Legal Reasoning and Decision-making: present debates and the future

The Edinburgh Centre for Legal Theory presents

Jurisprudence Roundtable - 'Legal Reasoning and Decision-making: present debates and the future': 

a) 'The Uncertain Judge' - Courtney Cox, Associate Professor of Law, Fordham; 

b) 'Coherence in Climate Change Cases: Principles, Authority and the Limits of Obligation' - Dr Stephen Riley, Lecturer in Law, University of Leicester

c) 'Use of Algorithms in Dispute resolution: Assumptions and Methodological Comments' - Dr Nikos Stylianidis, Uniiversity of Athens

 

About the speakers

Courtney Cox
Courtney Cox is a legal philosopher who focuses on technology, deception, and risk.  Her current research has two main strains: The first explores the theoretical and practical implications of normative uncertainty in judicial decision making.  The second analyzes the law’s actual and potential responses to lies.  Her latest work on uncertainty is forthcoming in the University of Chicago Law Review.  Her recent work on lying and the law was selected for the Harvard/Yale/Stanford Junior Faculty Forum and received honorable mention in the 2022 AALS Scholarly Papers Competition.

Cox’s theoretical work is informed by legal practice.  She joined the Fordham faculty directly from Ropes & Gray LLP, where she represented clients in complex appeals and intellectual property disputes.  Cox clerked for then-Chief Judge Sandra L. Lynch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.  Cox has also been recognized for her pro bono practice, receiving Ropes & Gray’s Pro Bono Innovation Award for her appellate work, and the University of Chicago Law School’s Edwin F. Mandel Award for her work with unaccompanied minors from China.

Cox graduated with highest honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was a Rubenstein Scholar.  She holds a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford, where she studied as a Clarendon Scholar; and was a dual major in Engineering Sciences (Electrical) and Ethics, Politics, & Economics at Yale.  She previously taught philosophy as a lecturer at Oxford’s Hertford College and served as a Yale Fox Fellow at Fudan University in Shanghai

Dr Stephen Riley
My current focus is on jurisprudence and future generations.

I have a book in progress exploring the relationship between law, the future and practical reason. The book analyses how different schools of jurisprudential thought incorporate the future into their conception of law. And it addresses a number of practical topics including intergenerational justice climate conflict and climate refugees and resources and jurisdictional boundaries.

I have written extensively on the topic of human dignity and law including a monograph and several articles in leading journals. My particular concern is with the ‘foundational’ claims associated with human dignity and with its role in our conceptualisation of authority obligation and legal validity.

Nikos Stylianidis

After studies in Athens (BA in Law) and London (LL.M. at the L.S.E., including philosophy and scientific method), PhD in analytic (legal) philosophy (1994) (scholarship at the European University Institute - Florence, University of Paris X - Nanterre - direction M. Troper) a re-reading and reconstruction of H.L.A. Hart's legal theory through ordinary language philosophy (J.L. Austin) and Wittgenstein (also through P. Winch, Baker and Hacker). Came back to Greece, have done research and teaching in the University of Athens (Law School) for some years, co-ordinated research and applied projects at EU level (legal theory, legal dogmatics, social sciences), practiced law (mainly public law and public procurement contracts) and served as advisor to the Ministers of Finance and Interior during the first years of crisis in Greece (2010 - 2012); currently legal advisor and external research coordinator in the University of Athens (Center of Philosophy of Law).  During  these years I have been publishing (in legal theory and analytic philosophy) mainly in Greek, in journals co-edited by friends and colleagues (we have also translated, in Greek, J. Rawls' "Theory of Justice"). Now preparing a paper on governance: “Governance: A Preliminary Conceptual Inquiry”.

 

 

More details to be announced soon.