News

We are delighted to announce that the first presentation in the 2011-2012 Paper Presentation Series will be delivered by Dr Nigel Simmonds (Cambridge University). The presentation will take place on 16 November 2011, at 16:00 in room 331, Old College. 

All are warmly invited to attend.  

/legaltheory/files/Edinburgh Legal Theory Research Group PAPER PRESENTATION Nigel Simmonds.doc

This years doctoral colloquium will take place on 13th January 2012. If you are a PhD student and like to present during the colloquium, please let us know before 1st December 2011 via convenor.legaltheory@ed.ac.uk. 

 A pdf poster for the 2011 Workshop Series can be downloaded here.

Prof Japp Hage (University of Maastricht) will present "The deontological furniture of the world" on Thursday, 21 April 2011 from 4pm-6pm in the Moot Court Room. More information, and a background paper, are available here.

A provisional timetable for the 2011 Legal Theory Workshop Series is now available here.

Professor Nicola Lacey (University of Oxford) will deliver the Centre for Law and Society annual lecture (entitled: "Coalition Politics and the Political Economy of Punishment") on 17 May 2011. The lecture will take place in Lecture Theatre 175, Old College, from 5.30pm-7pm.

The next Paper Presentation will take place in Room L06 on 16 November between 2pm and 4pm. Dr Oren Ben Dor (University of Southampton) will talk on the distinction between the judgments of artists and the judgments of judges. All are invited to attend.


For the second year running, the Group is organsing an internal Doctoral
Colloquium, in which PhD candidates in legal theory will discuss their work with each other and the academic staff. The Colloquium will take place in the Raeburn Room on 6th December 2010, from 2pm-6pm. Everybody is warmly invited to take part.


This academic year, the first Paper Presentation is on Wednesday the 20th of October, in the Moot Court Room, from 4-6 pm. Dr Giovanni Damele, from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, will present a paper on "MacCormick and Ferrajoli: a comparison starting from the argumentation theory". All are welcome and can find more information here.



The Group is proud to announce the appointment of Paolo Sandro as Convenor. Paolo can be reached via p.sandro@sms.ed.ac.uk.

Unruly Peoples and the Legal Public is the name of the workshop to be held at the University of Glasgow, School of Law, on 3-4 June 2010. The event marks the third year of an ongoing collaboration with the University of Antwerp, which has sought to forge meaningful research relationships in the area of law, the public and the common good. 

For more details, please visit:

In the last session of our book focus series we will meet with Professor Terry Eagleton (John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at the University of Manchester) to discuss his book 'Trouble With Strangers. A Study of Ethics'.

This meeting will be on Tuesday, March 2, from 11:00 to 13:00. Seats are strictly limited. Interested persons should email Francisco Saffie (f.saffie@sms.ed.ac.uk) in order to book their place at the seminar. It is vital to book ahead in advance.

In our last scheduled meeting for this series, Professor Jordi Ferrer (University of Girona, Spain) will present 'Legal Proof and Legal Truth: Bentham revisited'.

Please be aware that for this meeting we will meet in Room 331, Old College. The time of the meeting will be, as usual, from 16:00 to 18:00.

The paper will soon be available in our Paper Presentation Series site, where you will also find more information on the series.

Continuing with our paper presentation series, Dr. Emmanuel Melissaris (London School of Economics) will present 'Interpretivism, argumentation and the Law'. 

In our next meeting, Professor John Gardner (Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford) will present the paper 'What is Tort Law For? The Place of Corrective Justice'.

The new date will be duly informed.

For the first time, the Edinburgh Legal Theory Group is organising an internal doctoral colloquium. PhD students and academic staff in legal theory and related areas are taking part.

The Raeburn Room, Old College, South Bridge.

Friday, 4 December, 10:30 to 18:00

For details please visit our Doctoral Colloquium web page.

The 2009 Centre for Law and Society Annual Lecture will be given by Professor Antony Duff of the University of Stirling. The lecture is entitled 'Towards a Theory of Criminal Law?' and will take place at 17.30 on 5 November in Lecture Theatre 175, Old College.

There will be a reception afterwards in the nearby Lorimer Room.

Dr. Dan Priel (Warwick School of Law) will present 'The significance of legitimacy to legal theory' 

Moot Court Room, Old College.

Wednesday, 28 October, 16:00 to 18:00.

Prof. Victor Tadros (Warwick School of Law) will inaugurate this year 'Paper Presentation Series' with the paper 'Punishment as a Remedy' 

Moot Court Room, Old College.

Wednesday, 14 October, 16:00 to 18:00.

For more information visit the Paper Presentation Series site.

All welcome!

Prof. Frederick Kellog, (George Washington University) and current visiting MacCormick Fellow, will present the paper 'The abuse of principle: Analytical jurisprudence and the doubtful case'.

We will meet in Moot Court Room, Old College, on Friday 9th October from 13:00 to 14:00.

You can download the paper here 

All welcome!

To commemorate the first fifty volumes of the Philosophy of Law book collection, Marcial Pons publishers in junction with the research groups in Philosophy of Law from the Universidad de Girona and the Universidad Pompeu Fabra (to whom the directors of the collection belong, Jordi Ferrer and José Juan Moreso) are organizing an international conference in Girona, Spain, between the 20th and 22nd of May 2010.

The theme of the conference is "neutrality and theory of law". Speakers include Dr. Robert Alexy, Dr. Juan Carlos Bayón, Dr. Brian Bix, Dr. Eugenio Bulygin, Dr. Bruno Celano, Dr. Jules Coleman, Dr. Riccardo Guastini, Dr. Brian Leiter, Dr. Jorge Luis Rodríguez, Dr. Frederick Schauer, Dr. Scott Shapiro, and Dr. Wilfrid J. Waluchow.

For further details, including registration and accommodation, please visit: http://www.filosofiayderecho.es/congreso/en/index.html

Constitutionalism and Systems Theory - September / October 2009

Paper Presentation Series Schedule

IVR Young Scholar Prize 2009 - September 2009

Hauser Research Scholar - September 2009

New Convenor - September 2009