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- 39 –application of non-state law. The very conception of the sovereign state, the legislative body of which enacts positive lawprovisions, seems to be at odds with the idea of the ability of parties to determine the identity of the framework that will governtheir dispute. Joseph Beale famously mocked this possibility as no less than: “permission to do a legislative act”. Furthermore,since Jewish traditional law is a non-state law, it entails an even deeper problem for legal positivism.Based on the neo-Kantian theoretical framework of the choice-of-law question that I have been developing in recentyears, I shall argue that the Kantian normative justification of legislative authority provides a justification for both challenges oflegal positivism: (1) the parties’ autonomy principle and (2) the possibility of the application of non-state law. However, thistheoretical framework also imposes several significant limitations on the choice of the parties: (1) it has to be specific andcomprehensive enough; (2) it has to have a “reasonable connection” to the litigating parties; and (3) it has to meet certainsubstantive requirements related to the transactional equality of the parties. The actual operation of the argument will be executedthrough an examination of several Jewish private law provisions to meet the above-mentioned requirements.Sagi Peari, LLB (Tel Aviv), LLM (Toronto), is a SJD Candidate at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. My doctoraldissertation deals with various theoretical dimensions of private international law. I am a holder of the Joseph-ArmandBombardier CGS prestigious doctoral fellowship. One of my articles was published at the Canadian Journal of Law andJurisprudence. I have also presented papers at conferences at Osgoode Hall Law School, McMaster University, andKing’s College.Daniela Piattelli (Session 6B)Prof.ssa Daniela Piattelli, a founder member of The Jewish Law Association, held the Chair of Institutions of Roman Law at theUniversity of Rome Tor Vergata from 2002 to 2011 and the newly-instituted Chair of the Laws of the Ancient EasternMediterranean, in the same University, from 2006 to 2011. She was previously Professor of the Laws of the Ancient Near EasternMediterranean at the Faculty of Law, University of Salerno, where she also taught Comparative Public Law and Foundations ofEuropean law. From 1986 to 2011 she taught Ius Hebraicum at the Pontificial Lateran University, Rome, where she was also amember of the Scientific Committee of the university’s well-known journal, Studia et Documenta Historiae et Iuris. Herpublications include “Ricerche intorno alle relazioni politiche tra Roma e L'EQNOS TWN 'IOUDAIWN 141 A.C. al 4 A.C.”,Bullettino dell'Istituto di Diritto Romano “Vittorio Scialoja” 74 (1972), 219-347; Concezioni giuridiche e metodi costruttivi deigiuristi orientali (Milano: Giuffrè editore, 1981); Tradizioni giuridiche d'Israele: All'origine dello 'statuto' del proselita (Torino:Giappichelli editore, 1990); and Libertà individuali e sistemi giuridici. Profili storico-giuridici (Mondo antico ed Israele (Torino:Giappichelli editore, 1997). She was a co-editor of and contributor to the Association’s Textbook: An Introduction to the Historyand Sources of Jewish Law (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1996).Shlomo Pill (Session 2)Shlomo Pill is an aspiring Jewish Law scholar whose research focuses on personal and institutional interpretive authority andautonomy, and the relationship between law, morality, and democracy in the halakhic and American legal systems. Shlomo’spublications include Recovering Judicial Integrity: Towards a Duty-Focused Disqualification Jurisprudence Based on JewishLaw, 39 Ford. Urb. L.J. 511 (2011). A recent graduate of Fordham Law School, and a semikhah yadin yadin student atYeshivas Pirchei Shoshanim, Shlomo plans to pursue an LLM and SJD in Law and Religion at Emory Law School this Fall,where he will also continue his semikhah studies under the tutelage of Rabbi Professor Michael Broyde.Larry RabinovichLarry Rabinovich (New York) – Arkaot in the Responsa Literature (Session 15A)Two responsa - one from the dawn of European rabbinic scholarship and one from its sunset- point to a change in popular attitudesover the centuries toward the use of non-Jewish courts to settle disputes between or among Jews . Ostensibly the thrust of each ofthese responsa is the same: the posek is asked about one who has litigated (or has indicated an intent to litigate) a monetary claimin the secular courts. Both reach the same conclusion - it is impermissible. The background noise, though, suggests that while