Legal paradoxes in conceptualisation and operationalisation

Speaker: András Pap

Omnis definitio in jure periculosa est;
parum est enim ut non subverti posset

Lack of legal certainty and insufficient legal definition-making have long characterized the legal conceptualization and operationalization of collective identities all over the world. This resonates with the ancient maxim in Roman Law that “every definition in the law is dangerous because there is little that cannot be subverted”—given above in its Latin form.

In this seminar, Pap will discuss his forthcoming book (Routledge). Showing how practices of conceptualization and operationalization travel through space and time, Race, Ethnicity, Nationality, and the Law examines the often contradictory, ad hoc legislative languages international and national legislators have used in the past. Looking back across months, years, and sometimes centuries, and studying in various parts of the world, Pap demonstrates that law is indeed a product of politics. Deciphering the public discourses and discussions underlying legislative and judicial practices, his book also unveils the desires, traumas, anger, and frustration behind the legal conceptualizations and means of operationalization.

About the speaker

András L Pap is Research Professor and Head of Department for Constitutional and Administrative Law at the (formerly Hungarian Academy of Sciences, currently) HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, Institute for Legal Studies, as well as Professor of Law at the Faculty of Economics at Eötvös University (ELTE) in Budapest. For 25 years, until its recent closing in 2025, he was Adjunct (Recurrent Visiting) Professor in the Nationalism Studies Program at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest and Vienna.

A former visiting scholar at New York University and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, his research interests include comparative constitutional law, human rights, law enforcement, and the conceptualization of race and ethnicity. He worked in various projects commissioned by the European Union, the Council of Europe and the UN, served as expert witness for courts in the UK and the US and habitually works with international NGO’s and think tanks. He is a member of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.

In 2018, Pap founded the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL) Research Group on identity, race and ethnicity in constitutional law. He has taught over 85 courses, delivered over 250 presentations and published over 100 articles and book chapters in international academic forums.