Our call for abstracts for the Autumn-Spring 2026/2027 Seminar Series is officially out! You can find all the relevant details below - please note that the submission deadline is Friday 29 May 2026. Feel free to circulate this post and to share the call with whomever you think might be interested!!

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.

Illan wall@illanwall.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Following the death of the much beloved Emilios Christodoulidis, we want to go back to the beautiful series that Scott Vetch and Maksymilian Del Mar put together in response to Emilios' magnum opus, the Redress of Law. criticallegalthinking.com/2025/01/13/f...

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!

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!

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....

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

eventbrite.co.uk

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

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.

link.springer.com

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.

Paolo Sandro@paolosandro.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Huge, huge loss for the UK legal and political community www.linkedin.com/posts/cherie...

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...

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

Edinburgh Legal Theory@legaltheoryed.bsky.social · last yr.

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).

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.

Edinburgh Legal Theory@legaltheoryed.bsky.social · last yr.

We've just extended the deadline for our 2025/26 Seminar Series! you can now submit your abstract until Friday, 23rd of May 2025, with outcomes communicated by Monday, 30th of June. If you've not done so already, make sure to submit your work, and to share this call with your colleagues and friends.

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!

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!

Great to see @mhailbronner.bsky.social @rjjoconnell.bsky.social @saracanduzzi.bsky.social @esrademir.bsky.social @dzehtsiarou.bsky.social @aliseaman.bsky.social & ors at the ECHR workshop @uoelawschool.bsky.social. Thanks to Cormac Mac Amhlaigh & Mikael Madsen for organising & hosting.

Sara Canduzzi@saracanduzzi.bsky.social · 2y ago

If you’re interested in constitutional and democratic theory in Europe, make sure to register for this two-day conference on ’Taking Ambivalence Seriously: The European Court of Human Rights and Democracy Promotion’, that we will host in Edinburgh on December 5-6th. www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...

We’re hosting our last ELTRG Seminar of 2024 this Thursday, when Joaquín Casalia (LSE) will present his paper on ‘Disvaluable Rights’. More info and registration link at www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...

The next Legal Philosophy ​Discussion Group & ​Workshops seminar is Dec 9 at 17h (GMT). Our guest is Tsampika Taralli who will present her working paper titled “Solving the Epistemic Problem of Conceptual Analysis". Meeting link and paper will be sent via e-mail. Register: forms.gle/bXcqSex2fSS5...

If you’re interested in constitutional and democratic theory in Europe, make sure to register for this two-day conference on ’Taking Ambivalence Seriously: The European Court of Human Rights and Democracy Promotion’, that we will host in Edinburgh on December 5-6th. www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...

Our next legal theory event is tomorrow! Talita Ferrantelli (LSE & Uni of Amsterdam) will join us to present her paper on 'The Zetetics of Rape: Gathering Evidence of Sexual Consent' (previously advertised as 'On Reliability and Sexual History Evidence').More info at www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...

Here’s some pictures from our annual Disputationes! It was great to learn more about our PhD candidates’ research and to engage in thought-provoking discussions with our colleagues from Glasgow and Surrey. Looking forward to next year!

Edinburgh Legal Theory@legaltheoryed.bsky.social · 2y ago

This Friday, we will be hosting, together with the Glasgow Legal Theory group, our annual Disputationes! This event brings together PhD students and staff from the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Surrey to share and discuss their research. More info at: www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/....

Very much looking forward to this! And a special thanks to @barbararonsoni.bsky.social for organising the event and hosting such an inspiring Discussion group 😍 Make sure to check out their line-up for future seminars too!

bárbara@barbararonsoni.bsky.social · 2y ago

Join us on Nov 22, 17:00 (GMT) for our next Legal Philosophy seminar! Sara Canduzzi @saracanduzzi.bsky.social (PhD candidate, Univ. of Edinburgh) will present "Situating Authority within Theories of Legitimacy beyond the State." Register to receive the paper + meeting link: forms.gle/bf3ccyEk4UhW...

This Friday, we will be hosting, together with the Glasgow Legal Theory group, our annual Disputationes! This event brings together PhD students and staff from the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Surrey to share and discuss their research. More info at: www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/....

We are all really looking forward to today’s legal theory event, where Alex Green (@glexareen.bsky.social) will be presenting his book on ‘Statehood as Political Community’. You can find more details at: www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...

This is happening today!

Edinburgh Legal Theory@legaltheoryed.bsky.social · 2y ago

Our next event is on October 31st, when Sonia Anaid Cruz Dávila (soon at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security & Law), will be presenting her paper on 'Arbitrariness v The Rule of Law: The Legal Basis of Concealed Domination?’. More details at: www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...

Looking forward to our first ELTRG Seminar of the new academic year!😍

Edinburgh Legal Theory@legaltheoryed.bsky.social · 2y ago

Our next event is on October 31st, when Sonia Anaid Cruz Dávila (soon at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security & Law), will be presenting her paper on 'Arbitrariness v The Rule of Law: The Legal Basis of Concealed Domination?’. More details at: www.law.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...