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Regularly invoked but rarely defined, ‘the rule of law’ has over the last few decades been converted from a legal term of art into one of the most ambiguous slogans of contemporary public policy. Political scientists claim it as a crucial test of a regime’s legitimacy. Economists maintain that it provides an essential foundation of a flourishing market economy. Philosophers suggest it captures the essence of the state as a moral association. Historians acknowledge that, even if they might distrust such an abstract notion, the imposition of effective inhibitions on power is an ‘unqualified human good’. And lawyers, of course, have treated it as the foundation of their discipline ever since the mid-thirteenth century when Bracton asserted that ‘there is no rex where will rules rather than lex’. Those who extend its usage beyond the confines of professional legal discourse commonly give it a positive valence. But the rule of law also has its detractors. These critics assert that it promotes purely formal, individualistic values at the expense of substantive justice, or that it is a smokescreen preventing us from seeing the impact of recent global developments that signal the rule of lawyers. Some anthropologists even denounce it as an imperial ideology that legitimates European conquest and the plunder of the rest of the world. But given the fact that almost every state in the world now claims to act in compliance with the rule of law, these critics seem to have done little to dent its appeal. Yet, the sheer range of views and perspectives that now exist about the meaning, purpose, and value of the rule of law considerably complicates any inquiry into its current standing. In this paper, I will try to bring some clarity to the issue by providing a sketch of the main varieties of ways in which the term is being invoked. The paper comprises five sections, which each address a specific aspect of the term’s usage: (1) its coinage in English law, (2) the adoption of a superficially similar terminology in the German concept of the Rechtsstaat, (3) the jurisprudential innovations that complicate its meaning, and finally its most recent invocation (4) first in development work and (5) secondly in constitutional rejuvenation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reviews Ran Hirschl's City, State: Constitutionalism and the Megacity, a study of 'the great constitutional silence concerning one of the most significant phenomena of our time: urban agglomeration and the rise of megacities' and which maintains that the solution to contemporary urban problems crucially depends on a 'constitutional emancipation' of the city. The essay argues that Hirschl is unable to deliver on his major claim. Launching his thesis on a skewed account of the development of the political role of the city, a one-sided presentation of the constitutional order of the modern state, and a failure to appreciate the impact of urbanization on the city's standing as a unit of government, Hirschl ignores the work of public lawyers on the challenges of metropolitan government and argues, unconvincingly, that these challenges can be resolved once we turn to the abstractions of constitutional theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his 2019 Reith Lectures on the rise of law and decline of politics, Jonathan Sumption presents a thesis that, on its face, seems identical to that of J.A.G. Griffith's defence of the political constitution. Given the radical differences in their views on equality, democracy, and redistribution—with Griffith working in the tradition of democratic socialism espoused by the Webbs, Tawney and Laski, and Sumption expressing the libertarian philosophy underpinning Thatcherite policies—this is puzzling. This article sets their views in historical and political context and argues that the similarities are superficial, whereas the differences are profound. It then proceeds to show the weaknesses in Sumption's defence of his thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the 1978 Chorley Lecture by British jurist John Griffith about the political constitution. Topics covered include the history of political constitutionalism, Griffith's appraisal of the constitutional developments in Great Britain from the perspective of political science, and the positivist and functionalist method that drives his argument.

Sovereignty is the central tenet of modern British constitutional thought but its meaning remains misunderstood. Lawyers treat it as a precise legal concept – the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty – but commonly fail to acknowledge that that doctrine is erected on a skewed sense of what sovereignty entails. In particular, they do not see that the doctrine rests on a particular political conviction, that the British state depends on a central authority equipped with an unlimited power. These two facets of sovereignty are now so deeply intertwined in legal consciousness that they cannot easily be unravelled and this becomes the main barrier to thinking constructively about Britain's constitutional arrangements. This article substantiates these claims by explaining how the doctrine came into being, demonstrating how it is tied to a deeper political conviction, showing that its political underpinnings have been considerably weakened over the last century, and indicating how its re‐working is the precondition of constitutional renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1885 A.V. Dicey identified the rule of law as a key principle of British constitutional law. Presenting it both as a product of English common law method and an expression of classical liberalism, Dicey's concept lingered on into the twentieth century but mainly as a contentious ideological doctrine or simply as a vague rhetorical slogan. During the last fifty years, however, the concept has been revived, recrafted, relocated and reified. The rule of law has become a universal trope, albeit with a range of contestable meanings. This article traces this development, showing how it has been converted into a phrase of considerable political potency not only domestically but also in the international arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note argues that the claim that globalization leads to a fundamental shift in the very idea of law is misconceived. First, because the juristic claims advocates make are not new; secondly, because they seek inappropriately to convert empirical issues into conceptual claims; thirdly, because they promote conceptual claims by misidentifying the character of modern law; and finally because, although there is an important issue to be raised by contemporary developments, this—a politico-legal issue—is one that they avoid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The constitutional imagination refers to the way we have been able to conceive the relationship between thought, text and action in the constitution of modern political authority. The lecture seeks to demonstrate how modern constitutional texts come to be invested with a 'world-making' capacity. The argument is advanced first by explaining how social contract thinkers have been able to set the parameters of the constitutional imagination (thought), then by showing that constitutions are agonistic documents and their interpretative method is determined by a dialectic of ideology and utopia (text), and finally by examining the degree to which constitutions have been able to colonise the political domain, thereby converting constitutional aspiration into political reality (action). It concludes by suggesting that although we seem to be entering a constitutional age, this is an ambiguous achievement and whether the power of the constitutional imagination can still be sustained remains an open question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article outlines a simple thesis: that international investment arbitration -- pursuant to regional and bilateral investment treaties -- offers the dearest example of global administrative law, strictly construed, yet to have emerged. We present this thesis by explicating four key features of investment treaties: they permit investor claims against the state without exhausting local remedies: they allow claims for damages: they allow investors to directly seek enforcement of awards before domestic courts: and they facilitate forum-shopping. Our argument is that, owing to this unique conjunction of features, the regulatory conduct of states is, to an unusual extent, subject to control through compulsory international adjudication. Having highlighted these features, we then claim that investment arbitration is best analogized to domestic administrative law rather than to international commercial arbitration, especially since investment arbitration engages disputes arising from the exercise of public authority by the state as opposed to private acts of the state. Further, we claim that the linkages between Investment arbitration and domestic legal systems are more direct and more closely integrated than other forms of international adjudication in the public sphere. For these reasons, we argue that the emerging regime of investment arbitration Is to be understood us constituting an important and powerful manifestation of global administrative law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the functionalist interpretation of public law. Comparison of the philosophies of classical liberalism and new liberalism centering on the debates over the matters of philosophy and political disagreements on the relationship between law and government; Views of English political thinker A.V. Dicey on the rise and fall of classical liberalism; Significance of the rise of functionalism on the attempt to redefine the key concepts of individualism and collectivism; Comparison of the interpretations of Dicey with that of Frenchman Leon Duguit in his "Transformations du droit public"; Significance of the British idealism, evolutionary social theory, pluralism, and pragmatism as the main influences of functionalism.

The article focuses on the works of lawyer William Ivor Jennings in the development of public law. The article presents a revised version of papers delivered at a seminar in June 2003 to mark Jennings' centenary. The objective was not celebratory; rather, it was intended to be an occasion for assessing the significance of Jennings' contribution to the development of public law scholarship in the twentieth century and, through the analysis of his work, to reflect on developments in the discipline. Although the academic discipline of public law in Great Britain is relatively young, it is not too early to learn from revisiting the work of those who have played a major role in molding it into a distinctive shape.

Gough Company Charges Schlag Laying Down the Law: Mysticism, Fetishism and the American Legal Mind Angel Science on Trial: The Clash of Medical Evidence and the Law in the Breast Implant Case Farmer Criminal Law Tradition and Legal Order: Crime and the Genius of Scots Law 1747 to the Present Saunders Violence as Obscenity: Limiting the Media's First Amendment Protection Rawlings (ed) Law, Society, and Economy: Centenary Essays for the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1895–1995 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]