Ancilla
Iuris
De justitio
Giorgio Agamben and the Suspension of Law in the Modern EraAbstract
The Justitium plays a central role in the work of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. In his 2004 “State of Exception”, Agamben declared the Justitium the “archetype of the modern Ausnahmezustand”. The article tries to show how and why this interpretation is wrong. A look at the history of Roman law in the modern era reveals that the Justitium is in fact not the anomic space Agamben dreams of, but quite the contrary, the moment of the greatest normative consolidation.