Race as a category of legal analysis: scrutinizing Italian case law

In the post-Second World War period, with some delay compared with the new world, recently the old Europe witness what has been called “institutional racism”. The centrality and complicity of law in up-holding white supremacy is now to be confronted also inside European borders. Needless to say that the racial issue in Europe is intimately related to migration flows. EC Law presents fundamental weaknesses with regard to Third Country Nationals in the intersections between race, religion and nationality discrimination. It is then time to examine the relationship between the racial power and professed ideals such as the “rule of law” and “equal protection” in the old world, how, in other words, this power can be exercised legally inside the European territory. To start to analyze this relationship, the a. analyses a very recent “discriminatory” decision of the Italian Supreme Court of Appeal (Corte di Cassazione – sezione I n. 5856 10th march 2010).