Edinburgh Legal Theory

Tomorrow we’re back with another ELTRG Seminar, where Chinmay Bhat (Jindal Global Law School) will present a paper on 'Interminable Definitional Disputes’. Please feel free to get in touch if you’d like to receive a copy of the paper. We hope to see many of you there for a wonderful discussion!

We have added another event to our Spring line-up! This week we will host Xi Zhang, who is going to present a paper on ‘Eliminativism and Its Initial Ambition’. The event will take place on Thursday, 12 Feb in the Neil MacCormick Room from 3 to 5 pm. Looking forward to the discussion!!

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!

Today we're hosting our final event of the year, where visiting student Julia Galera (EUI) will present a paper on 'Bound to Love. The International Law(s) of Friendship’. The event will take place in the Moot Court Room and will be followed by a wine reception to celebrate the end of the semester.🎉

Today we have the next of our ECLT seminars, where Luís Duarte d’Almeida and Fábio Shecaira will present their paper on 'When Are Arguments from Scholarly Legal Authority Legitimate?’. The seminar will be held in the Moot Court Room from 3 to 5 pm. We’re looking forward to the discussion!

Our staff member Amalia Amaya co-edited this Special Issue of the Netherlands Journal of Philosophy, alongside Iris van Domselaar (University of Amsterdam), on ‘Virtue and the Legal Professions’. You can check it out at this link: www.boomportaal.nl/tijdschrift/....

Today we’re hosting a Work-in-Progress session with visiting PhD student Jakub Stádnik (Charles University, Prague), who will present a draft on 'Consistency in Constitutional Jurisprudence: An Elusive Ideal or a Standard or Review by the ECtHR?’. Looking forward to the discussion!

This is today!

In our regular Thursday slot, instead, we will be joined by Athanasios Peftinas (Oxford), who will present a draft on ‘Law on Revolutions’ in the Moot Court Room, 3-5 pm. More info at: www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/.... 2/2

This week we’re loading up on legal theory, with not one, but two seminars!

Today, we're hosting Hrafn Asgeirsson (Surrey), with a paper on 'How normative functions “shape” the law: a grounding problem for legal positivism?'. The event will take place in the Quad Teaching Room at 3 pm. 1/2

We’re back with another ELTRG seminar tomorrow, October 30th, when @ninavarsava.bsky.social (University of Wisconsin) will present a paper on 'The Nature of A Precedent's Error’. The event will take place in the Moot Court Room, 3-5 pm. More info & abstract here: www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...

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....

Happy to invite you all for our next seminar presentation on October 17th at 15:00 (GMT). Our guest is Adam Kolber (Robert Kaufman ’57 Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School) who will present his working paper titled “Moral and Legal Vectors". Register: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

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

Legal Theory Blog Discover our latest articles and updates. Stay informed with recent posts that cover a variety of topics you care about!

Please help me get the word out about the new websites for Legal Theory Blog and the Legal Theory Lexicon. Reposting here and on other social media sites is great. It would be especially helpful if law school faculty members could send an email to their colleagues with the new addresses.

Join us today for our ELTRG Seminar, where Jason Krentos
(University of Hertfordshire) will present a paper on 'The Rule of Law as a Community of Strangers'. More details below: www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...

Our first event of the new academic year is tomorrow 🎉 Tomasz Widłak (University of Gdansk) will join the ECLT to present a research project on 'Judicial Techno-Legal Virtues in AI-Augmented Justice’. The seminar will be in the Moot Court Room, 3-5 pm. Make sure to come along if you’re in Edinburgh!

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.

Our Edinburgh Legal Theory Festival starts this coming Monday! Here are the programmes - please note that the end time of the workshop on day 2 (Tuesday) is now 3.25pm.

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

We're happy to share the posters for each of the days of this year's Edinburgh Legal Theory Festival. Please share widely!

Looking forward to the 2025 Legal Theory Festival at the University of Edinburgh @legaltheoryed.bsky.social. I’ll be presenting a paper entitled ‘Interpretation as Collaboration’. Thanks to @philosophy-law.bsky.social for the invite!

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

Looking forward to this!

Looks like a fabulous set of events for this year's Legal Theory Festival. The programme is available here: www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/.... Please repost and share widely!

This year, in addition to the ongoing valuable support from
@hartpublishing.bsky.social, the Festival is also supported by the Mind Association, the Society of Legal Scholars, and a Student Experience Grant from the University of Edinburgh. Many thanks to our sponsors for making this event happen!

The workshop on Grotius' "The Rights of War and Peace" is on Wednesday 4th June @ 2-5pm and is organised by Guillermo Estrada (UNAM Mexico) and our own Amalia Amaya. Speakers include Martine van Ittersum (Dundee), Ignacio de la Rasilla (Wuhan), Justina Uriburu (Manchester), and our own Stephen Neff.

The workshop on Contemporary Critical Legal Theory is on Wednesday 4th June @ 9.30am-12.40pm and is organised by our own Sara Canduzzi @saracanduzzi.bsky.social and Holly Hayes. Speakers are Sidonia Lucia Kula (SOAS), Illan rua Wall (Galway), Sahar Shah (Bristol), and Patricia Tuitt (independent).