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Edinburgh Legal Theory Research Group
Welcome to the home page of the Edinburgh Legal Theory Research Group (the Group).
Use the menu on the right to browse information about our upcoming events, legal theory staff, research students and alumni profiles, podcasts and media files, graduate prizes in legal theory and legal theory links.
The legal theory community in Edinburgh is a vibrant and thriving one. Apart from the Group's own regular meetings, relevant events include the weekly seminars of the Edinburgh Centre for Law and Society, and numerous other lectures and seminars (visit the Events section on the Law School home page).
Our last major event was a Legal Theory Workshops Series held on 8 and 9 May 2009 as part of the Edinburgh Spring Programme in Legal Theory.
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Legal theory (also known as jurisprudence and legal philosophy) has a long tradition in Edinburgh. 2007 was a particularly special year as it marked the Tercentenary of the Regius Chair of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations, held for over thirty years by Professor Sir Neil MacCormick (1941-2009) (pictured left). Professor MacCormick's publications include such classics as Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory (1978), An Institutional Theory of Law: New Approaches to Legal Positivism (1986; co-authored with Ota Weinberger), Questioning Sovereignty: Law, State and Nation in the European Commonwealth (1999), Rhetoric and the Rule of Law (2005), Institutions of Law (2007) and most recently Practical Reason in Law and Morality (2009). The Chair is currently held by Professor Neil Walker (pictured right). |
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The Group is particularly well-represented by doctoral students researching in legal theory. Please visit Research Students in Legal Theory for more information. More doctoral students wishing to work in legal theory are always very welcome: please feel free to contact the Convenor to find out more about researching legal theory at Edinburgh! See also the Alumni section, which includes a list of former doctorates in legal theory completed here at Edinburgh.
Overview of Legal Theory Activities
The Group runs a variety of events.
Paper Presentations Series
The paper presentation series is one of the most interesting activities of the Edinburgh Legal Theory Research Group. It gives the opportunity to discuss papers presented by staff, researchers, and guest academics from UK and abroad.
Everybody is invited to take part in the paper presentation series, either as presenter or as discussant.
If you would like to present a paper, please contact the Convenor of the Group.
We also hosts a number of joint events that are co-organised with other Research Groups like the Europa Postgraduate Research Reading Group, the Criminology and Criminal Justice Postgraduate Research Group and the Glasgow Law School PhD Discussion Group.
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Workshops
Book Focus Series
There is a thriving reading group. In 2008 we read Wil Waluchow's A Common Law Theory of Judicial Review: The Living Tree (Cambridge, 2007) and Scott Veitch's Law and Irresponsibility: On the Legitimation of Human Suffering (Routledge,2007) which led to a workshop with Professor Waluchow in June 2008 and a workshop with Professor Veitch in December 2008. Geoffrey Samuel’sEpistemology and Method in Law (Ashgate, 2003) was our focus in 2007. A follow-up workshop was held with Professor Geoffrey Samuel in October 2007. Meetings of the reading group occur every second week, on Wednesday, with staff members or research students introducing individual chapters.
This year we will read Prof. Terry Eagleton's Trouble With Strangers. A Study of Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).
For details of upcoming seminars please visit the Events and Meetings section of this site.
The convenor of the Group is Francisco Saffie. In the academic year 2008-2009 the convenor of the Group was Haris Psarras. In the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years was Maksymilian Del Mar.
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