1) Roman law in the communist countries, being considered as legal system of slavery-based society or the basis of capitalist legal order, was treated as incompatible with socialist society. Therefore, it's teaching was either eliminated from academic syllabus', or at least seriously limited.

2) Demise of communism gave a new impact to Roman law studies. Roman law, being background of the European legal culture and the main factor influencing formation of modern, national legal systems, enables mutual communication between lawyers from different countries and their understanding of the substance of various legal systems - their similarities and differences. Knowledge of Roman legal principles is considered as crucial to contemporary process leading to unification of private law within EU.

3) Unfortunately, teaching and studying of Roman law in the former Soviet Union countries envisaged number of particular difficulties. Despite well-developed studies in ancient Roman history, teaching of Roman law wasn't able to achieve level allowing students to understand fully it's importance to modern legal culture. This subject was (and often still is) taught by historians rather, or lawyers specialising in different fields, not by specialists. Therefore, need for redevelopment of the Roman law studies, and for academic teachers being specialists on Roman law, is particularly urgent in these countries.

4) This need was particularly visible at the Moscow conference organised by the Centre of Roman Law Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Law Faculty of Lomonosow University in November 1997, and also during 7th Conference of Romanists from Central and Eastern Europe and Italy held by Centro per gli Studi su Diritto Romano e Sistemi giuridici del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (presided by prof. Catalano of University of Roma I) in December 1998. There was a significant number of lecturers during this meeting, representing universities and law colleges from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Khabarowsk, Ekaterynburg, Elistie, Erevan, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Odessa, Saratov, Syktyvkar, Vladivistock, Voronez, Tbilisi as well as Romanists from Romania, Hungary, Poland and from the countries of the former Yugoslavia. During this meeting at Rome a commission was appointed, so that to prepare syllabus and handbook recommended for a Roman law course in the ex-socialist countries universities. The commission was chaired by W. Wolodkiewicz; other participants were: G. Hamza (Budapest), A. Malenica (Novy Sad), S. Schipani (Roma II), S. Tafaro (Bari).

The participants of the meeting unanimously backed the motion of W. Wolodkiewicz to create "Scuola di formazione nel diritto Romano" for the young lecturers of Roman law from the said countries.

5) The School shall enable contacts between Romanists from the former USSR and their colleagues from the other post-socialist and other countries, especially from Italy. This goal shall be achieved by:

a) seminars and lectures organised in different university centres aimed at preparing of the young scholars for their scientific and didactic work. The Polish universities with their experienced Romanists and established contacts with the other Roman law centres (especially Italian ones) could provide staffing of such meetings. Apart from them the researchers from Italy and other centres could lecture at the seminars;

b) post-graduate training at the universities with established tradition of Roman law teaching and good libraries;

c) helping the best students of the School to achieve scholarships in Italy;

d) promoting teaching of Italian as essential language for research on Roman law.

6) The first Session of the International School of Roman Law was organised in September 2001 in Warsaw. In this Session took part 14 participants: from Russia (9 persons), Ukraine (3 persons), Lithuania (1 person) and Croatia (1 person). The professors of the first Session came from the Universities from: Poland (8 persons), Italy (4 persons), Germany (2 persons), Ukraine (1 person).

7) Regarding particular interest that aroused in the International School of Roman Law during its first proceedings in September 2001, supported by splendid opinions expressed both, by participants and by lecturers to this Session, Warsaw University's Centre for Studies on the Classical Tradition and the "Artes Liberales Institut" Foundation decided to continue with this project inviting young academics: lecturers and researchers in Roman law and Roman legal tradition, for the second Session of International School of Roman Law.

This Session took place in September 2002 and consisted of two parts. The first one (Warsaw: 4-14 September 2002) consisting of lectures and seminars in Roman law at Warsaw University and the second (Augustów: 15-19 September 2002) including, a part of lectures, also participation in General Meeting of Polish Legal Historians, organised by the University of Białystok.

Participants to the 2nd Session were 14 persons: from Russian Federation (7 persons), Belarus (2 persons), Ukraine (1 person), Bulgaria (1 person), Croatia (1 person), Moldova (1 person) and Poland (1 person). Lecturers to this session were professors from Italy (7 persons), Poland (6 persons) and Germany (1 person). All the lectures and seminars were held in Italian and translated into Russian by Mrs Maria Celintseva from Lomonosov's University in Moscow.

Graduation of the 2nd Session of International School of Roman Law took place on 20th September with prof. Jerzy Axer (Head of the OBTA) and prof. Witold Wołodkiewicz (Director of the School), who granted participants with diplomas.