Sara Canduzzi

A wonderful way to remember the work and intellectual contribution of Emilios, who sadly passed away this week. The entire Legal Theory community in Edinburgh mourns the loss of an incredibly kind colleague and friend, who will be sorely missed.

The Edinburgh Centre for Legal Theory and the Edinburgh Legal Theory Research Group are delighted to share with you the line-up for this semester. We hope to see many of you at our events!

Thanks Josh!!

Thank you!!

Thank youuu!! 💛

Grazie!!

A lot going on at the moment! Over the last few days, I submitted my PhD thesis, ’Towards a Theory of Constitutional Crisis in the European Union’, and I started a new position at the Edinburgh Law School as Early Career Fellow in European Union Law. Very much looking forward to the next few months!

The Edinburgh Europa Institute has just put out a call for papers for its annual PhD/ECR Workshop, which will take place in April 2026. The theme for this year is ‘Defending the Union’ and the deadline to submit your abstract is Jan 30th. You can find more details below- feel free to share/repost!

Workshop on Legal Epistemology Let's dive deep into the world of legal epistemology and explore the fascinating intersection of law and knowledge in this hands-on workshop

We’re delighted to share the details of this Workshop in Legal Epistemology, co-organised by Tsampika Taralli (UoE) and Alex Houghton (Stirling). The event will take place at the University of Stirling on Oct 27th, 2-7 pm. Further info & a registration link at: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/workshop-o....

Finally, please note that this article is part of a Special Issue on 'Plural Visions of Law: The Legacy of Joseph Raz', following an event hosted at the University of York in May 2023, so make sure to keep an eye on the publisher’s website for other contributions on connected topics!! 4/4

It's truly special to see this research out in the world as I reach the final stages of my PhD, and even though my doctoral research ended up going into a very different direction (as it often does), I’m excited to contribute to the philosophical discussion on legitimacy beyond the State. 3/4

I wrote the 1st draft of this article at the start of my PhD, and then continued to work on it for the last 3 years. I’m indebted to many, but particularly grateful to @drjoshdoeslaw.bsky.social & @glexareen.bsky.social for their feedback on earlier versions and kind encouragement along the way 2/4

Theories of Normative Legitimacy Beyond the State and the Role of their Conceptual Dimension: A Methodological Insight from Raz’s Service Conception of Authority - Res Publica Many contemporary accounts of normative legitimacy beyond the State have tried to apply legitimacy requirements traditionally developed to justify State authority to non-State entities. This has often resulted into a State-centric ‘impasse’, where the structural differences between domestic and non-State exercises of normative power have led many to conclude that legitimacy cannot ever be achieved in a robust sense at the international, supranational, and global level, and that we should either abandon the concept or put forward very minimal normative requirements. Against this backdrop, this paper argues that we ought to get out of the State-centric impasse to make sure that theories of non-State legitimacy retain their normative grasp and prescriptive function by striking a better balance between idealism and realism. To do so, theories of normative legitimacy beyond the State should incorporate a methodological insight drawn from Joseph Raz’s service conception of authority: namely, the dependency of its normative dimension of what makes authority legitimate on a conceptual dimension of what authority entails. Up until this point, the legacy of Raz’s theory in relation to the study of non-State authority has typically been limited to the question of whether its normative legitimacy requirements can be successfully translated into the global domain. However, the most valuable yet under-investigated aspect of the service conception for the study of non-State legitimacy goes beyond its Normal Justification Thesis (NJT) and can be found in this reliance of its normative dimension on its conceptual dimension. As the paper shows, this element of the service conception may be particularly instructive for how putative theories of legitimacy beyond the State ought to be developed even in those cases in which the NJT is not picked out as the definitive way to assess the legitimacy of non-State authorities. Overall, this paper argues that moving past State-centric standards of legitimacy in our assessment of non-State regulatory entities requires us to choose substantive criteria of legitimacy that, similarly to the one adopted by Raz’s service conception, are drawn from a conceptual understanding of what it means to hold authority.

My paper ’Theories of Normative Legitimacy Beyond the State and the Role of their Conceptual Dimension: A Methodological Insight from Raz’s Service Conception of Authority’ has just been published on Res Publica (Springer Nature)! link.springer.com/article/10.1.... 1/4

The image shows a poster with a list of events that will be held at the Edinburgh Law School between September and December 2025. The events can also be found on the Law School’s website at: https://www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/events.

The Edinburgh Legal Theory group is delighted to share with you the line-up for our Autumn semester. We have lots of exciting events coming up, so make sure to save the dates in your calendar and to come along for what we can guarantee will be lively and inspiring discussions. See you there! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

The entire Legal Theory community in Edinburgh is extremely saddened to hear about the passing of Conor Gearty. He was an extremely kind and inspiring person, and he will be sorely missed. Our thoughts are with his friends and family.

I’ve officially entered the ‘legitimacy beyond the state’ academic chat! My paper ’Theories of Normative Legitimacy Beyond the State and the Role of their Conceptual Dimension: A Methodological Insight from Raz’s Service Conception of Authority’ is now available on SSRN 🎉 dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...

…, lived experiences and legal education. We’ll also debate whether it's possible to do CRT without identifying as a ‘crit’ and if critical approaches have a place in ’traditional’ LT. The event is co-sponsored by Hart Publishing and the Subject Section Fund of the Society of Legal Scholars. 3/3

Margaret Davies (Flinders) will join us online to deliver opening remarks, followed by an in-person discussion with Lucia Kula (SOAS), @illanwall.bsky.social (Galway), Sahar Shah (Bristol) and Patricia Tuitt. Some of the themes will centre around ideas of collectivity, identity... 2/3

It’s been a while since we had a critical legal theory panel at the Edinburgh Legal Theory Festival! Holly and I are super excited to host this collaborative workshop, where we’ll discuss what it means to do CRT and to ‘be’ a critical scholar, and how to engage with ‘traditional’ #legaltheory 1/3

Here's the poster for this year's Edinburgh Legal Theory Festival. Come join us, and please share widely!

I might be biased, but there’s truly no better place to present your work and obtain valuable feedback in a friendly and supporting environment 🤓 Don’t miss out on this opportunity: send us your abstract soon!! And feel free to get in touch if you have any questions concerning the call or the ECLT.

This afternoon we will host a Work-in-Progress session with visiting PhD candidate Filipa Paes (University of Oxford), who will be presenting a paper on ‘Juridical Bivalence’. The event is pre-read, so make sure to get in touch if you’d like to receive a copy! www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...

We’re back with another ELTRG seminar today! We look forward to discussing Camille Bordere's (Université Jean Monnet Saint-Étienne) paper titled ‘A Very Little Key to a Very Heavy Door: Comparative Law as Applied Legal Philosophy’ More info and registration at: www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/....

Today we will be joined by Alex Houghton (University of Stirling), who will present his fascinating research on 'Some Problems for the Standard View of Precedent, and an Epistemic Solution via Peer Disagreement'. More info and registration links at: www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/....

Our next Legal Theory Seminar is tomorrow, when we will be joined by @emilykiddwhite.bsky.social (York University, Canada) to discuss her fascinating research 'On Emotions in the Philosophy of Constitutional Law’. We hope to see many of you there! More details at: www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/....

Our next legal theory event is this Thursday (30th January) at 3-5pm when Tanja Porčnik (Universität Hamburg) will give a seminar on 'Human-AI Interactions in Law-making: Legal Subjectivity and a Right to Human Decision-Making'. See here for details: www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/.... Come join us!

Line-up of Spring 2025 events organised and hosted by the Edinburgh Centre for Legal Theory and the Edinburgh Legal Theory Research Group.

After a well-deserved break, we're now back with our legal theory events! Here’s our Spring 2025 line-up with the full list of speakers. You can find more details and registration links on the Law School’s website (www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...). We look forward to seeing many of you there!

at the end of the course) could be András Jakab’s VerfBlog on Three misconceptions about the EU rule of law crisis, which I think touches on many of these aspects in an original and thought-provoking way that may be good for essay writing. I hope this is somehow helpful!!

of the Rule of Law in the EU Polity which I would recommend checking out. A lot has been published in the last 5 years but, again, it’s hard to recommend readings without knowing the target audience. An interesting piece that could be used to have students produce some critical reflections (perhaps

EU/CJEU is as good as it says it is at upholding RoL standards itself, and the legitimacy of some of the measures taken against Poland/Hungary (with a discussion of conditionality).There’s actually a great book on this ‘institutional’ side of the RoL by Ramona Coman titled The Politics