Career
According to Vincenzo Ferrari, Treves "devoted his first academic study to the diffusion of Claude Henri de Saint-Simon"s (1760-1825) doctrines in Italy" before turning his attention to the neo-Kantian movement and Hans Kelsen"s Pure Theory of Law. Treves also exerted considerable influence on the development of the sociology of law in Italy and is one of the founders of the Research Committee on Sociology of Law. Renato Treves kept faith with a Weberian and Kelsenian vision of sociology of law, as distinct from legal science.
He advocated empirical research as a means of testing theories critically and favoured open as opposed to closed social portraits of law.
