On October 4, at the invitation of the Italian National Academy of Sciences and Academics, Xu Diyu, Assistant to Principal, Director of the International Exchange Department and Professor of the Law School, participated in a high-end international academic conference on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Italy and China by video and delivered a keynote speech. The conference was held by the Italian Academy of Sciences and Academics, whose theme was “Silk Road Modernization and Globalization: Chinese and Italian Jurists, Legal Models and New Paths”. Founded in 1603, the Academica Nazionale dei Lincei, also known as the Italian Academy of Sciences and Academics is the highest academic research institution in Italy and the oldest academy in Europe.
Those who were invited to deliver speeches included Mr. Zhou Qiang, Chief Justice of the People’s Republic of China and President of the Supreme People’s Court, Mr. Fang Lan Yi, Ambassador of Italy to China, and Mr. Li Junhua, Ambassador of China to Italy. Prof. Xu Diyu spoke in the second unit of the conference and the title of his report was: “Translation as Transplantation, Conformity or Growth: A Model for the Chinese Civil Code”.
In his presentation, Prof. Xu Diyu detailed the Italian translation of the Chinese Civil Code by Prof. Huang Meiling and the scholars of Sapienza University of Rome, an important partner of the University. As the first Italian translation of the Chinese Civil Code, its importance was widely noted by the scholars attending the conference, and was mentioned in the speeches of the Italian Ambassador to China, Mr. Fang Lan Yi and the Chinese Ambassador to Italy, Mr. Li Junhua as well as by several Italian scholars in their presentations.
Professor Xu Diyu believed that the publication of the translation is a representative manifestation of the fruitful results of Sino-Italian cooperation and interaction between Chinese and Italian jurists. In his speech, he introduced some terminological problems encountered during the translation, and analyzed the three characteristics of the Chinese Civil Code by three theme words “transplantation, compliance and growth”, namely, its Roman law background, its efforts to comply with international rules, and its full reflection of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Prof. Xu Diyu pointed out that the Chinese Civil Code is a typical representative of the civil code of the civil law system developed in the context of modernization and globalization, as it is codified independently with Roman law as its background, adapted to the requirements of the times by incorporating common law elements and international rules while highlighting the growth with distinctive Chinese characteristics. The local private law culture in China has been formed in a subtle way, which derives from the fusion of the independent codification and transplanted codification of the civil code.
