Il caso, o dei collettivi prossimi alla comparsa. A partire da Yan Thomas

The case, or collecTives close To appearing: sTarTing wiTh Yan Thomas This contribution addresses the theme of the ‘case’ in law, understanding ‘case’ as an occurrence that ‘poses a problem’ for the legal system. A case is a deposit of arguments that, transcending the immediate historical context from which it emerged, is transformed – through abstraction and analogy – into a technique adaptable to different uses and changing purposes. Starting from L’extrême et l’ordinaire by Yan Thomas – specifically, the problem of how to guarantee rights to a community on the verge of disappearance – this work explores the network of analogies produced by case-based reasoning, leading to the institutional formations that have arisen from it. Whereas in that context, the issue revolved around how to confer legal form or unity to a group of human beings and ensure their capacity to act in court, today the question is: what happens to those collectives that do not emerge from a pre-existing associative will but are instead ‘on the verge of appearing’? How can they appear in court? The concrete reality of climate upheaval, which jurists with their techniques and movements with their struggles are addressing, is here taken as a contemporary case that challenges the legal system. From this perspective, it serves as an exploratory ground for refining new instituting techniques.