Short CV
Pietro Masala has been Associate Professor of Constitutional and Public Law at the Department of Legal and Social Sciences of the D'Annunzio University since 01 October 2023, after having been Senior Researcher in Public Law at the same Department (2020-2023; project: "Legal Systems Integration in the European and Global Dimension: Economic Dynamics and Fundamental Rights Protection").
Born in Sassari, he attended the “Domenico Alberto Azuni” High school for classical studies in the same town. He was undergraduate student in Law at the Sant’Anna School of advanced studies in Pisa and, afer a stay at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas within the EU Socrates-Erasmus programme, he graduated in Law at the University of Pisa (2004). He obtained his postgraduate degree from the Specialising School for Legal Professions of the University of Pisa (2006) and his PhD degree in Human Person and Legal Protections, curriculum Constitutional Protection of the Individual and of Social Groups, from the Sant’Anna School of advanced studies (2011; in 2013 he was awarded the Fausto Cuocolo national prize for the best PhD thesis in the field of Constitutional and Public Law, 2012 edition). Before joining the D'Annunzio University, he was Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Constitutional Law at the University of Florence (Department of Economy Law, 2012) and at the University of Sassari (Department of Law, 2012-2015); then Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies of Madrid (within the García Pelayo Programme of the CEPC), where he carried out a personal research project on “The European Social Citizenship: Dimensions, Problems and Perspectives” (2015-2018); finally, Junior Researcher in Constitutional Law at the University of Siena (Department of Political and International Sciences, since February 2020). He carried out funded research stays at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (2008, five months, DAAD research scholarship); at the University of Barcelona (2007-2008, four months, financed by the Sant’Anna School; 2013, six months, research scholarship granted by the Institute for Autonomous Studies of the Government of Catalonia); at the University of Sevilla (2024, three weeks, with personal research funds granted by the D'Annunzio University). Member of the Research Group on "Constitucion y formas de participacion politica en democracias avanzadas" of the University of Zaragoza.
He is author of two monographs (La tutela dei diritti sociali negli ordinamenti di tipo composto tra uniformità e differenziazione. Decentramento e diritti sociali in Italia, Germania e Spagna, Pisa, Pisa University Press, 2014, two volumes; La cooperación vertical en el sector de la asistencia social. Formas, tendencias y cambios generados por la crisis económica en Italia y en España, Barcelona, IEA, 2015) and of several papers in scientific journals and chapters of books published in Italian, Spanish and English, concerning Italian and Comparative Constitutional Law topics, with a special attention to the different issues related to the protection of social rights and fundamental rights in general both at the national and European level; he was also the editor and coordinator of a collective book (La Europa social: alcances, retrocesos y desafíos para la construcción de un espacio jurídico de solidaridad, Madrid, CEPC, 2018). He has participated in several research projects both of national and international interest and in conferences and seminars, mainly in Italy and Spain.
Languages: Italian (mother tongue); English, Spanish, French (good); German, Portuguese (basic).
Research lines
Social rights, solidarity, equality, non-discrimination
Territorial pluralism, Constitutional pluralism, Multilevel protection of fundamental rights
European Constitutional Law: in particular, social dimension of the integration process and impact of the economic dimension; impact of European integration on the Italian constitutional system
Constitutional justice and relations between Italian Constitutional Court and European Courts
Sources of law
Representative democracy and direct democracy
Right to privacy and right to the protection of personal data, new technologies
