars and personalities such as Stefano Rodota, Guido Rossi, Guido Alpa, Roberto Pardolesi, Enzo Varano and many others, I brought a slightly different way of thinking. It is a more complex idea of law that has been accepted and is currently taught in many Italian universities.  Because of me and my Italian connections many universities in Italy have sent students to Yale to study fields of law that were sometimes not mine. I used to deal with torts (civil liability), but some of these students were working in fields like administrative law or Contracts.  I therefore redirected these young people to professors in those disciplines and these professors thereafter in turn went to Italy, thus creating a virtuous process of exchanges between the two countries. I would also like to add the ways that Italy has influenced my thinking and, in part through me, American law in general. In the United States, economics has often been used to criticize how law is made, the same for philosophy. Looking at it from the Italian point of view, however, one realizes that there is an equal relationship between the two disciplines. When a philosophical or economic theory conflicts with the law, it does not necessarily mean that the law is wrong and should be changed.  It may be that the theory is defective and needs to be questioned. So, we can speak in a certain way of a revenge (“rivincita”) of the law. This European and, as far as I'm concerned, Italian point of view has definitely contributed to a broader scholarly approach to law in America. Moreover, my duties as a high court judge, which I still am, allow me to introduce elements of Italian jurisprudence into American law.  An example concerns when a law that was valid when enacted, because of changed conditions begins to move towards constitutional invalidity. In that case the legislator must be urged to rethink the law to make it more consistent with the constitution. This can be done without immediately striking down the law. This sensitivity did not exist in American law. In the United States there is a tendency to say that a law is valid or not, black, or white. In Italy the legislator instead can be pushed to make the law consistent with the constitution.  This way of harmonizing laws by creating a dialogue between the legislator and the constitutional courts is something I learned from Italian law and that I have introduced in America."

Host: "Ever since you were young you have been a staunch supporter and promoter of the dialogue between law and economics. In a rapidly changing context, new urgent needs emerge, such as that of saving the balance of the planet in which we live. This obviously requires a change in the regulatory framework. What impact can have with market laws?"

Guest: "First, we must be clear that we can no longer speak of the economy as if it were only market based. There are simply too many situations in which even the basic concepts of economics can work, only if there are government actions that make incentive systems economically effective.  More dramatically, the current Covid-19 pandemic has posed the problem of what can be done through incentives. We are faced with situations in which decisions have to be made that will surely not satisfy. There is a need for choices that are going to be tragic, as noted by Philip Bobbitt, and me in our book Tragic Choices. Let me give you an example. If, as we all hope, we are going to have a vaccine in the near future, it will surely not be available to the entire population immediately. Then a choice is required as to who will receive it. It will be a tragic choice, for any decision that will be made, in fact, will not be entirely right. It may be said that it must be given to the people who need it most. But who decides who to these are? Are they the doctors at the service of society or are they the top politicians who consider themselves important? Alternatively, everything could be left to fate through a lottery.  But this egalitarian solution will surely be criticized as not corresponding to the most pressing needs. Many people pontificating that they have found the right method of allocating vaccines are instead simply deciding the one that suits them most. Decisions will have to be made in the coming months and it will be interesting to see the differences in the methods chosen in Italy and Europe on one side and the United States on the other. If we go back to the past a similar thing to this happened in the United States when the need arose to choose the soldiers to send in limited wars, or, we could say, who was chosen to be sent to die. Well, in the history of the United States, the selection criteria have been different each time. The same will happen for the vaccine. Each country will regulate itself differently because in fact there is absolutely no right way. In Italy people tend to say that everything should be done based on absolute equality, but then in practice this method is disregarded. Here is an example from fifty years ago. When employing an artificial kidney, the rule in Italy was that the first patient who needed a kidney received it.  So, I was told by an Italian doctor to whom I had asked the question. But when I asked him, how he would have behaved if a cousin of his wife had presented himself as a patient in need of a kidney, he said that he would have acted like a human being, putting his affections in the forefront. He admitted that this too was a form of corruption, but at least in his opinion, the ideal (of absolute equality) would not be corrupted. In America, instead, the applicable rule:  choosing people according to criteria relating to their importance or special needs, represented, to him, a sort of structural corruption, a corrupt ideal. In fact, however, in both cases the choice cannot be right, and in that sense is always corrupt!"

Host: "At the end I would like to ask you a question relating to the so-called Italian phenomenon of the "brain drain", that greatly characterizes the relations between Italy and the United States. In your opinion, does it still make sense to speak only in negative terms of the many young Italians who have successfully built splendid careers outside their country? Is there a positive way to seize the opportunities offered by this phenomenon?"

Guest: "There was a time when many people were forced to leave Italy for lack of work to seek their fortune in other countries. The phenomenon occurred in the past, but in other forms it also occurs today. It is true that this constitutes a loss. But if Italy were able to get at least a part of these people back after they have worked abroad, it would be a wonderful thing. The loss would become an asset! Among other things, these Italians prove to have great abilities; they are very good and successful at their work abroad. At the same time, they feel themselves to be Italians even after a long time spent outside Italy.  Being able to bring them back to Italy would be good for both countries, setting in motion a bilateral process of exchanges and collaborations that would allow the finest ideas to be united. Obviously, Italy must create ways of making their return attractive, and offer them the recognitions they deserve for their service abroad. It is necessary to establish formal relationships giving such people the possibility of continuing to do top level work in Italy. Sometimes even informal relationships would be enough, as happened with me, for example, through invitations and offers of collaborations. In any case, it is important to think of these people as a real capital to invest in, treasuring their past experiences."