philosophy of law dissertation topics

Law Thesis Topics

This page provides a comprehensive list of law thesis topics , designed to assist students in navigating the broad and intricate field of legal studies. Choosing the right thesis topic is crucial for every law student, as it not only contributes to their academic success but also helps in shaping their future career paths. The list encompasses a wide range of specialized areas within the law, including but not limited to administrative law, corporate law, criminal justice, and human rights law. Each category is rich with potential research questions that reflect current challenges and emerging trends in the legal landscape. This resource aims to inspire and support students by providing them with a vast array of topics, thereby facilitating an informed and focused approach to their thesis writing endeavors.

1000 Law Thesis Topics and Ideas

Academic Writing, Editing, Proofreading, And Problem Solving Services

Get 10% off with 24start discount code, browse law thesis topics:, administrative law thesis topics, banking and finance law thesis topics, commercial law thesis topics, competition law thesis topics, constitutional law thesis topics, contract law thesis topics, corporate law thesis topics, criminal law thesis topics, cyber law thesis topics, environmental law thesis topics, european union law thesis topics, family law thesis topics, health law thesis topics, human rights law thesis topics, immigration law thesis topics, intellectual property law thesis topics, international law thesis topics, labor law thesis topics, legal ethics thesis topics, maritime law thesis topics, media law thesis topics, property law thesis topics, public international law thesis topics, sports law thesis topics, tax law thesis topics.

• The impact of administrative reforms on government efficiency in the 21st century.
• Examining the role of public consultation in administrative decision-making processes.
• The effectiveness of ombudsman institutions in resolving public grievances: A comparative study.
• Legal challenges in implementing electronic governance and digitalization of administrative services.
• The influence of political change on administrative law reforms.
• Judicial review of administrative actions: Balancing government discretion and citizen rights.
• The evolution of administrative law under the pressure of emergency health responses (e.g., COVID-19).
• Privacy rights versus state security: Where should the line be drawn in administrative policies?
• The role of administrative law in combating climate change: Case studies from around the world.
• The effectiveness of administrative penalties in regulating corporate behavior.
• Transparency and accountability in public procurement processes.
• Comparative analysis of administrative law systems in federal and unitary states.
• The role of administrative law in shaping public health policies.
• Administrative law and its impact on minority rights protections.
• The challenge of maintaining administrative justice in times of political instability.
• Legal mechanisms for citizen participation in the administrative rule-making process.
• The future of administrative litigation: Trends and predictions.
• Impact of international law on national administrative law procedures.
• Administrative law’s response to socio-economic disparities.
• The use of artificial intelligence in administrative decision-making: Legal and ethical implications.
• Balancing efficiency and fairness in administrative adjudication.
• The role of administrative agencies in environmental conservation.
• Regulatory challenges in the administration of emerging technologies.
• The impact of globalization on national administrative law practices.
• Administrative law as a tool for social reform.
• Corruption and administrative law: Safeguards and pitfalls.
• Administrative discretion and its limits in democratic societies.
• The intersection of administrative law and human rights.
• The administrative burden of tax law enforcement and compliance.
• Public access to information: Evaluating legal frameworks in different jurisdictions.
• The role of whistleblowers in the administrative state: Protection versus persecution.
• Outsourcing government services: Legal ramifications and oversight.
• Legal standards for emergency powers of administrative agencies.
• Administrative law and the management of public lands.
• Challenges in regulatory enforcement against multinational corporations.
• The impact of administrative decisions on small businesses.
• Legal remedies for administrative injustices: Are they sufficient?
• The influence of lobbying on administrative rule-making.
• The role of the judiciary in shaping administrative law.
• The future of public administration: Predicting changes in law and policy.
• The legal implications of blockchain technology in banking and finance.
• An analysis of regulatory approaches to cryptocurrency in major global economies.
• The role of law in preventing financial crises: Lessons learned from past financial collapses.
• Legal challenges in implementing digital currencies by central banks.
• Consumer protection in online banking: Evaluating current legal frameworks.
• The impact of Brexit on the banking and finance laws in the UK and EU.
• Regulatory responses to financial innovation: Balancing innovation and consumer protection.
• Legal strategies for combating money laundering in the international banking sector.
• The influence of international sanctions on banking and financial transactions.
• Legal issues surrounding the securitization of assets.
• The role of legal frameworks in fostering sustainable banking practices.
• The enforcement of banking regulations against systemic risk.
• Legal aspects of banking insolvencies and their impact on the global economy.
• The evolution of consumer credit laws and their impact on the banking industry.
• The effectiveness of anti-corruption regulations in the banking sector.
• Legal considerations in the management of cross-border banking operations.
• The regulation of shadow banking systems and their legal implications.
• Legal challenges faced by fintech companies in the banking sector.
• The role of law in addressing disparities in access to banking services.
• Legal frameworks for banking privacy and data protection in the age of digital banking.
• The impact of artificial intelligence on regulatory compliance in banking.
• Legal aspects of risk management in banking: Current practices and future directions.
• The legalities of banking for high-risk clients: Balancing business and regulatory requirements.
• The enforcement of Basel III standards in developing countries.
• Legal issues related to bank mergers and acquisitions.
• The regulation of international investment and its impact on banking laws.
• Legal challenges in microfinancing: Protecting both lenders and borrowers.
• The implications of non-performing loans on banking law and policy.
• Banking dispute resolution: The effectiveness of arbitration and mediation.
• The legal framework for Islamic banking and finance: Comparison with Western banking laws.
• The role of the judiciary in shaping banking laws and practices.
• The future of banking regulation: Predicting changes post-global pandemic.
• Legal frameworks governing venture capital and its role in economic development.
• Regulatory challenges in mobile and electronic payment systems.
• The impact of interest rate regulations on banking profitability and lending practices.
• Legal approaches to combat insider trading in the banking sector.
• The role of legal systems in shaping corporate governance in banks.
• Legal provisions for the protection of minority shareholders in banks.
• Regulatory frameworks for derivatives: Balancing risk and innovation.
• The role of international law in governing global banking practices.
• The impact of global trade agreements on domestic commercial laws.
• Legal challenges in e-commerce: Consumer rights and seller responsibilities.
• The enforcement of international commercial contracts: Comparative legal analysis.
• Intellectual property rights in the digital age: Protecting innovations while fostering competition.
• Legal frameworks for cross-border e-commerce transactions.
• The role of commercial law in supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
• Arbitration vs. court litigation: Choosing the right path for commercial disputes.
• The evolution of commercial law with the rise of artificial intelligence and robotics.
• Legal strategies for protecting brand identity and trademarks internationally.
• The impact of anti-monopoly laws on corporate mergers and acquisitions.
• Legal aspects of supply chain management and logistics.
• The enforcement of non-disclosure agreements in international business deals.
• Consumer protection laws in the context of misleading advertising and sales practices.
• The role of commercial law in regulating online payment systems.
• Contract law for the modern entrepreneur: Navigating contracts in a digital world.
• The influence of cultural differences on international commercial negotiations and laws.
• Legal challenges in franchising: Protecting franchisors and franchisees.
• Commercial leasing disputes and the law: Trends and resolutions.
• Corporate social responsibility and commercial law: Legal obligations and implications.
• Legal implications of Brexit for European trade and commercial law.
• Regulation of commercial drones: Privacy, safety, and commercial uses.
• Legal issues surrounding the gig economy and contract employment.
• Protecting consumer data in commercial transactions: Legal obligations and challenges.
• Legal aspects of marketing and advertising in digital media.
• Impact of environmental laws on commercial practices: From compliance to competitive advantage.
• Legal remedies in commercial law: Exploring efficient dispute resolution mechanisms.
• Insolvency and bankruptcy: Legal strategies for rescuing troubled businesses.
• The legal consequences of business espionage: Protecting commercial interests.
• The role of trademarks in building and maintaining brand value.
• Corporate governance in the modern corporation: Legal frameworks and challenges.
• Comparative analysis of commercial guaranties across different legal systems.
• Legal issues in the export and import of goods: Navigating international regulations.
• The regulation of commercial insurance: Balancing stakeholder interests.
• Legal challenges in real estate development and commercial property investments.
• Impact of digital currencies on commercial transactions.
• International taxation and its impact on multinational commercial operations.
• The regulation of unfair competition in a globalized market.
• Legal strategies for managing commercial risks in unstable economies.
• The role of law in innovative financing methods like crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending.
• Contractual liability and risk management in international commercial projects.
• The impact of digital market platforms on traditional competition law frameworks.
• Analyzing the effectiveness of antitrust laws against tech giants in the digital economy.
• Comparative analysis of competition law enforcement in the US and EU.
• The role of competition law in regulating mergers and acquisitions in the healthcare sector.
• Challenges in applying competition law to free-of-charge services on the internet.
• Legal strategies for combating price fixing in international markets.
• The impact of Brexit on competition law and policy in the UK.
• Competition law and its role in managing market dominance by multinational corporations.
• Evaluating the need for reform in competition law to adapt to global economic changes.
• The enforcement of competition law against patent abuse and anti-competitive practices in the pharmaceutical industry.
• The role of competition authorities in promoting innovation through enforcement policies.
• Analyzing the intersection of competition law and consumer protection.
• The effectiveness of leniency programs in uncovering and deterring cartel activity.
• Impact of competition law on small and medium-sized enterprises: Protection or hindrance?
• The influence of artificial intelligence on competitive practices and regulatory responses.
• The role of economic evidence in competition law litigation.
• Globalization and its effects on national competition law policies.
• The challenges of enforcing competition law in digital advertising markets.
• Network effects and lock-in as challenges for competition law in the IT industry.
• Legal remedies for anti-competitive practices in the energy sector.
• The dynamics of competition law in developing economies: Case studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
• The implications of cross-border competition law enforcement in multinational operations.
• Consumer welfare and the debate over the goals of competition law.
• The regulation of joint ventures under competition law: A critical analysis.
• Vertical restraints and competition law: Balancing market efficiencies and anti-competitive concerns.
• The role of competition law in sports, media, and entertainment industries.
• Competition law and policy in the era of globalization: Protecting domestic industries while encouraging innovation.
• The future of competition law enforcement in a post-pandemic world.
• The effectiveness of competition law in curbing monopolistic practices in the telecom industry.
• Balancing national security interests and competition law.
• The role of whistle-blowers in competition law enforcement.
• Assessing the impact of public sector monopolies on competition law.
• Competition law as a tool for economic development in emerging markets.
• The challenges of proving intent in anti-competitive practices.
• The application of competition law to the agricultural sector and its impact on food security.
• Reform proposals for more effective competition law enforcement.
• The role of state aid and subsidies in competition law.
• Competition law implications of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.
• The balance between intellectual property rights and competition law.
• The use of machine learning algorithms in predicting and analyzing market competition.
• The evolving concept of constitutionalism in the digital age.
• Analysis of constitutional changes in response to global pandemics.
• The role of the judiciary in upholding constitutional rights in times of political turmoil.
• Comparative study of free speech protections under different constitutional regimes.
• The impact of migration crises on constitutional law frameworks in the EU.
• Gender equality and constitutional law: Examining legal reforms across the globe.
• The constitutional implications of Brexit for the United Kingdom.
• Federalism and the balance of power: Lessons from the United States Constitution.
• The enforceability of social and economic rights under constitutional law.
• The influence of international human rights treaties on national constitutional laws.
• The right to privacy in the era of mass surveillance: A constitutional perspective.
• The role of constitutions in managing ethnic and religious diversity.
• Constitutional law and the challenge of climate change.
• The legality of emergency powers under constitutional law in various countries.
• The impact of artificial intelligence on constitutional rights and liberties.
• Same-sex marriage and constitutional law: A comparative analysis.
• The constitutionality of the death penalty in the 21st century.
• Age and constitutional law: The rights and protections afforded to the elderly.
• Constitutional reforms and the evolution of democratic governance in Africa.
• The role of the constitution in combating corruption within government institutions.
• Gun control and constitutional rights: A critical analysis.
• The balance between national security and individual freedoms in constitutional law.
• The effectiveness of constitutional courts in protecting minority rights.
• The constitution as a living document: Interpretation and change in judicial review.
• Assessing the constitutional frameworks for federal and unitary states.
• The impact of populism on constitutional democracy.
• Constitutional law in the face of technological advancements: Regulation and rights.
• The role of constitutional amendments in shaping political stability.
• Analyzing the separation of powers in newly formed governments.
• Indigenous rights and constitutional law: Case studies from North America and Australasia.
• Constitutional law and public health: Legal responses to health emergencies.
• The constitutionality of affirmative action policies in education and employment.
• Political party bans and democracy: A constitutional analysis.
• The role of the constitution in economic policy and regulation.
• Constitutional challenges to the regulation of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies.
• The implications of judicial activism for constitutional law.
• The constitution and the right to a clean and healthy environment.
• The intersection of constitutional law and international diplomacy.
• Protection of children’s rights within constitutional frameworks.
• The future of constitutional governance in virtual and augmented reality environments.
• The enforceability of electronic contracts in international commerce.
• The impact of AI on contract formation and enforcement.
• Comparative analysis of contract law remedies in different jurisdictions.
• The legal implications of smart contracts in blockchain technologies.
• The role of contract law in regulating freelance and gig economy work.
• The challenges of cross-border contract enforcement in the digital age.
• Contractual risk management in international construction projects.
• The doctrine of frustration in contract law: Contemporary issues and challenges.
• Consumer protection in online contracts: A critical analysis.
• The influence of cultural differences on international commercial contracts.
• Force majeure clauses in contracts during global crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The evolution of contract law with technological advancements.
• Legal issues surrounding the termination of contracts: A comparative study.
• The role of contract law in sustainable development and environmental protection.
• Misrepresentation in contract law: A review of current legal standards.
• The legal status of verbal agreements in a digital world.
• Contractual obligations and rights in the sharing economy.
• The interplay between contract law and intellectual property rights.
• The effectiveness of liquidated damages clauses in commercial contracts.
• Unconscionability in contract law: Protecting the vulnerable party.
• The enforcement of non-compete clauses in employment contracts.
• The legality of automatic renewal clauses in consumer and business contracts.
• The impact of contract law on consumer rights in financial agreements.
• Standard form contracts and the imbalance of power between parties.
• The role of mediation in resolving contract disputes.
• Contract law in the sale of goods: The challenges of e-commerce.
• The future of contract law in regulating virtual and augmented reality transactions.
• The concept of ‘good faith’ in contract negotiation and execution.
• Legal implications of contract breaches in international trade.
• The application of contract law in healthcare service agreements.
• The enforceability of penalty clauses in different legal systems.
• Contract modifications: Legal implications of changing terms mid-agreement.
• The legal challenges of subscription-based contract models.
• Contract law and data protection: Obligations and liabilities.
• The impact of insolvency on contractual relationships.
• The regulation of crowdfunding agreements under contract law.
• Consumer contracts and the right to withdraw in the digital marketplace.
• Ethical considerations in contract law: Duties beyond the written document.
• The use of contract law in combating human rights violations.
• The effectiveness of international conventions in harmonizing contract law across borders.
• Corporate governance and its impact on shareholder activism.
• The role of corporate social responsibility in modern business practices.
• Legal strategies to combat corporate fraud and enhance transparency.
• Comparative analysis of corporate bankruptcy laws and their effectiveness.
• The influence of global corporate regulations on multinational mergers and acquisitions.
• The impact of environmental regulations on corporate operations and compliance.
• Legal challenges and opportunities in corporate restructuring processes.
• Corporate liability for human rights violations in international operations.
• The effectiveness of anti-money laundering laws in the corporate sector.
• The role of ethics in corporate law: How legal frameworks shape business morality.
• The impact of technology on corporate governance: Blockchain and beyond.
• Legal aspects of venture capital funding in startups and SMEs.
• Corporate law in the digital age: Challenges and opportunities for digital enterprises.
• The role of minority shareholders in influencing corporate decisions.
• Legal frameworks for corporate whistleblowing and the protection of whistleblowers.
• Corporate insolvency procedures: A comparative study of the US and EU frameworks.
• The evolution of corporate personhood and its legal implications.
• The role of stock exchanges in enforcing corporate law.
• Legal issues surrounding corporate espionage and competitive intelligence gathering.
• Comparative analysis of corporate governance codes across different jurisdictions.
• Legal frameworks for handling conflicts of interest in corporate boards.
• The regulation of corporate political contributions and lobbying activities.
• Corporate taxation laws and their impact on international business strategies.
• The regulation of joint ventures under corporate law: Balancing interests and sharing control.
• The challenges of maintaining corporate compliance in a global market.
• Corporate law and the protection of intellectual property rights.
• The effectiveness of corporate penalties in deterring corporate misconduct.
• Legal aspects of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs).
• Corporate law implications for artificial intelligence integration in business practices.
• The legal challenges of managing cyber risk in corporate entities.
• Corporate law’s role in managing and disclosing financial risks.
• The impact of corporate law on the governance of nonprofit organizations.
• Legal responsibilities and liabilities of corporate directors and officers.
• The role of international treaties in shaping corporate law practices.
• Corporate law and its influence on strategic business alliances and partnerships.
• Legal aspects of sustainable investment in corporate decision-making.
• The regulation of private equity and hedge funds under corporate law.
• Legal challenges in corporate branding and marketing strategies.
• Corporate law considerations in the management of supply chains.
• The impact of corporate law on mergers and acquisitions in emerging markets.
• The impact of forensic science advancements on criminal law and procedure.
• Analyzing the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs in reducing recidivism rates.
• The role of mental health assessments in criminal sentencing.
• Legal challenges in prosecuting international cybercrimes.
• The evolution of laws against domestic violence and their enforcement.
• The effectiveness of death penalty deterrence: A critical analysis.
• Legal frameworks for combating human trafficking: Global perspectives.
• The influence of social media on criminal behavior and law enforcement.
• Racial disparities in criminal sentencing: Causes and legal remedies.
• The application of criminal law to acts of terrorism: Balancing security and civil liberties.
• Juvenile justice: Reforming the approach to underage offenders.
• The legal implications of wrongful convictions: Prevention and compensation.
• Drug policy reform: The shift from criminalization to harm reduction.
• The impact of body-worn cameras on policing and criminal justice.
• Legal and ethical considerations in the use of DNA evidence in criminal trials.
• The role of the insanity defense in criminal law: A comparative study.
• Legal strategies for addressing gang violence within urban communities.
• The criminalization of poverty and its impact on justice.
• Analyzing the effectiveness of sexual assault legislation.
• The role of public opinion in shaping criminal law reforms.
• Legal approaches to combating corruption and white-collar crime.
• The challenges of protecting victims’ rights in criminal proceedings.
• The impact of immigration laws on criminal justice practices.
• Ethical and legal issues in the use of undercover policing tactics.
• The effects of legalizing marijuana on criminal justice systems.
• The role of international cooperation in combating cross-border criminal activities.
• The use of restorative justice practices in criminal law systems.
• Challenges in the enforcement of wildlife protection laws.
• Legal issues surrounding the use of force by law enforcement.
• The implications of emerging technologies for criminal law and justice.
• Legal definitions of terrorism and their impact on law enforcement.
• The impact of social movements on criminal law reform.
• Addressing elder abuse through criminal statutes and protections.
• The role of forensic psychology in criminal investigations.
• Legal consequences of financial crimes in different jurisdictions.
• Challenges in prosecuting war crimes and genocide.
• The legal aspects of electronic monitoring and surveillance in criminal investigations.
• The implications of international extradition in criminal law.
• Addressing the challenges of witness protection programs.
• The intersection of criminal law and human rights in detention and interrogation.
• Legal frameworks for data protection and privacy in the digital age.
• The implications of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on global internet governance.
• Cybersecurity laws: National strategies and international cooperation.
• The legality of government surveillance programs under international cyber law.
• Intellectual property challenges in the era of digital media.
• Legal issues surrounding the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
• The enforcement of cybercrimes: Challenges and strategies.
• Rights and responsibilities of individuals and corporations under cyber law.
• Cyberbullying and online harassment: Legal remedies and limitations.
• The role of cyber law in managing online misinformation and fake news.
• Legal challenges in the regulation of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
• The impact of cloud computing on privacy and data security legal frameworks.
• Legal aspects of e-commerce: Consumer protection online.
• The digital divide: Legal implications of unequal access to technology.
• Regulation of digital advertising and its implications for privacy.
• Jurisdictional issues in cyberspace: Determining liability in a borderless environment.
• Legal considerations for Internet of Things (IoT) devices in consumer and industrial applications.
• The role of anonymity in the internet: Balancing privacy and accountability.
• Cyber law and its impact on the creative industries: Copyright issues in digital content creation.
• Legal frameworks for combating online trade of illegal goods and services.
• The enforcement of digital rights management (DRM) technologies.
• Cyber law and online education: Intellectual property and privacy concerns.
• The regulation of social media platforms under cyber law.
• Legal remedies for victims of online identity theft.
• The implications of autonomous vehicles on cyber law.
• Legal strategies to address online child exploitation and protection.
• The impact of telemedicine on health law and cyber law.
• Challenges in enforcing online contracts and resolving disputes.
• Cyber law in the context of national security: Balancing civil liberties.
• Legal frameworks for software development and liability issues.
• The influence of international treaties on national cyber law policies.
• Legal aspects of cyber espionage and state-sponsored cyber attacks.
• Ethical hacking: Legal boundaries and implications.
• The regulation of online gaming: Consumer protection and cyber law.
• Cyber law and digital accessibility: Rights of differently-abled persons.
• Legal implications of biometric data processing in cyber law.
• The future of robotic automation and law: Ethical and legal considerations.
• The role of cyber law in the governance of digital health records.
• Managing online content: Legal issues around censorship and freedom of expression.
• Cyber law implications for digital banking and fintech.
• The effectiveness of international agreements in combating climate change.
• Legal strategies for biodiversity conservation in international and domestic contexts.
• The impact of environmental law on sustainable urban development.
• Comparative analysis of water rights and regulations across different jurisdictions.
• Legal mechanisms for controlling plastic pollution in marine environments.
• The role of environmental impact assessments in promoting sustainable projects.
• Legal and regulatory challenges of renewable energy implementation.
• The effectiveness of air quality laws in reducing urban smog.
• Environmental justice and its impact on marginalized communities.
• The role of the judiciary in shaping environmental policy.
• Corporate accountability for environmental degradation: Legal remedies.
• The regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and their environmental impact.
• Legal frameworks for the protection of endangered species and habitats.
• Climate refugees: Legal challenges and protections under international law.
• The intersection of environmental law and human rights.
• Challenges in enforcing environmental laws against multinational corporations.
• Legal aspects of carbon trading and emissions reduction schemes.
• The impact of agricultural practices on environmental law and policy.
• Mining and environmental degradation: Legal responses and remedies.
• The use of environmental law to combat deforestation.
• Legal issues related to energy storage and its environmental impacts.
• Regulatory challenges of nanotechnology and environmental health.
• Legal strategies for water management in drought-prone areas.
• The regulation of noise pollution in urban environments.
• The role of public participation in environmental decision-making.
• Legal frameworks for dealing with hazardous waste and its disposal.
• Environmental law as a tool for green building and construction practices.
• Legal challenges in protecting wetlands through environmental laws.
• The enforceability of international environmental law.
• The impact of environmental laws on traditional land use and indigenous rights.
• The role of local governments in environmental governance.
• Environmental law and the regulation of pesticides and chemicals.
• Legal responses to environmental disasters and recovery processes.
• The implications of deep-sea mining for environmental law.
• The role of environmental NGOs in shaping law and policy.
• Legal tools for the conservation of marine biodiversity.
• Challenges of integrating environmental concerns in corporate governance.
• Legal implications of artificial intelligence in environmental monitoring.
• The role of litigation in enforcing environmental norms and standards.
• Trends and challenges in the enforcement of transboundary environmental laws.
• The impact of EU law on national sovereignty of member states.
• Brexit and its legal implications for both the UK and EU.
• The effectiveness of the EU’s data protection regulation (GDPR) in a global context.
• The role of the European Court of Justice in shaping EU policies.
• Legal analysis of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and its impacts.
• The EU’s approach to antitrust and competition law enforcement.
• Human rights protection under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
• Legal challenges in the implementation of the EU’s Digital Single Market.
• The EU’s role in international trade: Legal frameworks and challenges.
• The influence of EU environmental law on member state legislation.
• Consumer protection laws in the EU and their effectiveness.
• Legal mechanisms of the EU banking union and capital markets union.
• The regulation of pharmaceuticals and healthcare within the EU.
• Migration and asylum laws in the EU: Challenges and responses.
• The role of lobbying in EU lawmaking processes.
• Legal aspects of the EU’s energy policy and its impact on sustainability.
• The enforcement of intellectual property rights within the EU.
• The EU’s legal framework for dealing with cyber security threats.
• Analysis of EU labor laws and their impact on worker mobility.
• Legal bases for EU sanctions and their impact on international relations.
• The EU’s legal strategies against terrorism and organized crime.
• The effectiveness of the EU’s regional development policies.
• Legal and ethical issues in AI regulation within the EU.
• The EU’s approach to regulating blockchain technology.
• The challenges of EU enlargement: Case studies of recent accession countries.
• The role of the EU in global environmental governance.
• The impact of EU laws on the rights of indigenous populations.
• Legal analysis of EU sports law and policy.
• The EU’s framework for consumer digital privacy and security.
• The regulation of biotechnology in agriculture within the EU.
• EU tax law and its implications for global corporations.
• The role of the European Ombudsman in ensuring administrative justice.
• The influence of EU copyright law on digital media and entertainment.
• Legal frameworks for public procurement in the EU.
• The impact of EU maritime law on international shipping and trade.
• EU chemical regulations: REACH and its global implications.
• Legal issues surrounding the EU’s external border control policies.
• The EU’s role in shaping international aviation law.
• The impact of EU law on public health policy and regulation.
• The future of the EU’s constitutional framework and its legal challenges.
• The impact of cultural diversity on family law practices.
• Legal challenges in the enforcement of international child custody agreements.
• The effectiveness of mediation in resolving family disputes.
• The evolution of child support laws in response to changing societal norms.
• Comparative analysis of divorce laws across different jurisdictions.
• Legal implications of surrogacy: Rights of the child, surrogate, and intended parents.
• The impact of social media on family relationships and legal proceedings.
• Legal rights of cohabiting couples: A comparative study.
• The role of family law in addressing domestic violence.
• The legal recognition of LGBTQ+ families in different countries.
• The effect of parental alienation on child custody decisions.
• Adoption laws and the challenges of cross-border adoption.
• Legal issues surrounding elder care and guardianship.
• The role of genetic testing in family law (paternity disputes, inheritance rights).
• The impact of immigration laws on family unification policies.
• The rights of children with disabilities in family law proceedings.
• The influence of religious beliefs on family law decisions.
• The legal challenges of blended families: Rights and responsibilities.
• The role of children’s rights in family law: Voice and protection.
• Legal frameworks for dealing with family assets and financial disputes.
• The impact of addiction (substance abuse, gambling) on family dynamics and legal outcomes.
• The enforcement of prenuptial agreements: A critical analysis.
• Legal responses to teenage pregnancy and parental responsibilities.
• The effect of military service on family law issues (divorce, custody).
• The challenges of maintaining privacy in family law cases.
• The impact of mental health on parental rights and child custody.
• The role of the state in family planning and reproductive rights.
• Comparative study of same-sex marriage laws before and after legalization.
• The evolution of father’s rights in family law.
• The legal complexities of artificial reproductive technologies.
• Family law and its role in preventing child marriages.
• The impact of economic downturns on family law issues (alimony, child support).
• Legal strategies for protecting domestic violence survivors through family law.
• The role of international conventions in shaping family law.
• Gender biases in family law: A critical analysis.
• The regulation of family law advertising and its ethical implications.
• The influence of international human rights law on family law.
• The challenges of transnational families in navigating family law.
• Legal and ethical issues in the involuntary sterilization of disabled individuals.
• The future of family law: Predicting changes in legislation and practice.
• The legal implications of telemedicine and remote healthcare services.
• Regulation and liability of artificial intelligence in healthcare.
• The impact of healthcare laws on patient privacy and data protection.
• Legal issues surrounding the right to die: Euthanasia and assisted suicide.
• The enforcement of mental health legislation and patient rights.
• Legal challenges in the regulation of pharmaceuticals and medical devices.
• The role of health law in managing infectious disease outbreaks, such as COVID-19.
• Ethical and legal considerations of genetic testing and genome editing.
• Comparative analysis of health insurance models and their legal implications.
• The impact of health law on underserved and marginalized populations.
• Legal aspects of medical malpractice and healthcare provider liability.
• The regulation of stem cell research and therapy.
• Legal frameworks for addressing obesity as a public health issue.
• The role of law in combating healthcare fraud and abuse.
• Ethical issues in the allocation of scarce medical resources.
• Legal challenges in child and adolescent health care consent.
• The influence of global health initiatives on national health law policies.
• Legal issues related to the development and use of biobanks.
• Health law and its impact on emergency medical response and preparedness.
• Legal and ethical challenges in the treatment of psychiatric patients.
• The rights of patients in clinical trials: Informed consent and beyond.
• The regulation of medical marijuana and its impact on healthcare systems.
• Health law’s role in addressing non-communicable diseases.
• Legal strategies to combat antimicrobial resistance.
• The legal implications of sports medicine and athlete care.
• The protection of vulnerable groups in healthcare settings.
• Legal frameworks governing organ donation and transplantation.
• The role of health law in reproductive rights and technologies.
• The impact of bioethics on health law policy and practice.
• Legal considerations of global health diplomacy and international health law.
• The regulation of alternative and complementary medicine.
• Legal challenges in providing healthcare in rural and remote areas.
• The impact of nutrition and food law on public health.
• Legal responses to aging populations and elder care.
• Health law and its impact on vaccination policies and enforcement.
• The legal implications of patient literacy and health education.
• Regulatory challenges in health information technology and mobile health apps.
• Legal and ethical issues in cosmetic and elective surgery.
• The role of whistleblowers in improving healthcare quality and safety.
• The legal implications of healthcare marketing and consumer protection.
• The impact of international human rights conventions on domestic laws.
• The role of the International Criminal Court in enforcing human rights standards.
• Legal remedies for victims of war crimes and genocide.
• The enforcement of human rights in areas of conflict and post-conflict societies.
• The legal implications of refugee and asylum seeker policies.
• The right to freedom of expression in the digital age.
• Human rights challenges in the context of global migration.
• Legal protections against discrimination based on gender, race, and sexuality.
• The impact of cultural practices on the enforcement of human rights.
• Legal frameworks for protecting children in armed conflicts.
• The role of non-governmental organizations in promoting and protecting human rights.
• Human rights and environmental law: the right to a healthy environment.
• The legal aspects of economic, social, and cultural rights.
• Protecting the rights of indigenous peoples: international and domestic approaches.
• Human rights implications of counter-terrorism laws and practices.
• The role of national human rights institutions in promoting human rights.
• Legal challenges in combating human trafficking and modern slavery.
• The rights of disabled individuals under international human rights law.
• Legal strategies to combat racial and ethnic profiling.
• The protection of human rights defenders in hostile environments.
• The impact of globalization on labor rights and working conditions.
• The role of the media in promoting human rights awareness and protection.
• Human rights law and its intersection with gender-based violence.
• The right to education and legal measures to enforce it.
• Legal responses to the crisis of statelessness.
• Human rights issues surrounding the management of natural disasters.
• The role of human rights law in regulating private military and security companies.
• The right to privacy in the surveillance era.
• Legal measures to address economic inequality and ensure human rights.
• The challenge of protecting human rights in authoritarian regimes.
• Human rights in medical law: issues of consent and autonomy.
• The right to food and water as fundamental human rights.
• Legal frameworks for the rights of the elderly in different countries.
• The role of human rights law in addressing issues of domestic violence.
• Human rights considerations in the development and enforcement of immigration laws.
• The impact of intellectual property laws on access to medicines.
• The enforcement of the rights of LGBT individuals globally.
• Human rights law and its application to internet governance.
• The legal rights of prisoners and the conditions of detention.
• The role of human rights in shaping international trade and investment policies.
• The impact of immigration laws on national security in various countries.
• Comparative analysis of asylum procedures across different jurisdictions.
• The role of immigration law in shaping multicultural societies.
• Legal challenges faced by refugees and asylum seekers during resettlement.
• The effectiveness of skilled migrant programs and their impact on the economy.
• Legal and ethical considerations in the detention of immigrants.
• The influence of international human rights law on national immigration policies.
• The impact of Brexit on immigration laws in the UK and the EU.
• The role of international agreements in managing migration crises.
• Legal strategies to combat human trafficking within the immigration system.
• The rights of undocumented immigrants and access to legal aid.
• The enforcement of immigration laws and the rights of migrant workers.
• The legal implications of family reunification policies.
• Analysis of deportation procedures and their compliance with international law.
• The effect of climate change on migration patterns and immigration law.
• Legal measures to protect immigrants against labor exploitation.
• The role of local governments in immigration enforcement.
• The legal aspects of border management technologies.
• Immigration law and its impact on education for immigrant children.
• The challenges of integrating immigrants into host societies legally.
• Comparative study of investor immigration programs.
• The effects of cultural bias in immigration law enforcement.
• Legal remedies for immigrants subjected to discrimination.
• The intersection of immigration law and public health policies.
• The legal consequences of overstaying visas on future immigration applications.
• The role of consulates and embassies in the immigration process.
• Legal frameworks for addressing statelessness in the context of immigration.
• Immigration law’s response to temporary protection statuses.
• The impact of international sports events on immigration laws and policies.
• The role of non-governmental organizations in shaping immigration law.
• The use of biometric data in immigration control.
• Legal perspectives on the economic impact of immigration.
• Challenges in protecting the rights of elderly immigrants.
• The influence of immigration on national identity and cultural policies.
• Legal implications of global demographic shifts on immigration policies.
• The regulation of international student visas and their impact on higher education.
• Legal challenges faced by immigrants in accessing healthcare services.
• The dynamics of urban immigration and legal integration strategies.
• Legal issues concerning expatriation and renunciation of citizenship.
• The future of immigration law in the face of global political changes.
• The impact of artificial intelligence on copyright and patent law.
• Comparative analysis of trademark laws in the digital age across different jurisdictions.
• The role of intellectual property rights in fostering or hindering innovation.
• Legal challenges in the protection of software under intellectual property law.
• The enforcement of intellectual property rights in online platforms.
• The balance between intellectual property rights and the public domain.
• The implications of 3D printing technologies on intellectual property rights.
• Intellectual property issues in the music industry: Streaming and digital rights.
• The effectiveness of international intellectual property treaties like WIPO and TRIPS.
• Intellectual property strategies for biotechnological inventions.
• The role of patents in the pharmaceutical industry and access to medicine.
• The impact of intellectual property rights on traditional knowledge and cultural expressions.
• Copyright law and its adaptability to new forms of media like virtual reality.
• The intersection of intellectual property law and competition law.
• Legal frameworks for managing intellectual property in joint ventures and collaborations.
• The role of intellectual property in the fashion industry and combating counterfeits.
• Trademark dilution: A comparative study between the U.S. and EU approaches.
• Legal challenges associated with celebrity rights and their management under IP law.
• Intellectual property rights and their impact on small and medium-sized enterprises.
• The protection of design rights in industrial models and drawings.
• Intellectual property and corporate governance: Policy, compliance, and enforcement.
• The challenges of enforcing intellectual property rights in the global south.
• The evolution of copyright law in protecting digital ebooks and publications.
• Intellectual property law in the advertising industry: Challenges and perspectives.
• Ethical considerations in intellectual property law.
• The role of intellectual property in the development of artificial organs and bioprinting.
• Challenges in patenting genetic material and the moral implications thereof.
• Intellectual property considerations in cross-border mergers and acquisitions.
• Intellectual property rights in the context of augmented reality technologies.
• The role of intellectual property in the semiconductor industry.
• The impact of open-source licensing on intellectual property law.
• Legal issues surrounding the protection of data and databases under intellectual property law.
• The role of intellectual property in sports marketing and merchandise.
• Intellectual property issues in cloud computing and data storage.
• Copyright disputes in the film industry: Case studies and legal insights.
• The protection of plant varieties and agricultural innovation under IP law.
• Intellectual property and its role in promoting or restricting access to educational materials.
• Trade secrets law: Comparative approaches and key challenges.
• The impact of geographical indications on local economies and protection strategies.
• Intellectual property law and its enforcement in the age of the internet of things.
• The effectiveness of the United Nations in resolving international disputes.
• The role of international law in governing the use of force by states.
• Legal frameworks for international cooperation in combating climate change.
• The implications of sovereignty and state responsibility in international law.
• The enforcement of international human rights law in conflict zones.
• Legal strategies for addressing international cybercrime and digital warfare.
• The regulation of international trade under the World Trade Organization (WTO).
• Legal challenges in the management of global migration and refugee crises.
• The impact of international sanctions on global diplomacy and law.
• The legal status and rights of stateless individuals under international law.
• The application of international law in the Antarctic and other common areas.
• The protection of cultural heritage in times of war under international law.
• The role of international courts and tribunals in enforcing maritime law.
• Comparative analysis of regional human rights mechanisms (e.g., European, African, American).
• The jurisdiction and reach of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
• The legal implications of territorial disputes on international relations.
• The influence of international law on national legislation regarding environmental protection.
• The legal treatment of indigenous peoples’ rights at the international level.
• The development of international norms for corporate social responsibility.
• Legal and ethical considerations in international medical research and healthcare.
• The regulation of international finance and its impact on economic development.
• The challenges of enforcing intellectual property rights at the international level.
• The legal frameworks governing the use and regulation of drones in international airspace.
• The impact of bilateral and multilateral treaties on domestic legal systems.
• International legal standards for the treatment of prisoners and detainees.
• The role of diplomatic immunity in contemporary international law.
• Legal issues surrounding international sports events and the governance of international sports bodies.
• The use of international law in combating terrorism and protecting national security.
• Legal measures against international trafficking of drugs, arms, and human beings.
• The role of non-state actors in international law (NGOs, multinational corporations, etc.).
• Legal considerations in the preservation of biodiversity under international conventions.
• The international legal ramifications of artificial islands and reclaimed territories.
• The dynamics of negotiation and implementation of international peace treaties.
• The intersection of international law and global public health policies.
• The legal challenges in regulating outer space activities and celestial bodies.
• The enforcement of international labor standards and their impact on global trade.
• Legal implications of global electronic surveillance by states.
• The regulation of international nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.
• The role of international law in addressing issues of global poverty and inequality.
• The future of international law in a multipolar world order.
• The impact of globalization on labor rights and standards.
• Legal challenges and protections for gig economy workers.
• Comparative analysis of minimum wage laws across different jurisdictions.
• The role of trade unions in modern labor markets.
• Legal frameworks governing telecommuting and remote work arrangements.
• Enforcement of anti-discrimination laws in the workplace.
• The impact of artificial intelligence and automation on labor laws.
• Legal protections for migrant workers in host countries.
• The effectiveness of occupational safety and health regulations.
• The role of labor law in managing economic crises and labor market shocks.
• Gender equality in the workplace: Assessing legal approaches.
• The regulation of child labor in developing economies.
• Legal implications of employee surveillance practices.
• Rights and legal protections for part-time, temporary, and seasonal workers.
• Collective bargaining challenges in the public sector.
• The legal status of unpaid internships and volunteer work.
• Legal responses to workplace bullying and psychological harassment.
• The enforceability of non-compete clauses in employment contracts.
• Legal issues related to employee benefits and pensions.
• The impact of labor laws on small businesses and startups.
• Labor rights in the informal economy.
• Legal strategies for conflict resolution in labor disputes.
• The influence of international labor standards on national laws.
• The role of labor law in promoting sustainable employment practices.
• The effectiveness of mediation and arbitration in labor disputes.
• Legal protections against wrongful termination.
• The challenges of enforcing fair labor practices across multinational corporations.
• The rights of disabled workers under labor law.
• Labor law and its adaptation to the changing nature of work.
• The regulation of labor in industries with high risk of exploitation (e.g., textiles, mining).
• The impact of labor law on industrial relations in the healthcare sector.
• Legal aspects of wage theft and its enforcement.
• Labor laws related to shift work and overtime regulations.
• The legal consequences of labor strikes and lockouts.
• Employee privacy rights versus employer’s right to monitor.
• The role of labor law in economic development and poverty reduction.
• Legal frameworks for employee representation in corporate governance.
• The challenges of labor law compliance in the retail sector.
• Labor law issues in the entertainment and sports industries.
• Future trends in labor law: Anticipating changes in legislation and workplace norms.
• The ethical implications of attorney-client confidentiality.
• Ethical challenges in pro bono legal work.
• The role of personal morality in legal judgments.
• Ethical dilemmas faced by defense attorneys in criminal cases.
• The influence of ethics on legal decision-making processes.
• Conflicts of interest in legal practice: Identification and management.
• Ethical considerations in legal advertising and client solicitation.
• The impact of technology on ethical practices in law.
• Ethical issues in the representation of minors and incapacitated clients.
• The enforcement of ethical standards in the judiciary.
• Ethical challenges in corporate legal departments.
• The ethics of legal outsourcing and the use of non-lawyers.
• Ethical considerations in mediation and alternative dispute resolution.
• The implications of ethical misconduct on legal careers.
• The duty of lawyers to the court vs. client loyalty.
• Ethical issues in cross-border legal practices.
• The responsibility of lawyers in preventing money laundering.
• The ethical dimensions of legal education and training.
• The balance between justice and efficiency in legal ethics.
• Ethical considerations in the use of artificial intelligence in law.
• The ethics of plea bargaining and its impact on justice.
• Ethical issues in the management of legal trusts and estates.
• The role of ethics in environmental law.
• Professional responsibility in managing legal errors and omissions.
• Ethical dilemmas in bankruptcy law.
• The impact of personal ethics on public interest law.
• Ethical considerations in the competitive practices of law firms.
• Ethics in legal research: Ensuring accuracy and integrity.
• The moral obligations of lawyers in promoting human rights.
• The ethics of lawyer activism in political and social movements.
• Challenges of maintaining ethical standards in high-pressure legal environments.
• Ethical issues in the intersection of law and politics.
• The professional ethics of tax lawyers.
• Ethical challenges in the prosecution of complex financial crimes.
• The ethical dimensions of elder law and representation of the elderly.
• The role of moral philosophy in legal ethics curricula.
• Ethical considerations in capital punishment cases.
• Lawyers’ ethical responsibilities in handling classified information.
• The impact of ethical lapses in corporate scandals.
• Future directions in legal ethics: Preparing lawyers for emerging moral challenges.
• The legal frameworks governing international maritime boundaries.
• Liability issues in the event of oil spills and maritime environmental disasters.
• The regulation of piracy under international maritime law.
• Legal challenges in the Arctic maritime routes and territorial claims.
• The effectiveness of maritime safety regulations in preventing accidents at sea.
• Legal aspects of maritime insurance: Coverage, claims, and disputes.
• The role of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in global shipping regulations.
• Arbitration and dispute resolution in international maritime contracts.
• Legal implications of autonomous ships on international maritime law.
• The enforcement of maritime security measures against terrorism.
• Ship registration and flag state responsibilities under international law.
• The impact of climate change on maritime boundaries and fishing rights.
• Legal strategies for combating illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
• Maritime lien and ship arrest procedures across different jurisdictions.
• The regulation of crew rights and labor conditions aboard international vessels.
• Comparative analysis of salvage law and the law of finds.
• Legal issues surrounding the abandonment of ships.
• Port state control and its impact on international shipping.
• The rights and legal protection of seafarers under international maritime law.
• The application of maritime law to underwater cultural heritage.
• The challenges of enforcing maritime law in high seas governance.
• Legal frameworks for the management of maritime natural resources.
• Collision regulations and legal liability at sea.
• The impact of technology on maritime law: Satellite and GPS issues.
• The legalities involved in the financing and construction of vessels.
• Legal issues related to maritime transport of hazardous and noxious substances.
• The role of maritime law in the global supply chain and logistics.
• Legal implications of maritime blockades during armed conflict.
• The interface between maritime law and marine biodiversity conservation.
• The legality of maritime security operations by private companies.
• Insurance law as applicable to maritime piracy and armed robbery.
• The regulation of the international cruise industry under maritime law.
• Challenges in maritime jurisdiction: Enforcement and compliance issues.
• Legal aspects of maritime cybersecurity threats and data protection.
• The impact of maritime law on the offshore oil and gas industry.
• Legal issues in maritime search and rescue operations.
• The role of national courts in maritime law enforcement.
• Trends in maritime law: Emerging issues and future directions.
• Maritime law and its adaptation to the shipping of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
• The influence of maritime law on international maritime education and training.
• Legal challenges posed by digital media platforms to traditional copyright laws.
• The impact of social media on privacy rights and legal implications.
• Regulation of fake news and misinformation: Legal frameworks and effectiveness.
• Legal aspects of media censorship in authoritarian regimes.
• The role of media law in protecting journalistic sources and whistleblowers.
• Copyright infringement in the digital age: Streaming services and legal responses.
• Legal standards for advertising and marketing in digital and traditional media.
• The influence of media law on freedom of expression and public discourse.
• The right to be forgotten in the age of the internet: Legal and ethical considerations.
• Defamation law in the digital era: Challenges and new developments.
• Legal responses to cyberbullying and online harassment through media platforms.
• Intellectual property rights in the creation and distribution of digital content.
• Legal issues surrounding user-generated content on online platforms.
• The role of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in regulating broadcast media.
• Legal frameworks for handling sensitive content: Violence, sexuality, and hate speech.
• The regulation of political advertising and its impact on elections.
• The legal implications of artificial intelligence in content creation.
• Data protection laws and their enforcement on media platforms.
• The balance between national security and press freedom.
• Legal strategies for combating deepfake technology and its implications.
• Media ownership laws and their impact on media diversity and pluralism.
• The enforcement of media ethics and law in the age of global digital platforms.
• Legal challenges in cross-border media operations and jurisdictional issues.
• The role of legal frameworks in managing public relations crises.
• The impact of telecommunications law on media dissemination and access.
• Legal considerations for media mergers and acquisitions.
• Regulation of satellite and cable TV in the digital landscape.
• Legal issues related to podcasting and other emerging media formats.
• The protection of minors in media consumption: Legal frameworks and challenges.
• The legal ramifications of media during public health emergencies.
• Accessibility laws related to media content for persons with disabilities.
• The role of the law in combating racial and gender stereotypes in media.
• Media law and consumer protection: Misleading advertisements and consumer rights.
• The impact of GDPR and other privacy regulations on media operations in Europe.
• The legal implications of virtual and augmented reality technologies in media.
• Legal disputes involving music licensing and rights management.
• The challenges of regulating live streaming services under existing media laws.
• Legal issues surrounding the archiving of digital media content.
• The intersection of media law and sports broadcasting rights.
• Future trends in media law: Preparing for new challenges in media and communication technologies.
• Comparative analysis of property rights and land tenure systems across different cultures.
• The impact of eminent domain on property rights and fair compensation.
• Legal challenges in the administration of estates and trusts.
• Intellectual property rights in the digital age: Balancing creators’ rights and public access.
• The role of property law in environmental conservation.
• Legal frameworks governing the leasing and renting of property.
• The evolution of property rights in response to urbanization.
• Property disputes and their resolution: Case studies from land courts.
• The effect of zoning laws on property development and urban planning.
• Legal aspects of real estate transactions and the role of property lawyers.
• Property law and its impact on economic development in emerging markets.
• Legal challenges of property ownership in communal and indigenous lands.
• The influence of property law on agricultural practices and rural development.
• Legal responses to squatting and adverse possession.
• Property rights in marital and family law contexts.
• The implications of blockchain technology on property transactions and record keeping.
• Legal and ethical considerations in the foreclosure process.
• Water rights and property law: Managing conflicts and ensuring sustainability.
• The impact of natural disasters on property law and homeowner rights.
• Property rights and the challenges of gentrification in urban areas.
• Legal considerations in the conversion of property for commercial use.
• The implications of property law for renewable energy projects (e.g., wind farms, solar panels).
• Historical perspectives on property law and their modern-day relevance.
• The regulation of property within gated communities and homeowners associations.
• Legal issues related to the inheritance of digital assets.
• The role of property law in resolving boundary disputes.
• Property law and the regulation of timeshares and vacation ownership.
• The intersection of property law and bankruptcy proceedings.
• Legal frameworks for managing property during divorce or separation.
• Property rights and the management of shared or common resources.
• Legal challenges in property transactions involving foreign investors.
• Property law in the context of historic preservation and cultural heritage.
• Regulatory issues surrounding the development of commercial properties.
• The role of property law in the sharing economy (e.g., Airbnb, Uber).
• Legal issues in property development and construction.
• The impact of tax law on property ownership and transfer.
• Property law and its implications for homelessness and affordable housing.
• Legal approaches to combating land degradation and promoting sustainable use.
• The role of artificial intelligence and technology in property law enforcement.
• Future trends in property law: Predicting changes and legal needs.
• The role of international law in managing global pandemics and health emergencies.
• Legal frameworks governing the use of force and intervention by states.
• The effectiveness of international sanctions as a tool of diplomacy.
• The implications of sovereignty in the digital age for international law.
• The enforcement mechanisms of international human rights law.
• The legal challenges of climate change negotiations and treaty implementation.
• The jurisdiction and effectiveness of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
• The role of international law in governing outer space activities.
• Legal issues related to the protection of refugees and stateless persons.
• The development and enforcement of international environmental law.
• The impact of international law on maritime disputes and ocean governance.
• The legal basis and implications of unilateral declarations of independence.
• Legal strategies to combat international terrorism within the framework of public international law.
• The role of soft law in international relations and its legal significance.
• International legal aspects of economic sanctions and their impact on trade.
• The resolution of territorial disputes through international courts and tribunals.
• The regulation of armed conflict and the laws of war.
• International law and the regulation of cyberspace and cybersecurity.
• The legal challenges and implications of artificial intelligence on international norms.
• The enforcement of international anti-corruption measures.
• The role of international organizations in global governance.
• Legal issues surrounding the management of international waters.
• The impact of cultural heritage protection under international law.
• International legal standards for labor and their enforcement.
• The relationship between international law and indigenous rights.
• The influence of global financial regulations on international law.
• The compatibility of regional trade agreements with the World Trade Organization (WTO) law.
• Legal protections for investors under international investment agreements.
• International law and its role in addressing global inequality.
• The legal challenges of managing international migration.
• The application of international law in diplomatic relations.
• International legal considerations in the disposal of hazardous wastes.
• The role of public international law in combating human trafficking.
• Legal frameworks for international cooperation in disaster relief and emergency response.
• International law and the challenges of sustainable development.
• The regulation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) under international law.
• Legal issues surrounding global telecommunications regulations.
• International law and the use of drones in warfare and surveillance.
• The implications of emerging technologies on arms control agreements.
• The future of public international law in a multipolar world.
• Legal implications of doping in sports: An international perspective.
• The enforceability of sports contracts: Analysis of player agreements.
• Intellectual property rights in sports: Branding, trademarks, and image rights.
• Legal aspects of sports broadcasting rights in the digital age.
• The role of arbitration in resolving sports disputes.
• Gender equality in sports: Legal challenges and advancements.
• Legal issues surrounding the organization of international sporting events.
• Sports governance: The impact of legal structures on global sports bodies.
• The application of labor laws to professional athletes and sports leagues.
• The protection of minors in professional sports.
• Anti-discrimination laws and their enforcement in sports.
• Legal considerations in the commercialization of sports.
• Sports injury and liability: The role of law in protecting athletes.
• Ethical and legal considerations in sports betting and gambling.
• The implications of technological advancements on sports law (e.g., VAR, goal-line technology).
• Contract negotiation and dispute resolution in sports.
• The impact of COVID-19 on sports contracts and legal liabilities.
• Legal issues in e-sports: Regulation and recognition.
• Ownership rights and financial regulations in sports clubs.
• Privacy laws and their application to athletes’ personal data.
• The legal framework for anti-doping regulations across different sports.
• The role of sports agents: Legal responsibilities and ethical considerations.
• Disability sports and legal challenges in inclusivity.
• Sports tourism and the law: Legal issues in hosting international events.
• Legal challenges in sports marketing and sponsorship agreements.
• The regulation of sports medicine and legal liabilities.
• The role of national courts in sports law.
• Safeguarding child athletes: Legal obligations and policies.
• The legality of sanctions in sports: Case studies from football and athletics.
• The intersection of sports law and human rights.
• Sports law in collegiate athletics: Compliance and regulation.
• The regulation of violent conduct in sports.
• Legal issues surrounding the use of performance-enhancing technology.
• Sports, media rights, and freedom of expression.
• Legal challenges in managing sports facilities and event safety.
• The impact of sports law on international relations.
• Sports law and the challenge of match-fixing.
• The role of international sports law in the Olympic Movement.
• The governance of water sports and maritime law intersections.
• Future trends in sports law: Emerging issues and legal needs.
• Comparative analysis of international tax treaties and their impact on global trade.
• The legality of digital taxation and its implications for multinational corporations.
• Legal challenges in implementing a global minimum tax for corporations.
• The role of tax law in economic development and foreign direct investment.
• Tax evasion and avoidance: Legal frameworks and enforcement mechanisms.
• The impact of tax incentives on renewable energy investments.
• Estate and inheritance tax laws: A comparative study.
• The effectiveness of VAT systems in developing economies.
• Legal issues surrounding tax havens and offshore financial centers.
• The application of tax laws to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
• The role of taxation in public health policy (e.g., taxes on sugary drinks, tobacco).
• Taxation of the gig economy: Challenges and policy options.
• Legal frameworks governing charitable giving and tax deductions.
• The implications of property tax laws on urban development.
• Transfer pricing regulations and their impact on international business operations.
• The enforcement of sales taxes in the e-commerce sector.
• Tax compliance burdens for small and medium-sized enterprises.
• The legal aspects of tax reforms and policy changes.
• Taxation and privacy: Legal issues in the collection and sharing of taxpayer information.
• Comparative analysis of capital gains tax regulations.
• The role of artificial intelligence in tax administration and compliance.
• The legal challenges of implementing environmental taxes.
• Tax disputes and litigation: Strategies and outcomes.
• The regulation and taxation of financial derivatives.
• Tax law and its impact on charitable organizations and non-profits.
• The interplay between tax law and bankruptcy law.
• Legal strategies used by states to combat tax avoidance and profit shifting.
• The influence of tax policy on housing markets.
• Legal implications of tax credits for family and dependents.
• Taxation of expatriates and non-resident citizens.
• The constitutionality of tax laws and challenges in the courts.
• Tax law as a tool for social equity and redistribution.
• The impact of tax laws on consumer behavior.
• Taxation in the digital media and entertainment industries.
• The role of tax law in regulating pensions and retirement savings.
• Tax policy and its effect on agricultural practices and land use.
• The challenges of harmonizing state and federal tax laws.
• Tax law and the regulation of the sports industry.
• The taxation of international shipping and maritime activities.
• Future trends in tax law: Anticipating changes in global tax policies.

We hope this extensive collection of law thesis topics sparks your intellectual curiosity and aids in pinpointing a subject that resonates with your academic interests and career aspirations. Each topic presented here has been chosen to challenge your understanding and to encourage a deeper exploration of the legal landscape. As you prepare to embark on your thesis journey, consider these topics not just as mere titles, but as gateways to developing a nuanced understanding of the law in various contexts. Utilize this resource to craft a thesis that not only fulfills your academic requirements but also contributes meaningfully to the discourse in your chosen area of law.

The Range of Law Thesis Topics

Exploring the vast expanse of law thesis topics provides a unique opportunity for law students to delve into specific legal issues, refine their understanding, and contribute to the ongoing development of legal scholarship. As students embark on this crucial phase of their academic journey, selecting the right thesis topic is essential. This article aims to illuminate the range of potential law thesis topics, highlighting current issues, recent trends, and future directions. By examining these topics, students can better understand the legal landscape’s complexities and identify areas where they can make a significant academic impact.

Current Issues in Law

As we navigate through the complexities of contemporary society, numerous current issues in law emerge that are critical for law students to explore in their theses. These topics not only reflect ongoing legal challenges but also set the stage for developing effective solutions that uphold justice and societal norms. Delving into these law thesis topics allows students to engage with live issues that impact various facets of the legal system, from privacy laws and civil rights to corporate governance and environmental regulations.

• Privacy and Data Protection: In today’s digital age, the issue of privacy and data protection has come to the forefront. With the proliferation of digital data, the legal frameworks designed to protect personal information are constantly tested. Law students could explore the adequacy of existing laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States, considering the rapid advancements in technology and the increasing global nature of data processing.
• Civil Rights in the Modern Era: As societies evolve, so too do their understandings and implementations of civil rights. Current legal discussions often focus on issues such as police brutality, LGBTQ+ rights, and the protections afforded to individuals under new healthcare regulations. Thesis topics may examine how legal responses are adapting in light of these challenges, particularly in terms of legislative and judicial actions intended to protect marginalized groups.
• Corporate Compliance and Governance: With the global economy becoming more interconnected, the importance of corporate compliance and governance has been magnified. Law thesis topics could investigate how businesses are expected to operate ethically while maximizing shareholder value, especially in industries that have significant impacts on the environment or human rights. Additionally, the legal liabilities of corporate officers and directors for breaches of fiduciary duties remain a hot topic in legal research.
• Environmental Law and Climate Change: Environmental law continues to be a pressing area of legal concern as the effects of climate change become more evident. Law students can explore topics related to the enforcement of environmental regulations, the role of international treaties in combating global warming, and the legal responsibilities of nations and corporations in ensuring sustainability. The recent shifts towards renewable energy sources and their legal implications offer a rich field for exploration.
• Immigration Law: Immigration law remains at the forefront of political and legal debates in many countries. Thesis topics could address the legality of border enforcement practices, the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, and the impact of new immigration policies on families and communities. Additionally, the intersection of immigration law with human rights provides a compelling area for legal research and discussion.
• Intellectual Property in the Innovation Economy: As innovation drives economic growth, intellectual property (IP) law plays a crucial role in protecting inventions, brands, and creative works. However, the tension between IP protection and the public interest, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry and technology sector, presents a complex scenario for legal analysis. Law students might explore the balance between encouraging innovation through patents and copyrights and ensuring public access to essential medicines and technologies.

Each of these areas presents unique challenges and opportunities for law students to contribute to their fields through rigorous analysis and innovative thinking. Addressing these current issues in law not only enhances their academic portfolio but also prepares them to enter the legal profession with a comprehensive understanding of the issues at the forefront of legal practice today. By focusing on these law thesis topics, students can position themselves at the cutting edge of legal research and development.

Recent Trends in Law

The dynamic nature of legal systems worldwide ensures that the landscape of law is perpetually evolving. Recent trends in law have been shaped by technological advancements, societal shifts, and global events that have prompted significant legal developments and debates. These trends provide fertile ground for law thesis topics, offering students a chance to explore the cutting-edge issues that are shaping modern legal doctrines and practices.

• Technology and Law: One of the most pervasive influences on recent legal trends is technology. From the rise of fintech and blockchain technology affecting financial regulations to the challenges posed by artificial intelligence in privacy and intellectual property law, technology is reshaping legal boundaries. Law students could examine topics such as the regulation of autonomous vehicles, legal responses to cybersecurity threats, or the implications of AI in criminal justice systems, including predictive policing and decision-making algorithms.
• Global Health and Law: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role of health law on a global scale. Recent legal trends have focused on public health law’s response to pandemics, including emergency powers, vaccination mandates, and quarantine measures. Thesis topics might analyze the balance between individual rights and public health safety, the legal implications of global vaccine distribution, or the role of the World Health Organization in shaping international health regulations.
• International Trade and Law: Recent shifts in international trade agreements and policies, such as Brexit and changes in the United States’ trade policies, have significant legal implications. Law students have the opportunity to delve into issues surrounding trade negotiations, tariffs, and the role of international bodies like the World Trade Organization in mediating global trade disputes. Additionally, the rise of protectionist policies and their legal ramifications offers a rich area for scholarly investigation.
• Social Justice and Law: Recent years have seen a marked increase in legal initiatives focused on social justice, including movements towards criminal justice reform, police accountability, and the decriminalization of certain activities. Law thesis topics could explore the legal frameworks surrounding prison reform, the abolition of cash bail systems, or the legalization of cannabis and its social, economic, and legal impacts.
• Environmental and Energy Law: With the urgent need for environmental sustainability, recent legal trends have increasingly focused on environmental and energy law. Topics for exploration include the transition to renewable energy sources, legal strategies for reducing carbon footprints, and the enforcement of international environmental agreements like the Paris Accord. Law students could also investigate the legal aspects of green technology patents and their role in promoting eco-friendly innovations.
• Corporate Responsibility and Ethics: There is a growing trend towards ensuring that corporations operate more transparently and ethically, particularly in relation to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. This shift has led to new regulations and legal standards, offering thesis topics on corporate governance reforms, the legal liabilities of ignoring climate change impacts, and the integration of corporate social responsibility into business operations.

These recent trends in law reflect a world where legal systems are rapidly adapting to external changes and internal pressures. For law students, engaging with these law thesis topics not only provides an opportunity to contribute to scholarly discourse but also to influence future legal practices and policies. As these trends continue to evolve, they will undoubtedly shape the legal landscape for years to come, providing ongoing opportunities for impactful legal research.

Future Directions in Law

The legal landscape is continually evolving, driven by shifts in technology, societal norms, and global dynamics. Identifying and understanding future directions in law is crucial for law students as they consider thesis topics that not only address current legal challenges but also anticipate upcoming legal trends. This exploration provides insights into potential legal reforms, the emergence of new legal fields, and the adaptation of law to future societal needs.

• The Expansion of Cyber Law: As digital technology becomes even more integrated into daily life, the future of law will increasingly hinge on addressing cyber-related issues. Future law thesis topics might explore regulations for the Internet of Things (IoT), legal responses to virtual realities, and the implications of quantum computing on data security and encryption. Additionally, the legalities of digital personhood and AI’s rights and responsibilities will challenge traditional legal frameworks and require innovative legal thinking.
• Climate Change Legislation: Climate change continues to be an urgent global issue, necessitating robust legal frameworks that promote environmental sustainability and mitigate harm. Future legal scholars might focus on international climate agreements, the development of national laws that enforce global climate goals, and the legal responsibilities of countries and corporations in reducing their carbon footprint. The role of law in promoting green technologies and sustainable urban planning will also be critical areas for research.
• Global Legal Cooperation: In an interconnected world, the future of law lies in global cooperation, particularly in areas like human rights, international trade, and public health. Law students could examine the potential for new international treaties, the evolution of supranational legal institutions, and the ways legal systems can work together to address issues such as migration, pandemics, and international crime.
• Legal Implications of Biotechnology: As biotechnological advancements continue, so too will their legal implications. Future thesis topics may include the regulation of genetic editing techniques, bioethics, bioprinting of human organs, and the patenting of biotechnological inventions. The balance between innovation and ethical considerations will be a significant focus, as will the protection of genetic data.
• Reforming Justice Systems: There is an ongoing need for justice system reform, particularly concerning equity, efficiency, and accessibility. Future directions in law could involve examining alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, the decriminalization of certain offenses, and reforms in sentencing practices. Additionally, the adoption of technology in the justice system, such as virtual courtrooms and AI in legal decision-making, presents both opportunities and challenges.
• The Future of Labor Law: The nature of work and the workplace is changing rapidly, prompted by technology and evolving business models. Future law thesis topics might include the legal status and rights of gig economy workers, the use of AI in workplace management, and the implications of remote work for labor law. Legal scholars will need to consider how labor laws can adapt to continue protecting workers’ rights in this new landscape.
• Protecting Rights in a Digital World: As personal and societal activities increasingly move online, protecting individual rights becomes more complex and essential. Future legal research could focus on digital identity, the right to digital privacy, and freedom of expression online. Legal frameworks will need to evolve to protect these rights adequately while balancing them against national security concerns and societal norms.

These future directions in law offer a glimpse into the potential challenges and areas of growth for the legal profession. For law students, engaging with these topics not only helps push the boundaries of current legal thought but also prepares them to play an active role in shaping the future of the legal landscape.

The exploration of law thesis topics is more than an academic requirement; it’s a chance to engage deeply with the legal issues that shape our society and influence our daily lives. As we have seen, the scope of potential topics spans from traditional legal analyses to emerging legal challenges brought about by technological and social changes. Whether addressing longstanding issues or anticipating future legal shifts, students equipped with the right thesis topic can contribute meaningfully to the discourse within their chosen field. Encouragingly, the breadth of law thesis topics offers endless possibilities for investigation and innovation, promising a rich tapestry of legal knowledge that will evolve with the changing world.

iResearchNet’s Thesis Writing Services

iResearchNet takes pride in connecting students with expert degree-holding writers who specialize in their specific fields of law. Our custom writing services are designed to provide in-depth research, incorporating the latest legal theories and case law to produce top-quality, scholarly work. Whether you are struggling with selecting a topic, conducting research, or writing your thesis, our team is equipped to assist you every step of the way.

• Expert Degree-Holding Writers: Our team consists of professionals who not only have advanced degrees in law but also years of experience in legal research and writing. They are well-versed in various legal frameworks and specialties, ensuring that your work is handled by an expert in your specific area of law.
• Custom Written Works: Each thesis is crafted from scratch, tailored to meet your specific requirements and academic guidelines. This bespoke approach ensures that your paper is unique, plagiarism-free, and thoroughly researched.
• In-Depth Research: We use comprehensive legal databases and resources to conduct detailed research. Our writers are skilled in navigating through vast information sources to gather relevant data, supporting your thesis with robust evidence and authoritative references.
• Custom Formatting: Our papers are formatted according to your chosen citation style, whether it’s APA, MLA, Chicago/Turabian, or Harvard. Attention to detail in formatting not only improves the readability of your thesis but also ensures adherence to academic standards.
• Top Quality: Quality is at the forefront of our services. Each thesis undergoes rigorous checks to ensure it meets high standards of academic excellence. This includes thorough editing and proofreading to eliminate errors and enhance language quality.
• Customized Solutions: Recognizing that each student has unique needs, our services are highly flexible. We offer tailored solutions that align with your specific thesis requirements and academic objectives.
• Flexible Pricing: We provide competitive pricing models that cater to students’ budgets without compromising the quality of our services. Various pricing options are available, depending on the complexity and urgency of the project.
• Short Deadlines: We are equipped to handle urgent requests with deadlines as short as 3 hours. Our efficient process ensures that even the tightest deadlines are met without sacrificing quality.
• Timely Delivery: We guarantee timely delivery of your thesis, allowing you sufficient time to review the work and request any necessary revisions.
• 24/7 Support: Our customer support team is available around the clock to answer your queries and provide assistance whenever you need it.
• Absolute Privacy: We uphold strict confidentiality policies to protect your privacy. All personal and academic information shared with us remains private and secure.
• Easy Order Tracking: Our user-friendly online platform allows you to track the progress of your thesis at any time, providing transparency and peace of mind.
• Money-Back Guarantee: Your satisfaction is our top priority. We offer a money-back guarantee if our work does not meet the agreed academic standards or guidelines.

iResearchNet is dedicated to supporting law students in achieving their academic goals through professional and reliable writing services. By choosing iResearchNet, you are not just purchasing a paper; you are investing in a partnership that values your academic success and future career in law. Let us help you navigate the complexities of your thesis with our expert services, ensuring you deliver outstanding, impactful work that stands out in the academic community.

Order Your Custom-Written Thesis Today!

Embarking on your thesis journey in law is a pivotal step in your academic career and professional development. At iResearchNet, we are committed to empowering you with the tools, resources, and expert guidance necessary to craft a thesis that not only meets but exceeds academic expectations. With the challenges and complexities of legal research, having a supportive and knowledgeable partner can make all the difference.

Don’t wait any longer to secure your success—order your custom thesis paper today from iResearchNet!

Choosing iResearchNet means you are setting yourself up for academic excellence. With our team of expert writers, comprehensive support, and tailored services, you can navigate your thesis process with confidence. Here are just a few reasons why iResearchNet is your ideal partner:

• Expert Guidance: Receive support from professionals who are specialists in their legal fields.
• Customized Research: Benefit from a thesis that is meticulously researched and customized to your specific topic and requirements.
• Outstanding Quality: Trust in the quality of our work, which is designed to achieve excellence.
• Time-Efficient: Save valuable time with our efficient processes and timely delivery.
• Supportive Services: Access our 24/7 customer support for any questions or additional support you may need.

Your academic journey deserves the best possible support. Take the next step towards achieving your academic and professional goals by letting iResearchNet handle the complexities of your thesis.

iResearchNet is not just a service; it’s your partner in academic success. We’re here to support you from start to finish, ensuring your thesis is a robust, compelling, and influential piece of work that paves the way for your future in the legal field. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to excel—let iResearchNet help you achieve the excellence you deserve.

ORDER HIGH QUALITY CUSTOM PAPER

Stanford Law School's Theses and Dissertations Collection

• Early Thesis and Dissertation of Stanford Law School, 1929 to 1956
• Theses and Dissertations of Stanford Law School,1970-1995
• Stanford Program in International Legal Studies’ Theses, 1996 to 2010
• Stanford Law School’s Dissertations, 1996 to 2010
• Stanford Program in International Legal Studies Theses, 2011 to 2025

Title: Stanford Law School’s Dissertations, 1996 to 2010

Title: Stanford Law School’s Dissertations Inclusive Dates: 1996 to 2010

Access Restrictions: None Copyright Restriction:  Property rights reside with Robert Crown Law Library Special Collection.  Copyrights are retained by the creator of the records or their heirs.

Series Description:

This series consists of dissertations produced by Stanford Law School’s candidates in the Doctor of the Science of Law or the Doctor of Jurisprudence programs during the years of 1996 to 2010.  Each dissertation is original research that each individual submit to a committee of Stanford law professors to prove that they add substantial original scholarly works.  Subject matter that Dissertation covers is diverse in nature. This series is arranged by call number and author's last name. 

Extent: 3 linear feet (textual) Location(s) : GS-SU-06-02-01 to GS-SU-06-01-06

3781 1996 C - Environmental Protection Under and After Socialism: A Study of Poland  3781 1996 C - Riverrun: Three Essays about the Uses of History in Legal Problems Concerning Native Americans  3781 1996 D - Do you Speak Genomics?: Patenting Biotechnology "Translation" Inventions and Other Macromolecules  3781 1996 S - Corporate Governance in Quasi Public Corporations: A New Perspective in Cameroon   3781 1997 B - Innovation Market Concept: A Model for European Merger Control?  3781 1997 E - The Dispute Settlement System in the Egyptian Capital Market and Economic Development  3781 1997 H - Private Property, Culture, and Ideology: Israel's Supreme Court and the Jurisprudence of Land Expropriation 3781 1997 Y - Medical Malpractice in Taiwan: Myth and Reality  3781 1997 Z - A Critical Analysis of the Ethical Duty of Confidentiality in the American law 3781 1998 B - The accommodation of Interests in Freedom of the Press and Protection of Reputation in the Constitutional Doctrine of the United States and Spain   3781 1998 C - Differential Treatment in International Law: A New Framework for the Realisation of Sustainable Development   3781 1998 C - International Tax Policy Under NAFTA: The Impact of National Tax Differences on Capital Flows under Regional Trade and Investment Integration   3781 1998 C - Telecommunications Reform in Mexico: Challenges for Entering the Global Digital Economy  3781 1998 H - Rethinking the Legal Structure of Bank Securities Powers: "Universal Banking" vs. the "Glass-Steagall Act" in Taiwan   3781 1998 K - Property Rights and Biodiversity Management in Kenya: The Case of Land Tenure Regimes and Wildlife Management 3781 1998 L - Economic and Sociological Theories of Contingent Employment: Critique and Implications for Law Reform   3781 1998 N - Copyright and a Democratic Civil Society   3781 1998 R - Constitutional Gravity and Alternative Dispute Resolution: A Unitary Theory of Public Civil Dispute Resolution 3781 1998 Y - Embedded Strategies, Corporate Partners, and Markets in the Digital Age  3781 1999 C - Assessing the Impacts of Trade Liberalization on Forests  3781 1999 D - The Impact of Plant Intellectual Property Rights on Thailand's Agriculture: Implications of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)  3781 1999 Y - International Strategic Alliances in High Technology Industries: A Law and Economic Analysis From an Antitrust Perspective  3781 2000 D - Volume 1 Sexual Harassment Law: History, Cases, and Theory  3781 2000 D - Volume 2 Sexual Harassment Law: History, Cases, and Theory  3781 2000 K - Restructuring the Liability Regime in the Oil Pollution Act of 1990  3781 2000 L - Minimal State and Distributive Justice: An Essay on Nozick's Theory with Some Comparative Aspects to Rawls' 3781 2000 O - Law, Gender Relations and Social Change in Nigeria 3781 2000 W - Environmental Pollution in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria: A Case for Direct Equity Participation

3 781 2001 C - Self-Censorship and the Struggle for Press Freedom in Hong Kong 3781 2001 H - Administrative Litigation and Court Reform in the People's Republic of China  3781 2001 H - Critical Eating: Genetically Engineered Foods in International Relations: Designing International Bodies on Risk Management in Evolving Science & Technology with Global Impact  3781 2001 R - Counsel for the Indigent Accused in the United States and the Republic of Korea: Constitutional Reflections and Suggestions for Changes in the South Korean Criminal Justice System  3781 2001 R - Strategic Alliances in the United States Microelectronics Industry 3781 2001 W - Four Traces of Michelman and Sunstein's Legal Republicanism: Republican Historiography, Communitarianism, Habermasian Philosophy and Rawlsian Liberalism   3781 2001 W - The Comparison of Prosecutorial Functions in the U.S.A. and in Taiwan 3781 2001 Z - Human Rights Law and Public Interest Lawyering: A Study on the Interdependence of Jurisprudence and the Legal Profession in Israel 3781 2002 C - Environmental Cooperation Institution Building in Northeast Asia 3781 2002 E - Personal Bankruptcy in Israel  3781 2002 L - Custody Decisions in Social and Cultural contexts: The Best Interests of the Child Standard and Judges' Custody Decisions in Taiwan  3781 2002 L - Legal Culture and Social Change: The Case of Taiwanese Family Law Development  3781 2002 M - A Tale of Two Networks: Interconnection in Early Telephony and the Comme[r]cial Internet  3781 2002 M - A Tale of Two Networks: Interconnection in Early Telephony and the Comme[r]cial Internet  3781 2002 R - 2001: A Space Odyssey: Law, Space, and Society in Contemporary Israel  3781 2002 T - The Political Economy of Regulatory Competition: A Diachronic Institutional Theory of Legal Change in an Era of Globalization  3781 2002 W - Crypto Policy and Online Public Forums  3781 2003 B - The Puzzle of Mass Torts: A Comparative Study of Asbestos Litigation  3781 2003 J - Pharmaceutical Differential Pricing: Reality or Wishful Thinking?  3781 2003 S - Constructing Copyright and Literary Creativity in Kenya Cultural Politics and the Political Economy of Transnational Intellectual Property  3781 2003 X - Mediation in China and the United States: Toward Common Outcome  3781 2004 H - Why Do They Not Obey the Law?: A Case Study of a Rural-Urban Migrant Enclave in China  3781 2004 L - Unfinished Business: Challenging Microsoft in Taiwan 3781 2004 M - Kiamas: Rethinking Access to Justice in Domestic Violence Cases in Kenya  3781 2004 N - Commercializing Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings Through the Internet: Copyright Law and Technological Change  3781 2004 P - Balancing in Constitutional Law: A Suggested Analytical Framework Applied to American Constitutional Law  3781 2004 S - An Analysis of the Political Economy of Japanese Fisheries: The Dynamics of Bureaucratic Policymaking in Domestic and International Fisheries 3781 2005 A - An Attempt to Mediate Immigrant Integration: Intercultural Mediators in Catalonia  3781 2005 C - Paying for Nature Conservation with Tax Dollars?: An Evaluation of the Role of Fiscal Policy Reform in Promoting Biodiversity Conservation in Canada through Legal, Economic, Ecological, Fiscal and Political Lenses   3781 2006 A - Banking System in Islamic Countries: Saudi Arabia and Egypt  3781 2006 A - Democratic Deliberation of Trade Legislation in Ghana: Institutions, Interests and Accountability 3781 2006 A - The Legal Culture of the European Court of Human Rights  3781 2006 H - Women's Experience in Court: The Implementation of Feminist Law Reforms in Civil Proceedings Concerning Domestic Violence  3781 2006 L - Divorce and Annulment in San Mateo County, California 1950-1957  3781 2006 N - Toward Better-Balanced Copyright Regulations in the Digital and Network Era: Law, Technology, and the Market in the U.S. and Japan 3781 2006 P - Criminal Investigation and Prosecution in Mexico City: A Case Study of Miguel Hidalgo County and its Ministerio Público  3781 2006 Y - Legal Risk and Investment in India: A Case Study of the Dabhol Power Project  3781 2007 C - Unbundling Path Dependence: A Case Study of Telecommunications Reform in Mexico (1990-2006)  3781 2007 G - All in the Family: The Influence of Social Networks on Dispute Processing: A Case Study of a Developing Economy 3781 2007 H - Social Symmetry: A Theory of Altruism and Cooperation 3781 2007 L - From Imitation to Innovation: The Role of Patent in China's Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industries  3781 2007 M - Clientelism, Competition and Corruption: Informal Institutions and Telecommunications Reform in Kenya 3781 2007 W - Legal Framework for the Development of Venture Capital in China: Policy Recommendations for the Establishment of a Growth Enterprise Market ("GEM")        3781 2008 M - Rules and Engagement: A Comparative Qualitative Evaluation of European Union Rule-of-law Promotion in Romania, Turkey, Serbia, and Ukraine  3781 2008 N - The Role of Competition Law and Policy in the Economic Development of Korea 3781 2008 P - "In the Public Interest": Threats to Self-regulation of the Legal Profession in Ontario, 1998-2006   3781 2008 P - The Next Generation of Mexican Lawyers: A Study of Mexico's System of Legal Education and its Law Students  3781 2008 S - Beyond Legalism: The Mexican Supreme Court in the Democratic Era  3781 2009 L - The Neglected Role of Non-Profit Organizations in the Intellectual-Commons Environment  3781 2009 P - The Political-Economy and the Causes of Compliance of Trade and Investment Agreements: NAFTA and the Sweeteners Sector  3781 2009 S - "Outside the Pale of the Law": The Processing of Disputes in Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana  3781 2009 S - Recalcitrant Victims and Refractory Systems: An Exploratory Study of Attrition During the Investigation of rape Complaints in Post-Apartheid South Africa 3781 2009 T - The Design of Micro Credit Contracts and Costs of Credit: A Case Study of Micro Enterprise Finance in Uganda  3781 2010 C - Improving the Business Climate Under the Hot Sun: Do Small Business Associations Make a Difference?: A Study of Four Districts in Nyanza Province, Kenya 3781 2010 F - From Gender Based-Violence to Women's Violence in Haiti  3781 2010 F - From State Street to Bilski: Patent Protection in the Financial Industry 3781 2010 L - Weak Independent Directors, Strong Controlling Shareholders: Do Independent Directors Constrain Tunneling in Taiwan? 3781 2010 M - Access to Justice and Resolution of Criminal Cases at Informal Chiefs' Courts: The Ewe of Ghana 3781 2010 O - Measuring Japan's Nursery Quality Within the UNCRC Framework: International Standards for Young Children's Social Services and Their Implications for Japan   3781 2010 S - How do Principals Deal with Underperforming Teachers?: A Study of How Principals from Secondary Schools in Mexico City Manage Underperforming Teachers   3781 2010 T - Cross-border Enforcement of Patents

• Last Updated: Jun 1, 2024 4:34 PM
• URL: https://guides.law.stanford.edu/c.php?g=1087208

• Stanford Home
• Maps & Directions
• Search Stanford
• Emergency Info
• Terms of Use
• Non-Discrimination
• Accessibility

© Stanford University , Stanford , California 94305 .

• Table of Contents
• Random Entry
• Chronological
• Editorial Information
• About the SEP
• Editorial Board
• How to Cite the SEP
• Special Characters
• Advanced Tools
• Support the SEP
• PDFs for SEP Friends
• Make a Donation
• SEPIA for Libraries
• Entry Contents

Bibliography

Academic tools.

• Friends PDF Preview
• Author and Citation Info
• Back to Top

The Nature of Law

Lawyers are typically interested in the question: What is the law on a particular issue? This is always a local question and answers to it are bound to differ according to the specific jurisdiction in which they are asked. In contrast, philosophy of law is interested in the general question: What is Law? This general question about the nature of law presupposes that law is a unique social-political phenomenon, with more or less universal characteristics that can be discerned through philosophical analysis. General jurisprudence, as this philosophical inquiry about the nature of law is called, is meant to be universal. It assumes that law possesses certain features, and it possesses them by its very nature, or essence, as law, whenever and wherever it happens to exist. However, even if there are such universal characteristics of law—which is controversial, as we will later discuss—the reasons for a philosophical interest in elucidating them remain to be explained. First, there is the sheer intellectual interest in understanding such a complex social phenomenon which is, after all, one of the most intricate aspects of human culture. Law, however, is also a normative social practice: it purports to guide human behavior, giving rise to reasons for action. An attempt to explain this normative, reason-giving aspect of law is one of the main challenges of general jurisprudence. These two sources of interest in the nature of law are closely linked. Law is not the only normative domain in our culture; morality, religion, social conventions, etiquette, and so on, also guide human conduct in many ways which are similar to law. Therefore, part of what is involved in the understanding of the nature of law consists in an explanation of how law differs from these similar normative domains, how it interacts with them, and whether its intelligibility depends on other normative orders, like morality or social conventions.

Contemporary legal theories define these two main interests in the nature of law in the following terms. First, we need to understand the general conditions that would render any putative norm legally valid. Is it, for example, just a matter of the source of the norm, such as its enactment by a particular political institution, or is it also a matter of the norm’s content? This is the general question about the conditions of legal validity. Second, there is the interest in the normative aspect of law. This philosophical interest is twofold: A complete philosophical account of the normativity of law comprises both an explanatory and a justificatory task. The explanatory task consists of an attempt to explain how legal norms can give rise to reasons for action, and what kinds of reasons are involved. The task of justification concerns the question of whether people ought to comply—morally speaking or all things considered—with law’s demands. In other words, it is the attempt to explain the moral legitimacy of law and the subjects’ reasons for complying with it. A theory about the nature of law, as opposed to critical theories of law, concentrates on the first of these two questions. It purports to explain what the normativity of law actually consists in. Some contemporary legal philosophers, however, doubt that these two aspects of the normativity of law can be separated. (We will return to this later.)

Thus, elucidating the conditions of legal validity and explaining the normativity of law form the two main subjects of any general theory about the nature of law. In section 1, we will explain some of the main debates about these two issues. In section 2, we will discuss some of the methodological debates about the nature of general jurisprudence. In the course of the last few centuries, two main rival philosophical traditions have emerged about the nature of legality. The older one, dating back to late mediaeval Christian scholarship, is called the natural law tradition. Since the early 19th century, natural law theories have been fiercely challenged by the legal positivism tradition promulgated by such scholars as Jeremy Bentham and John Austin . The philosophical origins of legal positivism are much earlier, though, probably in the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes . The main controversy between these two traditions concerns the conditions of legal validity. Basically, legal positivism asserts, and natural law denies, that the conditions of legal validity are purely a matter of social facts. In contrast to positivism, natural law claims that the conditions of legal validity are not exhausted by social facts; the moral content of the putative norms also bears on their legal validity. As the famous dictum, commonly attributed to Saint Augustine, has it: lex iniusta non est lex (unjust law is not law). (Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio, I, 5; see also Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 96, Art. 4.)

1.1 The Conditions of Legal Validity

1.2 the normativity of law, 2.1.1 conceptual analysis views, 2.1.2 investigating law itself, 2.1.3 the metanormative inquiry view, 2.1.4 the prescriptive view, 2.1.5 constructive interpretation of legal practice, 2.2.1 preliminaries, 2.2.2 is legal theory evaluative in the relevant sense, other internet resources, related entries, 1. general jurisprudence.

The main insight of legal positivism, that the conditions of legal validity are determined by social facts, involves two separate claims which have been labeled The Social Thesis and The Separation Thesis. The Social Thesis asserts that law is, profoundly, a social phenomenon, and that the conditions of legal validity consist of social—that is, non-normative—facts. Early legal positivists followed Hobbes’ insight that the law is, essentially, an instrument of political sovereignty, and they maintained that the basic source of legal validity resides in the facts constituting political sovereignty. Law, they thought, is basically the command of the sovereign. Later legal positivists have modified this view, maintaining that social rules, and not the facts about sovereignty, constitute the grounds of law. Most contemporary legal positivists share the view that there are rules of recognition, namely, social rules or conventions which determine certain facts or events that provide the ways for the creation, modification, and annulment of legal standards. These facts, such as an act of legislation or a judicial decision, are the sources of law conventionally identified as such in each and every modern legal system. One way of understanding the legal positivist position here is to see it as a form of reduction: legal positivism maintains, essentially, that legal validity is reducible to facts of a non-normative type, that is, facts about people’s conduct, beliefs and attitudes.

Natural lawyers deny this insight, insisting that a putative norm cannot become legally valid unless it passes a certain threshold of morality. Positive law must conform in its content to some basic precepts of natural law, that is, universal morality, in order to become law in the first place. In other words, natural lawyers maintain that the moral content or merit of norms, and not just their social origins, also form part of the conditions of legal validity. And again, it is possible to view this position as a non-reductive conception of law, maintaining that legal validity cannot be reduced to non-normative facts. See the entry on natural law theories .

The Separation Thesis is an important negative implication of the Social Thesis, maintaining that there is a conceptual separation between law and morality, that is, between what the law is, and what the law ought to be. The Separation Thesis, however, has often been overstated. It is sometimes thought that natural law asserts, and legal positivism denies, that the law is, by necessity, morally good or that the law must have some minimal moral content. The Social Thesis certainly does not entail the falsehood of the assumption that there is something necessarily good in the law. Legal positivism can accept the claim that law is, by its very nature or its essential functions in society, something good that deserves our moral appreciation. Nor is legal positivism forced to deny the plausible claim that wherever law exists, it would have to have a great many prescriptions which coincide with morality. There is probably a considerable overlap, and perhaps necessarily so, between the actual content of law and morality. Once again, the Separation Thesis, properly understood, pertains only to the conditions of legal validity. It asserts that the conditions of legal validity do not depend on the moral merits of the norms in question. What the law is cannot depend on what it ought to be in the relevant circumstances.

Many contemporary legal positivists would not subscribe to this formulation of the Separation Thesis. A contemporary school of thought, called inclusive legal positivism , endorses the Social Thesis, namely, that the basic conditions of legal validity derive from social facts, such as social rules or conventions which happen to prevail in a given community. But, inclusive legal positivists maintain, legal validity is sometimes a matter of the moral content of the norms, depending on the particular conventions that happen to prevail in any given community. The social conventions on the basis of which we identify the law may, but need not, contain reference to moral content as a condition of legality (see, for example, Waluchow 1994).

The natural law tradition has undergone a considerable refinement in the 20th century, mainly because its classical, popular version faced an obvious objection about its core insight: it is just difficult to maintain that morally bad law is not law. The idea that law must pass, as it were, a kind of moral filter in order to count as law strikes most jurists as incompatible with the legal world as we know it. Therefore, contemporary natural lawyers have suggested different and more subtle interpretations of the main tenets of natural law. For example, John Finnis (1980) views natural law (in its Thomist version) not as a constraint on the legal validity of positive laws, but mainly as an elucidation of an ideal of law in its fullest, or highest sense, concentrating on the ways in which law necessarily promotes the common good. As we have noted earlier, however, it is not clear that such a view about the necessary moral content of law is at odds with the main tenets of legal positivism. To the extent that there is a debate here, it is a metaphysical one about what is essential or necessary to law, and about whether the essential features of law must be elucidated in teleological terms or not. Legal positivists do not tend to seek deep teleological accounts of law, along the lines articulated by Finnis, but whether they need to deny such metaphysical projects is far from clear.

The idea that the conditions of legal validity are at least partly a matter of the moral content or merits of norms is articulated in a sophisticated manner by Ronald Dworkin’s legal theory. Dworkin is not a classical natural lawyer, however, and he does not maintain that morally acceptable content is a precondition of a norm’s legality. His core idea is that the very distinction between facts and values in the legal domain, between what the law is and what it ought to be, is much more blurred than legal positivism would have it: Determining what the law is in particular cases inevitably depends on moral-political considerations about what it ought to be. Evaluative judgments, about the content law ought to have or what it ought to prescribe, partly determine what the law actually is.

Dworkin’s legal theory is not based on a general repudiation of the classical fact-value distinction, as much as it is based on a certain conception of legal reasoning. This conception went through two main stages. In the 1970s Dworkin (1977) argued that the falsehood of legal positivism resides in the fact that it is incapable of accounting for the important role that legal principles play in the law. Legal positivism envisaged, Dworkin claimed, that the law consists of rules only. However, this is a serious mistake, since in addition to rules, law is partly determined by legal principles. The distinction between rules and principles is a logical one. Rules, Dworkin maintained, apply in an “all or nothing fashion.” If the rule applies to the circumstances, it determines a particular legal outcome. If it does not apply, it is simply irrelevant to the outcome. On the other hand, principles do not determine an outcome even if they clearly apply to the pertinent circumstances. Principles provide judges with a legal reason to decide the case one way or the other, and hence they only have a dimension of weight. That is, the reasons provided by the principle may be relatively strong, or weak, but they are never “absolute.” Such reasons, by themselves, cannot determine an outcome, as rules do.

The most interesting, and from a positivist perspective, most problematic, aspect of legal principles, however, consists in their moral dimension. According to Dworkin’s theory, unlike legal rules, which may or may not have something to do with morality, principles are essentially moral in their content. It is, in fact, partly a moral consideration that determines whether a legal principle exists or not. Why is that? Because a legal principle exists, according to Dworkin, if the principle follows from the best moral and political interpretation of past judicial and legislative decisions in the relevant domain. In other words, legal principles occupy an intermediary space between legal rules and moral principles. Legal rules are posited by recognized institutions and their validity derives from their enacted source. Moral principles are what they are due to their content, and their validity is purely content dependent. Legal principles, on the other hand, gain their validity from a combination of source-based and content-based considerations. As Dworkin put it in the most general terms: “According to law as integrity, propositions of law are true if they figure in or follow from the principles of justice, fairness, and procedural due process that provide the best constructive interpretation of the community’s legal practice” (Dworkin 1986, 225). The validity of a legal principle then, derives, from a combination of facts and moral considerations. The facts concern the past legal decisions which have taken place in the relevant domain, and the considerations of morals and politics concern the ways in which those past decisions can best be accounted for by the correct moral principles.

Needless to say, if such an account of legal principles is correct, the Separation Thesis can no longer be maintained. But many legal philosophers doubt that there are legal principles of the kind Dworkin envisaged. There is an alternative, more natural way to account for the distinction between rules and principles in the law: the relevant difference concerns the level of generality, or vagueness, of the norm-act prescribed by the pertinent legal norm. Legal norms can be more or less general, or vague, in their definition of the norm-act prescribed by the rule, and the more general or vague they are, the more they tend to have those quasi-logical features Dworkin attributes to principles. More importantly, notice that if you make the legal validity of norms, such as legal principles, depend on moral argument, you allow for the possibility that an entire legal community may get its laws wrong. Any moral mistake in the reasoning leading to a legal principle might render the conclusion about the principle unsound, and the principle itself thus not legally valid. Since there is nothing to prevent judges and other legal actors from making moral mistakes, there is nothing to prevent a result whereby an entire legal community, and for a long time, gets its laws wrong (Marmor 2011, chapter 4). Perhaps Dworkin would have not found this problematic, but others might; the idea that an entire legal community can be systematically mistaken about its own laws might strike legal theorists as deeply problematic.

In the 1980s Dworkin radicalized his views about these issues, striving to ground his anti-positivist legal theory on a general theory of interpretation, and emphasizing law’s profound interpretative nature. Despite the fact that Dworkin’s interpretative theory of law is extremely sophisticated and complex, the essence of his argument from interpretation can be summarized in a rather simple way. The main argument consists of two main premises. The first thesis maintains that determining what the law requires in each and every particular case necessarily involves interpretative reasoning. Any statement of the form “According to the law in \(S\), \(x\) has a right/duty etc., to \(y\)” is a conclusion of some interpretation or other. Now, according to the second premise, interpretation always involves evaluative considerations. More precisely, perhaps, interpretation is neither purely a matter of determining facts, nor is it a matter of evaluative judgment per se , but an inseparable mixture of both. Clearly enough, one who accepts both these theses must conclude that the Separation Thesis is fundamentally flawed. If Dworkin is correct about both theses, it surely follows that determining what the law requires always involves evaluative considerations.

Notably, the first premise of Dworkin’s general argument is highly contestable. Some legal philosophers have argued that legal reasoning is not as thoroughly interpretative as Dworkin assumes. Interpretation, according to this view, long maintained by H.L.A. Hart (1961, chapter 7), is an exception to the standard understanding of language and communication, rendered necessary only when the law is, for some reason, unclear. However, in most standard instances, the law can simply be understood, and applied, without the mediation of interpretation (Marmor 2011, chapter 6).

Dworkin’s legal theory shares certain insights with the inclusive version of legal positivism. Note, however, that although both Dworkin and inclusive legal positivists share the view that morality and legal validity are closely related, they differ on the grounds of this relationship. Dworkin maintains that the dependence of legal validity on moral considerations is an essential feature of law that derives from law’s profoundly interpretative nature. Inclusive positivism, on the other hand, maintains that such a dependence of legal validity on moral considerations is a contingent matter; it does not derive from the nature of law or of legal reasoning as such. Inclusive positivists accept the Social Thesis; they claim that moral considerations affect legal validity only in those cases where this is dictated by the social rules or conventions which happen to prevail in a given legal system. The relevance of morality is determined in any given legal system by the contingent content of that society’s conventions. As opposed to both these views, traditional, or as it is now called, exclusive legal positivism maintains that a norm’s legal validity is never dependent on its moral content. Legal validity, according to this view, is entirely dependent on the conventionally recognized factual sources of law.

It may be worth noting that those legal theories maintaining that legal validity partly depends on moral considerations must also share a certain view about the nature of morality. Namely, they must hold an objective stance with respect to the nature of moral values. Otherwise, if moral values are not objective and legality depends on morality, legality would also be rendered subjective, posing serious problems for the question of how to identify what the law is. Some legal theories, however, do insist on the subjectivity of moral judgements, thus embracing the skeptical conclusions that follow about the nature of law. According to these skeptical theories, law is, indeed, profoundly dependent on morality, but, as these theorists assume that morality is entirely subjective, it only demonstrates how the law is also profoundly subjective, always up for grabs, so to speak. This skeptical approach, fashionable in so-called post-modernist literature, crucially depends on a subjectivist theory of values, which is rarely articulated in this literature in any sophisticated way.

Throughout human history the law has been known as a coercive institution, enforcing its practical demands on its subjects by means of threats and violence. This conspicuous feature of law made it very tempting for some philosophers to assume that the normativity of law resides in its coercive aspect. Even within the legal positivist tradition, however, the coercive aspect of the law has given rise to fierce controversies. Early legal positivists, such as Bentham and Austin, maintained that coercion is an essential feature of law, distinguishing it from other normative domains. Legal positivists in the 20th century have tended to deny this, claiming that coercion is neither essential to law, nor, actually, pivotal to the fulfillment of its functions in society. Before we unpack the various issues involved in this controversy, it might be worth noting that the debate about law’s coercive aspect is one good example of debates in jurisprudence that focus on what might be an essential or a necessary feature of law, regardless of its particular manifestations in this or that legal system. How to understand these claims about the essence of law, and the question of whether these claims are about metaphysics or something else, perhaps about morality, will be discussed in section 2.1.

Returning to law’s coercive aspect, there are several issues entangled here, and we should carefully separate them. John Austin famously maintained that each and every legal norm, as such, must comprise a threat backed by sanction. This involves at least two separate claims: In one sense, it can be understood as a thesis about the concept of law, maintaining that what we call “law” can only be those norms which are backed by sanctions of the political sovereign. In a second, though not less problematic sense, the intimate connection between the law and the threat of sanctions is a thesis about the normativity of law. It is a reductionist thesis about law’s normative character, maintaining that the normativity of law consists in the subjects’ ability to predict the chances of incurring punishment or evil and their presumed desire to avoid it.

In addition to this particular controversy, there is the further question, concerning the relative importance of sanctions for the ability of law to fulfill its social functions. Hans Kelsen, for instance, maintained that the monopolization of violence in society, and the law’s ability to impose its demands by violent means, is the most important of law’s functions in society. Twentieth century legal positivists, like H.L.A. Hart and Joseph Raz, deny this, maintaining that the coercive aspect of law is much more marginal than their predecessors assumed. Once again, the controversy here is actually twofold: is coercion essential to what the law does? And even if it is not deemed essential, how important it is, compared with the other functions law fulfills in our lives?

Austin’s reductionist account of the normativity of law, maintaining that the normative aspect of law simply consists in the subjects’ desire to avoid sanctions, was discussed extensively, and fiercely criticized, by H.L.A. Hart. Hart’s fundamental objection to Austin’s reductionist account of law’s normativity is, on his own account, “that the predictive interpretation obscures the fact that, where rules exist, deviations from them are not merely grounds for prediction that hostile reactions will follow…. but are also deemed to be a reason or justification for such reaction and for applying the sanctions” (Hart 1961, 82). This emphasis on the reason-giving function of rules is surely correct, but perhaps not enough. Supporters of the predictive account could claim that it only begs the further question of why people should regard the rules of law as reasons or justifications for actions. If it is, for example, only because the law happens to be an efficient sanction-provider, then the predictive model of the normativity of law may turn out to be correct after all. In other words, Hart’s fundamental objection to the predictive model is actually a result of his vision about the main functions of law in society, holding, contra Austin and Kelsen, that those functions are not exclusively related to the ability of the law to impose sanctions.

It is arguable, however, that law’s functions in our culture are more closely related to its coercive aspect than Hart seems to have assumed. Contemporary use of “game theory” in the law tends to show that the rationale of a great variety of legal arrangements can be best explained by the function of law in solving problems of opportunism, like the so called Prisoner’s Dilemma situations. In these cases, the law’s main role is, indeed, one of providing coercive incentives for the mutual benefit of all parties concerned. Be this as it may, we should probably refrain from endorsing Austin’s or Kelsen’s position that law’s only function in society is essentially tied to its coercive aspects. Solving recurrent and multiple coordination problems, setting standards for desirable behavior, proclaiming symbolic expressions of communal values, resolving disputes about facts, and such, are important functions which the law serves in our society, and those have very little to do with law’s coercive aspect and its sanction-imposing functions.

The extent to which law can actually guide behavior by providing its subjects with reasons for action has been questioned by a very influential group of legal scholars in the first half of the 20 th century, called the Legal Realism school. American Legal Realists claimed that our ability to predict the outcomes of legal cases on the basis of the rules of law is rather limited. In the more difficult cases which tend to be adjudicated in the appellate courts, legal rules, by themselves, are radically indeterminate as to the outcome of the cases. The Legal Realists thought that lawyers who are interested in the predictive question of what the courts will actually decide in difficult cases need to engage in sociological and psychological research, striving to develop theoretical tools that would enable us to predict legal outcomes. Thus Legal Realism was mainly an attempt to introduce the social sciences into the domain of jurisprudence for predictive purposes. To what extent this scientific project succeeded is a matter of controversy. Be this as it may, Legal Realism paid very little attention to the question of the normativity of law, that is, to the question of how the law does guide behavior in those cases in which it seems to be determinate enough.

A much more promising approach to the normativity of law is found in Joseph Raz’s theory of authority, which also shows how such a theory about the normativity of law entails important conclusions with respect to the conditions of legal validity (Raz 1994). The basic insight of Raz’s argument is that the law is an authoritative social institution. The law, Raz claims, is a de facto authority. However, it is also essential to law that it must be held to claim legitimate authority. Any particular legal system may fail, of course, in its fulfillment of this claim. But law is the kind of institution which necessarily claims to be a legitimate authority.

According to Raz, the essential role of authorities in our practical reasoning is to mediate between the putative subjects of the authority and the right reasons which apply to them in the relevant circumstances. An authority is legitimate if and only if it helps its putative subjects to comply better with the right reasons relevant to their actions—i.e., if they are more likely to act in compliance with these reasons by following the authoritative resolution than they would be if they tried to figure out and act on the reasons directly (without the mediating resolution). For example, there may be many reasons that bear on the question of how fast to drive on a particular road—the amount of pedestrian traffic, impending turns in the road, etc.—but drivers may comply better with the balance of those reasons by following the legal speed limit than if they tried to figure out all the trade-offs in the moment. The legitimacy of the legal speed limit would thus be derived from the way in which it aids people in acting in better compliance with the balance of the right reasons.

Now, it follows that for something to be able to claim legitimate authority, it must be of the kind of thing capable of claiming it, namely, capable of fulfilling such a mediating role. What kinds of things can claim legitimate authority? There are at least two such features necessary for authority-capacity: First, for something to be able to claim legitimate authority, it must be the case that its directives are identifiable as authoritative directives, without the necessity of relying on those same reasons which the authoritative directive replaces. If this condition is not met, namely, if it is impossible to identify the authoritative directive as such without relying on those same reasons the authority was meant to rely on, then the authority could not fulfill its essential, mediating role. In short, it could not make the practical difference it is there to make. Note that this argument does not concern the efficacy of authorities. The point is not that unless authoritative directives can be recognized as such, authorities could not function effectively. The argument is based on the rationale of authorities within our practical reasoning. Authorities are there to make a practical difference, and they could not make such a difference unless the authority’s directive can be recognized as such without recourse to the reasons it is there to decide upon. In other words, it is pointless to have an authoritative directive if, in order to discover what the directive is, you have to engage in the same reasoning that reliance on the directive is supposed to replace. Secondly, for something to be able to claim legitimate authority, it must be capable of forming an opinion on how its subjects ought to behave, distinct from the subjects’ own reasoning about their reasons for action; authority requires some authorship.

Raz’s conception of legal authority provides very strong support for exclusive legal positivism because it requires that the law, qua an authoritative resolution, be identifiable on its own terms, that is, without having to rely on those same considerations that the law is there to resolve. Therefore a norm is legally valid (i.e., authoritative) only if its validity does not derive from moral or other evaluative considerations that the law is intended to replace. Notably, Raz’s theory challenges both Dworkin’s anti-positivist legal theory, and the inclusive version of legal positivism. This challenge, and the controversies it gave rise to, form one of the main topics discussed in contemporary general jurisprudence.

Explaining the rationale of legal authority, however, is not the only component of a theory about the normativity of law. If we hold the legal positivist thesis that law is essentially founded on social conventions, another important question arises here: how can a conventional practice give rise to reasons for action and, in particular, to obligations? Some legal philosophers claimed that conventional rules cannot, by themselves, give rise to obligations. As Leslie Green observed, Hart’s “view that the fundamental rules [of recognition] are ‘mere conventions’ continues to sit uneasily with any notion of obligation,” and this Green finds troubling, because the rules of recognition point to the “sources that judges are legally bound to apply” (Green 1996, 1697). The debate here is partly about the conventional nature of the rules of recognition, and partly about the ways in which conventions can figure in our reasons for action. According to one influential theory, inspired by David Lewis (1969) conventional rules emerge as solutions to large-scale and recurrent coordination problems. If the rules of recognition are, indeed, of such a coordination kind, it is relatively easy to explain how they may give rise to obligations. Coordination conventions would be obligatory if the norm subjects have an obligation to solve the coordination problem which initially gave rise to the emergence of the relevant convention. It is doubtful, however, that the conventions at the foundations of law are of a coordinative kind. In certain respects the law may be more like a structured game, or an artistic genre, which are actually constituted by social conventions. Such constitutive conventions are not explicable as solutions to some pre-existing recurrent coordination problem. The conventional rules constituting the game of chess, for example, are not there to solve a coordination problem between potential players. Antecedent to the game of chess, there was no particular coordination problem to solve. The conventional rules of chess constitute the game itself as a kind of social activity people would find worthwhile engaging in. The constitutive conventions partly constitute the values inherent in the emergent social practice. Such values, however, are only there for those who care to see them. Constitutive conventions, by themselves, cannot ground an obligation to engage in the practice they constitute.

From a moral point of view, the rules of recognition, by themselves, cannot be regarded as sources of obligation to follow the law. Whether judges, or anybody else, should or should not respect the rules of recognition of a legal system, is ultimately a moral issue, that can only be resolved by moral arguments (concerning the age old issue of political obligation). And this is more generally so: the existence of a social practice, in itself, does not provide anyone with an obligation to engage in the practice. The rules of recognition only define what the practice is, and they can say nothing on the question of whether one should or should not engage in it. But of course, once one does engage in the practice, playing the role of judge or some other legal official, as it were, there are legal obligations defined by the rules of the game. In other words, there is nothing special in the idea of a legal obligation to follow the rules of recognition. The referee in a soccer game is equally obliged to follow the rules of his game, and the fact that the game is conventional poses no difficulty from this, let us say, “internal-player’s” perspective. But again, the constitutive rules of soccer cannot settle for anyone the question of whether they should play soccer or not. Similarly, the rules of recognition cannot settle for the judge, or anyone else for that matter, whether they should play by the rules of law, or not. They only tell us what the law is . Unlike chess or soccer, however, the law may well be a kind of game that people have an obligation to play, as it were. But if there is such an obligation, it must emerge from external, moral, considerations, that is, from a general moral obligation to obey the law. The complex question of whether there is such a general obligation to obey the law, and whether it depends on certain features of the relevant legal system, is extensively discussed in the literature on political obligation. A complete theory about the normativity of law must encompass these moral issues as well. (See the entries on political obligation and legal obligation .)

More recently, however, a number of philosophers have started to question the idea that there is something unique to the normativity of law, inviting us to see how laws might affect our reasons for action in ways that are not closely tied to the nature of law (Greenberg 2014, Enoch 2011, Marmor 2016 [2018]). Some of these views (e.g., Enoch, Marmor) purport to show that there are different ways in which the existence of various norms bear on people’s reasons for action, present in law as elsewhere, without denying that the law often makes a difference; these views only deny that there is something unique to the way law changes its subjects’ reasons for action, compared with other types normative demands. Others challenge law’s normativity from an opposite angle (Greenberg 2014, Hershovitz 2015), arguing that the only aspect of law that is of normative significance is the moral difference that it makes to people’s reasons for action.

In the last two decades of the 20th century, new challenges to general jurisprudence, and particularly to legal positivism, have taken an interesting methodological turn. This methodological turn gained momentum with the publication of Dworkin’s Law’s Empire (1986), arguing that not only the law, as a social practice, is a profoundly interpretative (and thus partly, but necessarily, evaluative in nature), but that any theory about the nature of law is also interpretative in a similar way, and thus, equally evaluative. Many of those who do not necessarily share Dworkin’s views about the interpretative nature of legal practice, or the specifics of his theory of interpretation, have joined him in this methodological skepticism about the traditional aims of general jurisprudence, that is, about the possibility of developing a theory about that nature of law that would have general application and remain morally neutral. These, and other resultant methodological challenges to traditional general jurisprudence are taken up in the next section.

It would be fair to say, however, that in the last few years, many legal philosophers have expressed a growing frustration with these traditional debates about the nature of law, calling for legal philosophy to move beyond the Hart-Dworkin debates and explore new avenues of research. Some of these new critics are content to abandon the project altogether, declaring the death of general jurisprudence (Hershovitz 2015). Others, however, are engaged in exploring new challenges. One emerging area of research concerns the artifact nature of law, aiming to learn something about the nature of law from the fact that law seems to be an artifact, created and sustained by humans for particular purposes. (See, for example, Burazin et al. eds., 2018.) Others explore connections between law’s features as artifact and fictionalism, suggesting that their underlying logic and metaphysics share a great deal in common (Marmor 2018). Another new and potentially fruitful area of research focuses on applications of philosophy of language to law, brining new developments in philosophy of language, particularly in pragmatics, to bear on questions of legal interpretation and understanding of legal content (Asgeirsson forthcoming, Asgeirsson 2015, Marmor 2014). This linguistic direction is not uncontroversial, however; some legal philosophers express skepticism about the idea that legal content is determined by linguistic factors (Greenberg 2011) and there is an ongoing debate about these issues. Finally, there also seems to be a growing interest in recent developments in metaphysics that might bear on a theory about the nature of law, and even debates about meta-metaphysics are beginning to emerge in the context of general jurisprudence, purporting to show that ways in which we think about the tasks of metaphysical inquiry may bear on ways we think about the law (Rosen 2010). For example, if the main task of metaphysics is to determine what really exists in the world, irrespective of what we think about it or ways in which we represent the world, metaphysics may not have much to say about the nature of law or, perhaps, it may indicate that only a scientific approach to jurisprudence can yield metaphysically respectable results. If, however, the task of metaphysical inquiry is also to figure out what is more foundational than something else, giving us a hierarchical structure of the world, where some things ground others, then metaphysics might be a very fruitful framework to work with in trying to elucidate the foundations of legality and legal phenomena more generally. This potential metaphysical interest in jurisprudence is at its infancy presently, and time will tell if this new approach gets us interesting results.

2. The Methodology of Jurisprudence

When it comes to the methodology of jurisprudence, we find two main issues. While one is not directly concerned with normativity, the second is. The first asks about the aims and success criteria for philosophical theories about the nature of law:

What is the target that first-order theories of law aim to capture, and when do they succeed in doing so?

The second asks about the role of evaluation in jurisprudential methodology:

Are first-order legal theories inherently or necessarily evaluative or can they be purely descriptive?

Each of these questions will be discussed in turn.

2.1 The Target of a Theory of Law

The first important class of methodological questions in jurisprudence concerns the target of first-order theories of law—that is, what phenomenon such theories aim to provide an account of. In taking a stand on what the proper target of a first-order legal theory is, one incurs a number of other methodological commitments. These include adopting a view about when such theories are successful, taking a stand on what sort of data such theories aim to systematize and explain, and determining what sorts of arguments are legitimately used in deciding between one of these theories and its competitors.

There are five main families of views on this question. One view takes jurisprudence to be a form of conceptual analysis, which is to say that theories of law aim to provide an account of some concept of law. This approach is often associated with Hart’s influential work, The Concept of Law (1994). A second sort of view adopts a more skeptical stance towards the methodology of conceptual analysis and takes theories of law to be in the business of offering a reductive explanation of law itself, not some concept of it. Another recent view sees general jurisprudence as just another branch of metanormative inquiry, which renders it continuous with other philosophical fields like metaethics. Fourth, the prescriptive view takes it that the aim of a theory of law is to specify the notion of law that it would be most desirable for us to adopt. A fifth kind of view, associated with Dworkin’s work, takes it that legal theories are in the business of offering a constructive interpretation of legal practice. In what follows, each of these five views, as well as some of the main issues they face, will be discussed in more depth.

On conceptual analysis views, theories of law aim to capture the concept of law and they succeed to the extent that they provide a coherent account of the relevant data about that concept and related concepts. In particular, the data to be systematized are taken to be people’s intuitions involving some shared concept of law (or cognate concepts like legal validity or legal obligation). In their simplest form, such intuitions can be thought of as judgments about whether the relevant concept does or does not apply to particular cases. Accordingly, on this sort of view, a theory of law aims to provide an account of the conditions under which the target concept of law (or one of its cognates) applies.

What’s more, such a theory can be arrived at by employing the method of conceptual analysis, undertaken from the proverbial armchair. The idea is that the theorist starts with a putative set of criteria for the correct application of the target concept, and then she tests this account against her intuitions about that concept. If the account entails that the concept applies to particular cases that it intuitively does not apply to, then this provides reason to reject or revise the account in question. By contrast, if the account entails that the target concept applies to certain cases and this is the intuitively correct result, this tends to provide affirmative support for the account. The account successfully captures the target concept to the extent that it yields intuitively correct results about particular cases, and does so in an explanatorily satisfying way (as opposed to an ad hoc manner). (For a more in depth discussion of the methodology of conceptual analysis as applied to the concept of law, see Shapiro 2011, 16–22.)

Jurisprudence has been influenced by two main ways of understanding the relevant intuitions (or data) that theories of law aim to systematize. This, in turn, is due to the fact that one might understand concepts themselves, and our intuitions about them, in two different ways. Accordingly, we find two main varieties of the conceptual analysis view of methodology.

The first understanding of concepts takes concept possession to be mainly a matter of linguistic competence. That is, to possess the concept of law is to know when the word “law” as used in its juridical sense (not the scientific sense) applies. Thus, intuitions about the concept of law are to be understood as linguistic intuitions about how to use the word “law.” On the present view, then, conceptual analysis is a mode of linguistic analysis. This sort of view was famously discussed in chapters 1 and 2 of Dworkin’s Law’s Empire (Dworkin 1986, 32, 43–46). It arguably traces back to the kind of ordinary language philosophy associated with J.L. Austin and Gilbert Ryle (Marmor 2013, 210–212).

However, this understanding of concept possession has drawbacks. Perhaps the biggest source of concern in the present context is that this sort of view fuels a version of Dworkin’s “semantic sting” argument (Dworkin 1986, 43–46). The argument may be summarized as follows. Suppose legal theories aim to capture the concept of law and that concept possession just is a matter of knowing when the word “law” applies. If so, the argument runs, legal theories cannot explain disagreement about the grounds of law, that is, about the conditions of legal validity. After all, if legal theories are in this way semantic in nature, then disagreement about what the grounds of law are must boil down to disagreement about when the word “law” applies—at least assuming the parties to the disagreement are not merely talking past one another. But now a dilemma arises. Either legal practitioners possess the same concept of law or they do not. If they do possess the same concept, then it seems they cannot fail to agree about what it takes for a norm to count as law. After all, they all know when the word expressing their shared concept of law applies. But this is implausible, since legal practice in fact is rife with disagreement about what the grounds of law are (and thus, what counts as law or as legal). On the other hand, if legal practitioners do not share the same concept of law, then their disagreement about what the grounds of law are must just be due to the fact that they are talking past one another. But that, too, is implausible. Legal practice, as Dworkin puts it, is not “a grotesque joke” (Dworkin 1986, 44). Accordingly, there must be something wrong with construing legal theories as mere semantic accounts of when the word “law” applies.

If, in light of this argument, we are to abandon the idea that first-order legal theories are semantic theories, there are two obvious ways to proceed. First, one might simply abandon the idea that legal theories are exercises in conceptual analysis. This was Dworkin’s preferred response, though, as we’ll see, one can reject conceptual analysis without adopting Dworkin’s own favored methodology. (More on that in sub-section 2.1.2.) Second, if one wants to still say that legal theories are in the business of analyzing the concept of law, then the obvious response to the semantic sting argument is to deny that concept possession just is a matter of knowing how the word “law” in its juridical sense is to be applied. This suggests a second, richer form of conceptual analysis that legal theorists might be engaged in.

The basic idea behind the richer view is to take it that concept possession, rather than merely being a matter of knowing when words apply, involves something meatier: namely, the possession of a wide range of substantive beliefs or intuitions about the concept, its essential features and its proper application. The assumption is that the intuitions one is disposed to have in virtue of possessing the concept of law will be fertile enough to constitute a particular substantive conception of what the law is and how it functions. The aim of a theory of law, then, would be to systematize these pre-theoretic judgments about the concept of law in order to provide an account of some substantive conception of law. (This sort of richer view of concept possession is discussed, e.g., in Raz 2004, 4–7; Stravopoulos 2012, 78–79; Shapiro 2011, 16–22. It is perhaps also the sort of view presupposed by Hart.) On this view, legal disagreement remains possible because while practitioners might all be using the same concept of law, the richness of the concept allows that they nonetheless might not possess the concept determinately enough, or understand its application conditions thoroughly enough, to guarantee consensus on theoretical questions about what the grounds of law actually are.

However, also this richer understanding of concept possession, and the meatier picture of conceptual analysis it gives rise to, has been widely criticized (Marmor 2013, 215–217; Raz 2004, 10; Leiter 2007, 177–79). One question that immediately arises is which concept of law, exactly, constitutes the proper target of a theory of law. Is it the concept of law that is possessed by the legal practitioners in a particular jurisdiction? Or is it some universally shared concept of law? Worries loom either way. If a legal theory only aims to capture the concept of law employed in a particular jurisdiction, then that would render the theory parochial and it might lose its interest for those who are not concerned with that particular jurisdiction. On the other hand, one might doubt that there really is a universally shared concept of law that is employed by practitioners in all jurisdictions—or if there is one, it is doubtful that it is anything more than the sort of thin concept that one possesses in virtue of knowing what the word “law” in its juridical sense means.

A deeper worry about all forms of conceptual analysis is the question of why we should care about anybody’s concept of law in the first place (Marmor 2013, 216–217; Leiter 2007, 177–79). After all, as philosophers, it seems that it is the nature of law itself that we care about understanding (Raz 2004, 7, 10). Granted, there are interesting sociological questions to be asked about what various groups of people believe to be the case about how law functions. But it is not obvious that there is anything distinctively philosophical about such questions. Insofar as philosophers (qua philosophers) are interested in what people believe about a given concept, this would be because understanding people’s beliefs about the concept is a route to understanding that which it is a concept of (Raz 2004, 4, 10). Accordingly, one might think that what theories of law aim to capture is not anybody’s concept of law in particular, but rather the nature of law itself. (See also the entry on concepts , section 5.2.)

A possible response to this objection is to assert that since law is a social phenomenon and is in part constituted by practitioners’ own understanding of the practice they are engaged in, collecting evidence about the concept of law possessed by legal practitioners is an especially useful way to investigate law itself (Stravopoulos 2012, 79). Still, one might wonder whether this route to investigating the nature of law itself would be the most effective strategy to employ, given its indirectness. Why limit ourselves to asking questions about concepts if law can be studied directly?

A very different response would be to adopt a Platonist account of concepts, according to which they are not mental representations at all, but rather abstract objects akin to the objects of mathematical inquiry. The concept of law, then, would be the abstract object one must grasp in order to think about law. Accordingly, it is this abstract object— the concept of law—that philosophers care about and aim to investigate using the method of conceptual analysis (cf. Bealer 1998). Nonetheless, this view of concepts faces familiar objections. For one, an account is needed of how we can have access to the concept of law, conceived of as an independently existing abstract object. Moreover, even if we can access it, a puzzle arises about how different people who all determinately grasp the concept of law could possibly end up disagreeing about its nature (Sarch 2010, 468–73). Finally, while it might be plausible that a priori disciplines like mathematics and logic aim to investigate abstract objects (see the entry on platonism in the philosophy of mathematics ), it is not clear that the investigation of a social phenomenon like the law, which is heavily dependent on human beliefs, attitudes and behavior, can be understood analogously. While mathematicians might be investigating the nature of abstract objects like numbers or sets, it seems more doubtful that legal philosophers are investigating the abstract object law .

Given the above doubts about conceptual analysis, several views have been suggested according to which first-order legal theories are primarily in the business of describing and explaining the nature of law itself , not any concept of it. Reductionist and naturalistic views fall into this category. (As noted below, such views need not completely eschew the armchair methods just sketched, but to the extent these methods remain viable, a very different explanation of their defensibility would have to be given.)

In particular, reductionist views take it that illuminating the nature of law is a matter of explaining what the law is, and how it operates, in terms of more foundational facts. As a result, first-order theories of law succeed to the extent that they accomplish this in an explanatorily powerful way (Marmor 2013). The goal of a first-order theory, on this sort of view, is to offer a metaphysical reduction of law: that is, to show that the phenomenon of law is actually constituted by, and fully reducible to, some other more foundational type of phenomenon (in the way that chemistry could in principle be reduced to particle physics). Thus construed, positivism, for example, would seek to explain the nature of law by reducing facts about what the law is, how it functions and what it requires, to more foundational social facts—e.g., about people’s behavior, beliefs and dispositions. By providing a reduction of this kind, a theory like positivism purports to illuminate the phenomenon of law itself by breaking it down into its constituents and explaining how they together make up the complex social practice that is the law. (For more on metaphysical reduction in general, see Schroeder 2007, 61–83; see also the entry on scientific reduction .)

One well-known type of reductionist view is naturalized jurisprudence. Brian Leiter has been the most prominent defender of this position (Leiter 2007). Like other reductionist views, naturalized jurisprudence takes the aim of legal theories to be to explain the nature of law itself (not anybody’s concept of it). But what is characteristic of naturalized jurisprudence is that it also insists that a purely empirical methodology should be used in doing so (Leiter 2007, 180–81, 183–99). (See also the entry on naturalism in legal philosophy .)

Naturalists might part company with adherents of other reductionist views over whether or not the armchair methods of philosophers, and related appeals to intuitions, thought experiments and the like, are misguided. The naturalist is likely to reject this mode of inquiry, while other reductionists may be more amenable to using it. A reductionist could in principle defend this sort of inquiry, for instance, by claiming that our particular-case intuitions involve a concept that we have acquired from experience with legal practice, and so such intuitions can be one useful source of information about the nature of law itself. Moreover, if legal practice (as a social phenomenon) is partially constituted by practitioners’ own beliefs and attitudes towards the practice they are engaged in, then evidence about legal practitioners’ concept of law might prove especially relevant as evidence about the law itself (Stravopoulos 2012, 79).

By contrast, naturalists tend not to endorse the armchair method of testing theories of law against intuition, given their aim of making “philosophical theorizing continuous with and dependent upon scientific theorizing” (Leiter 2007, 35). Leiter argues that our intuitions about law are too unreliable to be afforded much epistemic weight (as others have argued with respect to intuitions in other areas of philosophy) (Leiter 2007, 180, 184; cf. Cummins 1998). On Leiter’s view, philosophers generally should aim to unpack the “concepts that have been vindicated by their role in successful explanation and prediction of empirical phenomena” (Leiter 2007, 184). Thus, he suggests a methodology that “tak[es] seriously the…social scientific literature on law…to see what concept of law figures in the most powerful explanatory and predictive models of legal phenomena such as judicial behavior” (Leiter 2007, 184). This methodological view, however, raises questions about why the legal philosopher should study only judicial behavior and not something else. More generally, the naturalist owes an account of what features of law are most in need of explication and why.

A different sort of concern that arises for reductionist views (and perhaps naturalistic views as well) is that it may pose particular problems for positivism. Specifically, if law is a normative phenomenon that gives rise to legal obligations, one might worry that it is not possible to reduce legal facts (i.e., facts about what our legal obligations are) to a set of purely non-normative facts, e.g., social ones. One might think that this would impermissibly transgress the familiar (though not uncontroversial) is-ought gap. (For a discussion of this sort of worry about positivism, see Shapiro 2011, 47–49.)

In response, one route that positivists who want to be reductionists could take is to maintain that legal facts really are descriptive in nature, not genuinely normative. In particular, such positivists might claim that facts about what legal obligations we have simply are descriptive facts about what the law holds that we ought to do—not normative facts about what we really ought to do (Shapiro 2011, 188; see also Hart 1994, 110).

Another recent methodological view developed by Plunkett and Shapiro (2017) takes general jurisprudence to be just another branch of metanormative inquiry. The latter kind of inquiry as a general matter aims to explain how normative thought, talk, and entities (if any) fit into reality. Metaethics is another branch of metanormative inquiry, which focuses on how ethical thought, talk and entities fit into reality. Thus, on the present view the subject of inquiry in general jurisprudence would be legal thought, talk and entities (if any), and the aim of the field would be to explain how such thought and talk about law—as well as legal structures and legal properties (if any)—are best accounted for in one’s general philosophical view of reality. On this view, jurisprudential inquiry would be continuous with—and methodologically quite similar—to the work done in other areas of normative inquiry, especially ethics and aesthetics.

One question that arises for this position, however, concerns the extent to which this is a distinct methodology from those discussed above. If the focus of one’s metanormative inquiry is legal thought and talk, we seem to get rather close to the conceptual analysis picture of how jurisprudence should proceed. On the other hand, if the focus of inquiry emphasizes how legal entities or properties fit into reality in general, then the view ends up seeming rather close to the naturalist position that the topic of jurisprudential inquiry is phenomenon of law itself. Nonetheless, perhaps a particular attraction of the metanormative view is that it can show how both the conceptual analysis picture and the naturalist picture capture distinct pieces of the bigger enterprise of the task that jurisprudence is engaged in. Thus, rather than purporting to replace the other methodologies discussed above, the metanormative view, if sound, would do away with there being a privileged starting point for jurisprudential inquiry (such as metaphysics of legal content, the semantic analysis of legal statements, or the nature of legal obligations).

A different sort of approach to methodology in jurisprudence takes it that the proper aim of a legal theory is to specify a substantive conception of law that it would be especially desirable for people to adopt. Moreover, even if the conception of law that this inquiry ends up supporting departs radically from our pre-theoretical understanding of law, then the resulting theory would recommend abandoning that prior understanding of law. Accordingly, if jurisprudence is chiefly a prescriptive endeavor, then theories of law might end up being radically revisionist in nature (though, of course, not necessarily).

As explained in the next sub-section, Dworkin’s methodological view incorporates some prescriptive elements. But one prominent advocate of an exclusively prescriptive project is Neil MacCormick (MacCormick 1985; see also Campbell 1996; Murphy 2001; Postema 1989; Schauer 1996; Waldron 2001). MacCormick argues that there are compelling normative arguments in favor of adopting a positivist conception of law. In particular, he suggests that values like autonomy and freedom of conscience demand that the law not regulate with a heavy hand “the sphere of aspirational values, of duties of self-respect and of duties of love,” a sphere that concerns “questing for the good beyond duty, or for the right lines of development of a self, or for the proper regard to bestow upon one’s family, friends or neighbors” (MacCormick 1985, 35–36). Values like autonomy and freedom of conscience, McCormack thinks, support the claim that at least within this sphere of conduct, it is desirable to keep the question of what the law requires entirely separate from the question of what morality requires. (However, MacCormick also allows that the law properly can regulate the sphere of “duties of justice,” as these duties are in some sense weightier (MacCormick 1985, 35).) Accordingly, at least in some spheres of conduct, the question of what the law is ought to be held distinct from the question of what morality requires. Thus, MacCormick seems to be offering a normative argument for a claim that has often been associated with positivism, namely a version of the Separation Thesis. (Though, as seen earlier, it is not clear that all positivists must be committed to a strong version of this thesis.)

While the question of what conception of law it is most desirable that people adopt is surely a significant one, it is important to note that the prescriptive view of methodology in jurisprudence is not genuinely in competition with either the conceptual analysis view or the reductionist approach. After all, it might turn out, for example, that positivism provides the best account of our concept of law, or perhaps is the best reductive account of the phenomenon of law itself, even though there are compelling normative arguments for changing the practice or adopting a new concept of it that, say, comports with natural law theory. Accordingly, accounts of the concept of law, or reductive theories of law, are not necessarily inconsistent with prescriptive accounts of what legal theory it would be most desirable from the moral point of view to adopt.

A final methodological view, which deserves separate treatment both because of its influence and sophistication, is Dworkin’s (Dworkin 1986). This view takes it that (i) the target of a first-order theory of law is existing legal practice and (ii) these theories succeed to the extent that they offer a defensible constructive interpretation (in Dworkin’s sense) of that practice. According to the constructive interpretation view, the aim of a first-order theory of law is not to analyze any concept or to reduce legal facts to other more foundational facts. Rather, the aim of a legal theory is to reconstruct the behavior and self-understandings of participants in legal practice and, moreover, to do so in a way that casts this practice in its best moral light. As a result, a theory of law is more successful the better it both fits with the data about how legal practitioners understand the practice they are engaged in, while also normatively justifying that practice (Dworkin 1986; Perry 1995, 129–31; see also the entry on legal interpretivism ).

One concern about the constructive interpretation view of methodology in jurisprudence is that it may not be in genuine competition with either the conceptual analysis or reductive views of methodology. After all, one sort of project is to explain what law actually is and how it operates (perhaps according to our concept of it). But it is a very different sort of project to explain how we should conceive of the law in order for legal practice to be normatively justified. It seems possible that our account of what law actually is tells us one thing (e.g., that certain features of it are essential and others not), while our account of what law should be like in order for the practice to be as justified as possible tells us to think of law in a rather different way (e.g., as having different essential features). Accordingly, some have argued that the constructive interpretation view engages with the other methodological views mentioned above only if it denies what they assert: viz., that legal theories attempt to provide an explanation (perhaps of some particular kind—e.g., reductive) of the actual nature of law (or perhaps our concept of it).

One way that adherents of the constructive interpretation view might deny what certain other methodological views assert is by denying that it is even possible to give a reductive explanation of law. (For discussion, see Marmor 2013, 218.) The thought would be to claim that law is a normative practice, and normative facts cannot be reduced to purely non-normative facts without losing something essential. In response, the reductionist might either deny that legal facts are genuinely normative (in which case the sought-after reduction would be unproblematic), or she might assert that any successful reduction will have to reduce legal facts to a set of facts that includes normative facts (in which case a version of natural law theory might appear attractive).

2.2 Is Legal Theory Inherently Evaluative?

A second widely-discussed question about jurisprudential methodology is whether first-order legal theories are inherently evaluative. The above views about the proper target of first-order theories of law have different implications about this second question. But before explaining that, we must first get the relevant question more clearly in view.

To begin with, one might wonder where the interest in the question of whether legal theory is inherently evaluative comes from. Some of this interest likely traces to the skeptical worry that legal theories purporting to be purely descriptive in fact are pushing some hidden ideological or political agenda. (For more on this, see, e.g., John Gardner’s introduction to Dickson 2004.) A second source of the interest in this question may be the suspicion (or hope) that if legal theory proves to be inherently evaluative, that would be an independent reason to adopt some version of natural law theory. Whether this is so remains doubtful, however, since meta-questions about the methodology of legal theory prima facie seem to be independent of questions in first-order legal theory like what the determinants of the content of law are. What is more, legal scholars might be drawn to the present issue through consideration of Dworkin’s argument that there is a very tight connection between the evaluative nature of theorizing about the law and the evaluative nature of law itself, rendering the content of law inevitably dependent, at least in part, on moral-political considerations. Regardless of the motivations for engaging in the debate about whether legal theory is inherently evaluative, however, this debate has taken on independent significance and has been a fruitful source of insight in its own right.

To avoid confusion, the question we are concerned with here must be clarified in several ways. For there are a number of uncontroversial ways in which legal theory plausibly is or might be evaluative, and these do not go to the heart of the methodological debates in jurisprudence.

First, there are several trivial ways in which legal theory, like theories about any topic , plausibly cannot be entirely value-free. In particular, it seems that one cannot engage in the business of theorizing about law without evaluating the extent to which various theories are coherent, simple, clear, elegant, comprehensive, and so on (Dickson 2004, 32–33). Granted this means that legal theorists must engage in a form of evaluation. But there is nothing special about legal theory in this regard. After all, these meta-theoretical virtues are criteria for the success of theories about any subject matter.

A second seemingly uncontroversial way in which legal theory is evaluative is that one cannot begin to develop a theory of law without determining which of its central features are to be accounted for (Dickson 2001, 38–45). John Finnis, for example, argues that one cannot do first-order legal theory without taking a stand on what the important features of law are that adequate theories must explain (e.g., the law’s claim to authority). However, this seems to require evaluation (Finnis 1980, 9–15).

Nonetheless, it is not likely to be especially controversial that legal theory is evaluative in this way. To see why, distinguish between (a) thick evaluative claims , which predicate some kind of moral goodness, or perhaps all-things-considered value, of an item and (b) thin evaluative claims , which do not. (This distinction roughly tracks Julie Dickson’s distinction between directly evaluative propositions and indirectly evaluative propositions. See Dickson 2001, 51–55.) Thus, the simplest thick evaluative claims have the form: \(X\) is morally [all-things-considered] good [bad] . Such claims might also be comparative in nature, such that they have the form: \(X\) is morally [all-things-considered] better [worse] than \(Y\). By contrast, thin evaluative claims judge how well some item fares relative to a standard that is neither moral nor all-things-considered normative. Such claims do not entail any thick evaluative claims either. Examples of thin evaluative claims thus would include “\(X\) is important” and “\(X\) is interesting”. Accordingly, even if legal theorists must make thin evaluative claims in order to be able to begin the project of developing a first-order legal theory, this does not mean that they must make thick evaluative claims in order to do so. After all, one might construct a theory that captures a range of legal phenomena that are deemed central or important, while still remaining agnostic about whether these phenomena are themselves valuable.

A third way in which legal theory could in principle be evaluative, though uncontroversially so, is suggested by the prescriptive view discussed in section 2.1.3. If the job of a first-order theory of law is to identify the concept of law it would be most desirable for us to employ, then there is a sense in which the resulting theory of law would of course be evaluative. Nonetheless, as seen above, prescriptive theories aim to answer a different question from theories in the conceptual analysis, reductive or interpretive categories. Thus, what matters to the debate about whether legal theory is evaluative is not whether legal theory in principle could be evaluative, but whether it is inevitably or necessarily so.

Now we are in a position to fully appreciate the question of primary interest here. In particular, it is whether theories about the nature of existing legal practice (or perhaps our concept of it) necessarily involve or entail thick evaluative claims about the law. That is, does offering a first-order theory of law of either the conceptual analysis, reductive or constructive interpretation varieties require one to accept claims about how valuable the law, or some feature of it, is? This is the question to be discussed in the remainder of this entry.

Some answers to the question that was discussed in section 2.1 suggest that theories of law are inherently evaluative in the sense of committing advocates of these theories to thick evaluative claims about the law. As we will see, this is most plausibly the case on the constructive interpretation view of methodology. By contrast, other answers to the question discussed in section 2.1 do not obviously entail that first-order legal theories commit their proponents to thick evaluative claims. In particular, this is the case for the conceptual analysis and reductive views of jurisprudential methodology. At least on their face, both these views seem to allow that there can be purely descriptive accounts of law—i.e., accounts that capture the central features of law without being committed to any moral or all-things-considered evaluation of the law. After all, one might think that a particular account does a good job of capturing some widely shared concept of law, but this does not obviously commit one to saying that law, on this concept of it, is good . Likewise, one might endorse a reduction of legal facts to some more foundational set of facts (e.g., certain social facts) without this committing one to thinking that the law is valuable or morally justified.

As a result, at least on their face, both the conceptual analysis and reductive views seem to allow that there can be first-order theories of law that are purely descriptive. Some argument would be needed if one is to endorse the opposite conclusion. Accordingly, let us consider some prominent arguments for thinking that legal theory must be inherently evaluative in nature. (For an overview, see Marmor 2011, 122–35.)

The argument from legal functions

One central argument to the effect that legal theory must be evaluative in the relevant sense begins from the idea that understanding what the law is requires taking a view about what functions it serves (Finnis 1980, 12–17; Perry 1995, 114–20). Moreover, one might think that functions are evaluative in the sense that attributing a function to something is to endorse a standard by which that thing may be judged as successful or unsuccessful. In this way, one might think that legal theory, too, is inherently evaluative.

While this line of thinking plausibly shows that legal theory requires accepting some evaluative claims, it does not obviously show that legal theory necessarily involves thick evaluative claims (Dickson 2001, 114–125). Claims of the form “the function of \(X\) is \(F\)” are naturally classified together with “\(X\) is important” (or more precisely, “\(X\) is important for some purpose \(Y\)”) as thin evaluative claims. Accordingly, asserting that the function of law is \(F\) does not obviously entail any thick evaluative claims about law. After all, it is not obvious why attributing a function to something requires believing that performing that function is either all-things-considered or morally good . Thus, attributing a function to law need not entail any thick evaluative claims.

The argument from the internal point of view

A second natural argument in favor of seeing legal theory as inherently evaluative in the relevant sense relies on the idea that any adequate theory of law must take account of the internal point of view that legal practitioners tend to adopt towards the law. More specifically, taking the internal point of view towards the law is a matter of adopting some kind of attitude of endorsement towards it, seeing it as in some sense justified or as providing reasons for action (Shapiro 2011, 96–97; Perry 1995, 99–100; see also the entry on legal positivism ). Moreover, it is common to think that a critical mass of the participants in legal practice must adopt the internal point of view towards the practice in order for the practice to genuinely count as law. This is a fact that any adequate theory of law must account for, one might think. Accordingly, since the internal point of view involves a positive evaluation of the law, and since any adequate legal theory must account for this point of view, one might infer that any adequate theory of law must itself be inherently evaluative. (One finds versions of such an argument, e.g., in Perry 1995, 121–25; Waldron 2001, 423–28.)

It is unclear whether this argument succeeds, however. After all, it seems in principle possible to explain what kinds of considerations legal practitioners endorse, and why, without oneself endorsing those considerations. Similarly, a first-order legal theory might be able to plausibly explain the truism that legal practitioners tend to take the internal point of view towards (i.e., endorse) the law in their respective jurisdictions without the theory thereby being committed to the claim that the law in any particular jurisdiction (or the law in general) is valuable or justified. Accordingly, it is not obvious why a theory of law cannot in principle capture the internal point of view taken by legal practitioners towards the law without itself being committed to any thick evaluative claims about the law.

The argument from interpretation

Probably the most influential argument for thinking that legal theory is inherently evaluative proceeds from the idea that legal theory is an interpretive endeavor in Dworkin’s sense (Dworkin 1986; for criticism, see Dickson 2001, 105; Marmor 2011, 126–30). To say that legal theory is an interpretive project is to claim that fully understanding what the law is requires construing it as the best instance it can be of the type of thing that it is. Moreover, one might think that in order to construe legal practice as the best instance of the kind of thing that it is requires making thick evaluative claims about the law. (See the entry on legal interpretivism .)

One might attempt to respond to this argument in two ways. A natural, though ultimately unsuccessful, reply is that construing something as the best instance of its kind that it can be does not require taking that kind to be good . Saying that Bernie Madoff was (for a time) the best fraudster in history does not entail that one approves of fraud. As a result, saying that the law must be thus-and-so in order to be a good instance of its kind does not commit one to any thick evaluative claims. Nonetheless, there is a deeper or more interesting sense in which Dworkin’s view renders legal theory inherently evaluative. For Dworkin, legal theory is an interpretive enterprise, and offering a constructive interpretation of legal practice requires construing it in its best moral light . Thus, offering an interpretation of legal practice would require taking a stand on which of the available ways of construing that practice is morally better than the others. Of course, this does not necessarily require asserting that the law, on any particular construal, is good —full stop. But it does seem to require at least saying that some construals of legal practice are morally better than other construals would be. This looks to be a thick evaluative claim, albeit a comparative one. Moreover, one cannot make such comparative judgments without having a view about what would make one construal of legal practice morally better than another. Thus, in at least this sense, taking legal theory to be an endeavor that is interpretive in Dworkin’s sense would make legal theory count as inherently evaluative in the sense we are concerned with here.

Accordingly, if one wants to maintain the possibility of purely descriptive first-order legal theories, a more promising strategy for responding to the argument from interpretation would be to question its key premise—viz., that legal theory necessarily is an interpretive endeavor in Dworkin’s sense. In order for a proponent of the argument from interpretation to assert this premise, some rationale would have to be given for it. That is, some argument would be needed to explain why we should think that understanding law requires giving a constructive interpretation of it. A critic of the argument from interpretation, then, might claim that the argument’s proponents have not carried their burden of providing a rationale for this premise, on which the argument crucially depends.

One possible rationale that might be offered here is that since social practices essentially involve communication, and understanding any form of communication necessarily involves interpreting speakers’ claims, understanding the social practice of law necessarily involves interpreting it. However, this rationale is too quick. Even if it is true that understanding any social practice requires interpretation of some kind or other , it does not follow that doing so requires a constructive interpretation in Dworkin’s sense —i.e., identifying a construal of the practice that casts it in its best moral light (Marmor 2011, 127–28). But the latter claim, of course, is what proponents of the argument from interpretation need to establish in order to reach their desired conclusion that legal theory is inherently evaluative.

Accordingly, we seem to be left in the following dialectical situation. Whether or not legal theory is inherently evaluative in the relevant sense depends on whether the argument from interpretation succeeds. Whether that argument succeeds, in turn, depends on its key premise, i.e., the claim that understanding the law necessarily requires giving a constructive interpretation of it. If a non-question begging argument can be given for this claim, then there would be reason to think that legal theory necessarily is evaluative in nature. By contrast, if no non-question begging argument can be given for thinking that understanding law requires a constructive interpretation, then one would be free to maintain that there can be purely descriptive first-order legal theories.

Of course, even if the argument from interpretation fails and purely descriptive legal theories remain possible , it could still be a worthwhile project to attempt to give a constructive interpretation of legal practice, and the output of this project would indeed be a partially evaluative theory. Nonetheless, these two types of theory would not genuinely be in conflict, as they would be addressed to answering different questions. In the end, therefore, “methodological pluralism” may be the most apt characterization of the state of play in jurisprudence.

• Asgeirsson, Hrafn, forthcoming, The Nature and Value of Vagueness in the Law , Oxford: Hart Publishing.
• –––, 2015, “On the Instrumental Value of Vagueness in the Law”, Ethics , 125(2): 425–448.
• Aquinas, St. Thomas, Summa Theologica , available online in English translation .
• Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio , On Free Choice of the Will, translated by Thomas Williams, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1995.
• Austin, John, 1832, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined , London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1954.
• Bealer, George, 1998, “Intuition and the Autonomy of Philosophy”, in M. DePaul and W. Ramsey (eds.), Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role in Philosophical Inquiry , Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 201–239.
• Burazin, Luka, Kenneth Einar Himma and Corrado Roversi (eds.), 2018, Law as An Artifact , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Campbell, Tom D., 1996, The Legal Theory of Ethical Positivism , Aldershot: Dartmouth.
• Coleman, Jules, 1998, “Incorporationism, Conventionality, and The Practical Difference Thesis”, Legal Theory , 4: 381–425.
• –––, 2001a, The Practice of Principle , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Coleman, Jules (ed.), 2001b, Hart’s postscript: Essays on the Postscript to ‘The Concept of Law’ , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Cummins, Robert, 1998, “Reflection on Reflective Equilibrium”, Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role in Philosophical Inquiry , M. DePaul and W. Ramsey (eds.), Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 113–128.
• Dickson, Julie, 2001, Evaluation and Legal Theory , Oxford: Hart Publishing.
• –––, 2004, “Methodology in Jurisprudence: a critical survey”, Legal Theory , 10(3): 117–156.
• Dworkin, Ronald, 1977, Taking Rights Seriously , London: Duckworth.
• –––, 1986, Law’s Empire , Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Enoch, David, 2011, “Giving Practical Reasons”, The Philosopher’s Imprint , 11(4): 1–22.
• Finnis, John, 1980, Natural Law and Natural Rights , Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Gardner, John, 2001, “Legal Positivism: 5 ½ Myths”, American Journal of Jurisprudence , 46: 199–227.
• Green, Leslie, 1996, “The Concept of Law Revisited”, Michigan Law Review , 94(6): 1687–1717.
• Greenberg, Mark, 2014, “The Moral Impact Theory of Law”, Yale Law Journal , 123: 1118.
• Hart, H.L.A., 1961, The Concept of Law , Oxford: Clarendon Press; 2nd edition with postscript by J. Raz & P. Bulloch (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
• Hershovitz, Scott, 2015, “The End of Jurisprudence”, Yale Law Journal , 124: 1160.
• Kelsen, Hans, 1945/1961, General Theory of Law and State , translated by Anders Wedberg, New York: Russell & Russell.
• Leiter, Brian, 2007, Naturalizing Jurisprudence: Essays on American Legal Realism and Naturalism in Legal Philosophy , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Lewis, David. 1969. Convention , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• MacCormick, Neil, 1985, “A Moralistic Case for A-Moralistic Law?”, Valparaiso University Law Review , 20(1): 1–41.
• Marmor, Andrei, 1992, Interpretation and Legal Theory , Oxford: Clarendon Press; revised 2nd edition, Hart Publishing, 2005.
• –––, 2001, Positive Law & Objective Values , Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• –––, 2011, Philosophy of Law , Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• –––, 2013, “Farewell to Conceptual Analysis (in Jurisprudence)”, in Waluchow & Sciaraffa (eds.), Philosophical Foundations of the Nature of Law , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 209–229.
• –––, 2014, The Language of Law , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 2016 [2018], “Norms, Reasons and the Law”, Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 16-19 ; reprinted in K. Himma et al. (eds.), Unpacking Normativity , Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2018.
• –––, 2018, “Law as Authoritative Fiction”, Law and Philosophy , 37: 473.
• –––, 2019, “What’s Left of General Jurisprudence: On Law’s Ontology and Content”, Jurisprudence , 10: 151–170.
• Moore, Michael, 1998, “Hart’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript”, Legal Theory , 4: 301–327 .
• Murphy, Liam, 2001, “The Political Question of the Concept of Law,” in Coleman, Jules (ed.), Hart’s postscript: Essays on the Postscript to ‘The Concept of Law’ , Oxford: Oxford University Press, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 371–409.
• Perry, Stephen, 2001, “Hart’s Methodological Positivism”, in Coleman, Jules (ed.), Hart’s postscript: Essays on the Postscript to ‘The Concept of Law’ , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 311–354.
• Plunkett, David and Scott Shapiro, 2017, “Law, Morality, and Everything Else: General Jurisprudence as a Branch of Metanormative Inquiry”, Ethics , 128(1): 37–68.
• Postema, Gerald, 1989, Bentham and the Common Law Tradition , Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Raz, Joseph, 1972, “Legal Principles and the Limits of Law”, The Yale Law Journal , 81 (5): 823–854; reprinted in M. Cohen (ed.), Ronald Dworkin and Contemporary Jurisprudence , Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1984.
• –––, 1979, The Authority of Law , Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• –––, 1994, “Law, Authority and Morality”, in J. Raz, Ethics In The Public Domain , Oxford: Clarendon Press, Chapter 9.
• –––, 2004, “Can there be a Theory of Law?”, in Golding & Edmundson (eds), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory , Oxford: Blackwell.
• Rosen, Gideon, 2010, “Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction”, in B. Hale & A. Hoffman (eds.), Modality: Metaphysics, Logic and Epistemology , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 109–136.
• Sarch, Alexander, 2010, “Bealer and the Autonomy of Philosophy,” Synthese , 172: 451–474.
• Schauer, Fredrick, 1996, “Positivism as Pariah,” in The Autonomy of Law: Essays on Legal Positivism , Robert P. George (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 31–55.
• Schroeder, Mark, 2007, Slaves of the Passions , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Shapiro, Scott, 2011, Legality , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Stavropoulos, Nicos, 2012, “Obligations and the Legal Point of View,” in The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Law , A. Marmor (ed.), London: Routledge.
• Waldron, Jeremy, 2001, “Normative (or Ethical) Positivism”, in Jules Coleman (ed.), Hart’s postscript: Essays on the Postscript to ‘The Concept of Law’ , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 410–434.
• Waluchow, Wil, 1994, Inclusive Legal Positivism , Oxford: Clarendon Press.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

[Please contact the authors with suggestions.]

Austin, John | Bentham, Jeremy | concepts | feminist philosophy, interventions: philosophy of law | Hobbes, Thomas: moral and political philosophy | law: and language | legal obligation and authority | legal reasoning: interpretation and coherence in | legal rights | limits of law | mathematics, philosophy of: Platonism | naturalism: in legal philosophy | nature of law: interpretivist theories | nature of law: legal positivism | nature of law: natural law theories | political obligation | reduction, scientific

Copyright © 2019 by Andrei Marmor < am2773 @ cornell . edu > Alexander Sarch < a . sarch @ surrey . ac . uk >

• Accessibility

Support SEP

Mirror sites.

View this site from another server:

• Info about mirror sites

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2023 by The Metaphysics Research Lab , Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

• Search Menu

Sign in through your institution

• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Emotions
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Acquisition
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Culture
• Music and Media
• Music and Religion
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Society
• Law and Politics
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Neuroanaesthesia
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Oncology
• Medical Toxicology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Medical Ethics
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Games
• Computer Security
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business History
• Business Ethics
• Business Strategy
• Business and Technology
• Business and Government
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic Methodology
• Economic History
• Economic Systems
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Theory
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Politics and Law
• Politics of Development
• Public Policy
• Public Administration
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

• < Previous chapter
• Next chapter >

8 Philosophical Research in Law: The Possibilities

• Published: January 2020
• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

In spite of being abstract in higher levels of reasoning, the philosophical approach to legal research is expected to be rooted in social realities. Both at the lower and higher levels of jurisprudence, and in specific and general research inquiries, the possible assistance that can be gathered from philosophical research is substantial. By delineating its key features, and by abstracting instances through reverse engineering, the indispensability of philosophical research in law is highlighted in this chapter. Inter-disciplinary analysis is necessary to demonstrate the potential for facilitating the development of the legal system through employment of tools and processes such as intuitionalism, dialectical method, and reflective thinking. Deconstructing the philosophical research in law through the lens of adjudicative and norm-building processes has practical advantages. Thus, philosophical research is an indispensable instrument in the toolbox of a legal researcher.

Signed in as

Institutional accounts.

• GoogleCrawler [DO NOT DELETE]
• Google Scholar Indexing

Personal account

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code
• Add your ORCID iD

Institutional access

Sign in with a library card.

• Sign in with username/password
• Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Rights and permissions
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

• Completed DPhil Projects

The University’s legal research community includes more than 200 postgraduate students engaged in research degrees in the Law Faculty and its centres. It is one of the largest and most intellectually diverse research communities in the world. Many of our research degree alumni are now global leaders in the fields of academia, legal practice, the judiciary and public service. The following list gives details of completed DPhil theses since 2010, with many of these DPhils generating published work in articles and books at the cutting edge of legal scholarship. Many other master’s and doctoral research theses are held in the collection of the University’s Bodleian Law Library.

Administrative and Constitutional Law

Civil procedure and evidence, commercial law, comparative law, competition law, computers and law, conflict of laws, contract law, corporate insolvency law, corporate law, criminology and criminal law, environmental law, human rights law, intellectual property law, international trade law, jurisprudence, law and finance, law of obligations, legal history, medical law and ethics, principles of financial regulation, property law, completed dphils in public international law, socio-legal studies.

• Research Groups
• Research Programmes
• Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
• Research Overview
• Graduate Discussion Groups

College of Arts & Sciences

Past Dissertations

Hyperlinked dissertations are available through  Proquest Digital Dissertations .

• Bibliography
• More Referencing guides Blog Automated transliteration Relevant bibliographies by topics
• Automated transliteration
• Relevant bibliographies by topics
• Referencing guides

Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Law’s philosophy'

Create a spot-on reference in apa, mla, chicago, harvard, and other styles.

Consult the top 50 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'Law’s philosophy.'

Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.

You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.

Browse dissertations / theses on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.

Bicca, Renato Hungria Requião de. "Emoções, interpretação e aplicação legal : com enfoque nas reflexões de Martha C. Nussbaum." reponame:Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFRGS, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10183/13150.

Seifried, Michael Matthew. "THE LAW’S CLAIM TO JUSTICE: NORMATIVITY AND THE MORALITY OF THE LAW -BRANDOM, KORSGAARD, AND SOPER-." Miami University Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=muhonors1115405137.

Zanin, Fabrício Carlos. "De volta de Siracusa e os escândalos da filosofia(no direito): linguagem em Martin Heidegger, Thomas Hobbes e Giorgio Agamben." Universidade do Vale do Rio do Sinos, 2007. http://www.repositorio.jesuita.org.br/handle/UNISINOS/2419.

Daly, Christopher John. "Universals and laws of nature." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.285097.

Sugrue, Seana Carole. "The somatic state : the dialectics of law's morality." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/NQ64676.pdf.

Winters, Andrew Michael. "A Natural Case for Realism: Processes, Structures, and Laws." Scholar Commons, 2015. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/5603.

Mor, Shany Moshe. "Law's author, things personated, political representation." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:142e4065-de3c-47ff-a940-f85215fad920.

Smith, Sheldon Russell. "Laws and causation : a defense of a modified covering-law conception of causation /." The Ohio State University, 1998. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487949508369487.

Armstrong, John Melvin 1967. "The politics of virtue in Plato's "Laws"." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/288866.

Weintraub, Mark. "Montesquieu's political philosophy in The Spirit of the Laws : civic republicanism and commercial society." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.334155.

Yates, Alexander. "Frege's case for the logicality of his basic laws." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/12252.

Wheeler, Billy Michael. "The metaphysics of ideal laws : a Humean account." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.707900.

CARROLL, JOHN WILLIAM. "THE NATURE OF PHYSICAL LAWS (CAUSATION, NECESSITY, ONTOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY)." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/183855.

Hempel, Charlotte. "A literary critical and comparative analysis of the laws of the Damascus Document." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.319369.

Rakshit, Tommi. "Can there be special science natural laws? /." [S.l. : s.n.], 1999. http://www.gbv.de/dms/goettingen/305362488.pdf.

Saccone, Giuseppe Mario. "History as rhetoric in Hobbes' dialogue of the Common Laws and the rise of modern philosophy." Thesis, Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 2000. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B22050449.

Pfeifer, Jessica. "Playing dice with the universe : a combinatorial account of laws /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC IP addresses, 1999. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p9945694.

Arteau, McNeil Raphaël. "An Approach to the Laws: the problem of the harmony of the goods in Plato's political philosophy." Thesis, Boston College, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/960.

Psarras, Charalampos. "Law's authority and the division of moral labour between legislation and adjudication." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/9601.

Sutton, E. "Re-writing 'the laws of health' : William James on the philosophy and politics of disease in nineteenth-century America." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2013. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1401848/.

Parisi, Anthony. "A theory of constitutive tropes." Diss., University of Iowa, 2019. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/7009.

Rathgeb, Martin [Verfasser]. "George Spencer Browns Laws of form zwischen Mathematik und Philosophie : Gehalt - Genese - Geltung / Martin Rathgeb." Siegen : Universitätsbibliothek der Universität Siegen, 2016. http://d-nb.info/1102527351/34.

Hallengren, Anders. "The code of Concord : Emerson's search for universal laws." Doctoral thesis, Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för litteraturvetenskap och idéhistoria, 1994. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-14223.

Zhou, Hong Verfasser], Thomas Ede [Akademischer Betreuer] Zimmermann, Pirmin [Akademischer Betreuer] [Stekeler-Weithofer, and Andre [Akademischer Betreuer] Fuhrmann. "Laws and skills - an inferential diagnosis and defense / Hong Zhou. Gutachter: Thomas Ede Zimmermann ; Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer ; Andre Fuhrmann. Betreuer: Thomas Ede Zimmermann." Frankfurt am Main : Univ.-Bibliothek Frankfurt am Main, 2014. http://d-nb.info/1054399484/34.

van, Popering Ruben. "Jain Vegetarian Laws in the City of Palitana : Indefensible Legal Enforcement or Praiseworthy Progressive Moralism?" Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Centrum för tillämpad etik, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-119663.

Ferrari, Geoffrey Harrison. "Explaining right and wrong." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2008. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:99e1091c-aaef-4f75-b3cb-e64da557afba.

Cilliers, Judy-Ann. "The refugee as citizen : the possibility of political membership in a cosmopolitan world." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/96022.

Tricard, Julien. "Les quantités dans la nature : les conditions ontologiques de l’applicabilité des mathématiques." Thesis, Sorbonne université, 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019SORUL132.

Brown, Albert E. "Particularism in Justice." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1204652909.

Mumford, Peter John. "Enhancing performance-based regulation : lessons from New Zealand's building control system : a thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy [in Public Policy] /." ResearchArchive@Victoria e-Thesis, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10063/1206.

González, Rendón Diony. "Cicero Platonis Aemulus : une étude sur le De Legibus de Cicéron." Thesis, Paris 4, 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017PA040009.

Chapman, P. D. "Application of diffusion laws to composting : theory, implications, and experimental testing : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. [i.e. Doctor of Philosophy] at Lincoln University /." Diss., Lincoln University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10182/819.

McGowan, Wayne S. "Thinking about the responsible parent : freedom and educating the child in Western Australia." University of Western Australia. Graduate School of Education, 2004. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2005.0014.

Lopes, Ricardo Leon. "Pólis: reflexo das almas humanas. Contrato Social, Ética e Cidadania no diálogo Críton de Platão." Universidade de São Paulo, 2009. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8143/tde-23112009-151524/.

Johansson, Linda. "Robots and Moral Agency." Licentiate thesis, KTH, Filosofi, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-32400.

QC 20110414

Howell, Simon Peter. "Force of habit the mystical foundations of the narcotic." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002994.

Scrofani, Francesca. "Le Minos dans le Corpus Platonicum. Une théorie de la loi dans l'Académie." Thesis, Paris, EHESS, 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017EHES0101.

Wunderlich, Michel Patric. "Carl Hempel e a questão da explicação histórica: modernidade, filosofia científica e o \'covering-law model debate\'." Universidade de São Paulo, 2018. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8138/tde-28022019-125839/.

Pereira, Mateus Costa. "O paradigma racionalista e sua repercussão no direito processual brasileiro." Universidade Católica de Pernambuco, 2010. http://tede2.unicap.br:8080/handle/tede/914.

Junior, Roberto Angotti. "A busca da hermenêutica do justo à luz da teoria gadameriana." Universidade de São Paulo, 2016. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/2/2139/tde-21092016-103915/.

Parker, Michael L. "Sex and the Soul: Plato’s Equality Argument in the Republic ." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1147887701.

Solntseva, Irina. "Les récits de Platon sur le passé : entre le mythe et l'histoire." Thesis, Paris 4, 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015PA040083.

Ryu, Bobby Jang Sun. "Knowledge of God in Philo of Alexandria with special reference to the Allegorical Commentary." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3a849607-f23b-4d0f-b25f-51e084795c83.

Zhu, Xin. "Vivere civile : ordres, armes et religion chez Machiavel." Thesis, Lyon, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018LYSEN043/document.

Kirby, Coel Thomas. "Exorcising Matovu's ghost : legal positivism, pluralism and ideology in Uganda's appellate courts." Thesis, McGill University, 2008. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=112605.

Meyer, Marie-France. "Démétrios de Phalère, d'Athènes à Alexandrie (≈355 avant J.-C.-≈281 avant J.-C.)." Thesis, Orléans, 2010. http://www.theses.fr/2010ORLE1154.

Lenglart, Elie. "La théorie générale des conflits de lois à l’épreuve de l’individualisme." Thesis, Paris 2, 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019PA020075.

Chevalier, Jean-Marie. "Les Lois de l'esprit chez Charles S. Peirce." Phd thesis, Université Paris-Est, 2010. http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00647143.

Trzonowicz, Alberto Samuel Milkewitz. "Indagação filosófica e educação judaica: as leis do estudo da Torá do Código de Maimônides como guia." Universidade de São Paulo, 2012. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/48/48134/tde-06062012-154450/.

Leite, Fábio Rodrigo. "Um estudo sobre a filosofia da história e sobre a historiografia da ciência de Pierre Duhem." Universidade de São Paulo, 2012. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8133/tde-13092012-094105/.

• How it works

Useful Links

How much will your dissertation cost?

Have an expert academic write your dissertation paper!

Dissertation Services

Get unlimited topic ideas and a dissertation plan for just £45.00

Order topics and plan

Get 1 free topic in your area of study with aim and justification

Yes I want the free topic

Law Dissertation Topics

Published by Owen Ingram at January 9th, 2023 , Revised On May 29, 2024

Law dissertations can be demanding because of the need to find relevant regulations, cases, and data to address the research problem successfully. It is of utmost importance to critically examine facts before framing the  research questions .

Selection of the most appropriate legal terms and legal authorities, whether online or in print, can be challenging, especially if you have not tackled a law dissertation project before.

To help you select an intriguing law  dissertation  topic,  our expert writers have suggested some issues in various areas of law, including trust law, EU law, family law, employment and equality law, public law, tort law, intellectual property rights, commercial law, evidence, and criminal law, and human rights and immigration law.

These topics have been developed by PhD-qualified writers of our team , so you can trust to use these topics for drafting your dissertation.

Review the step-by-step guide on how to write your own dissertation  here.

You may also want to start your dissertation by requesting  a brief research proposal  from our writers on any of these topics, which includes an  introduction  to the topic,  research question , aim and objectives ,  literature review  along the proposed  methodology  of research to be conducted.  Let us know  if you need any help in getting started.

Check our  dissertation examples to get an idea of  how to structure your dissertation .

Review the full list of dissertation topics for 2024 here.

Law Dissertation Topics & Ideas

Topic 1: the role of international criminal laws in reducing global genocide.

Research Aim: This study aims to find the role of international criminal laws in reducing global genocide. It will be an exploratory study identifying the explicit and implicit effects of international criminal laws on the worldwide genocide. It will analyse different incidents of international genocide and find out how international criminal laws played a positive role in reducing these incidents. Lastly, it will recommend possible changes in international criminal laws to effectively mitigate global genocide. And it will be done by comparing criminal laws of world-leading powers to reduce genocide.

Topic 2: Impact of Anti-Racism Employment Laws on Organisational Culture- A Comparative Study on the Anti-Racism Employment Laws in the US and Canada

Research Aim: This research aims to find the impact of anti-racism employment laws on the organisational culture in the US and Canada in a comparative analysis. It will identify the change in employees’ behaviour after implementing anti-racism laws. Moreover, it will find whether employees gleefully welcomed these laws or showed resistance. And how do these laws affect the organisations’ performance that strictly implemented them?

Topic 3: Globalisation, international business transactions, and commercial law- A perspective from literature.

Research Aim: Students and practitioners can find the law of international business transactions as a subfield within a broader field of international commercial law to be somewhat amorphous.

This study will explain the impact of globalisation on international business transactions and commercial law by establishing some necessary links between the study of transnational business law and related fields of international studies. This study also aims to address theories about foreign business regulation, such as the idea that it is free of power politics. For the collection of data existing literature will be studied. The methodology of this research will rely on existing previous literature.

Topic 4: Investigating the impact of competition law on the businesses in the UK- Post Brexit

Research Aim: This study aims to investigate the impact of competition laws on businesses in the post-Brexit UK. The proposed study will not only analyse the performance of the businesses with the current competition laws. But also analyse the impact of possible changes in competition laws on the businesses in the post-Brexit UK. It will also incorporate the possible difference of changes in competition laws in deal, no-deal, hard deal, and soft deal scenarios. This way of individually analysing the difference in competition laws due to the status of the UK’s deal with the EU will give better insights into how businesses will be affected by these laws in the post-Brexit UK.

Topic 5: A comparison between Islamic and contemporary laws against rape. Which law is the most effective in preventing this horrific crime?

Research Aim: For several years, marital and non-marital relations in Muslim-majority countries have been a source of controversy. Under Islamic law, it is strictly forbidden for a Muslim, or even non-Muslim, to engage in illicit sexual relations with the opposite gender under any situation. The current study will help us understand the concepts presented in Islamic laws about rape cases. In this context, a comparative analysis of Islamic and contemporary law will be explained. It will also identify efficient and effective strategies to prevent this horrific crime.

Law Dissertation Topics for the COVID Crisis

Topic 1: the legal implications of the covid-19 pandemic on canadian immigration and the way forward..

Research Aim: This study will focus on how the Canadian government benefits from resources accrued from immigration, the impact of COVID-19 on Canadian Immigration, the current legislation on immigration, the effects of COVID-19 on the immigration law, the possible amendments that could help cushion the impact and the way forward.

Topic 2: Effect of COVID-19 on the United States Immigration policies; an assessment of International Legal agreements governing pandemic disease control and the way forward.

Research Aim: This research will focus on the pandemic’s effect on immigration policies in the United States. It also suggests the required steps based on the laws that regulate government acts during an outbreak of a pandemic.

Topic 3: Creating legal policies in preparedness for the global pandemic; lessons from COVID-19 on Canadian immigration policies.

Research Aim: This research will focus on how the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world and how most countries seemed unprepared. Historical background of the flu pandemic can also be made to assess how the world overcame the pandemic. And the need for the Canadian government or any other country you wish to choose can prepare for a global pandemic by creating legal policies that could help prepare ahead for such a period, such as policies on scientific research and funding.

Topic 4: The need for uniformity of competition law and policy in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries; An approach to the European Union standard.

Research Aim: This research will focus on the Gulf Cooperation Countries and their current legislation on competition law and its implications. Countries under the European Union’s competition law, the legal implications, and the need to consider such a part.

Topic 5: The need for competition law and policy enforcement; An analysis of the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries.

Research Aim: This research focuses on the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries’ competition laws and their enforceability. It analyses the benefits of enforcing the competition law and looks at the European Union’s uniformed laws and their benefits. It looks into the various countries, how the competition law currently works, and how it can affect each country’s economy in a better way or adequately enforced.

Topic 6: Provisions of the law on rape, the need to expand its coverage on the misuse of its provisions, and false accusations.

Research Aim: This research will focus on the law’s present provisions on rape and rape victims and the recent false accusations.

Topic 7: Summary dismissal of workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, the legal implications under the labour law, and the way forward. The Case Study of Nigeria

Research Aim: This research will focus on the statistics of people who were summarily dismissed during the COVID-19 pandemic based on natural occurrences, provisions of the law against summary dismissal, and its enforcement, and how this can be cushioned against future events. The labour law needs to be expanded to cover similar situations to protect workers.

Topic 8: A legal assessment of the settlement of international disputes through the peaceful process and its effectiveness

Research Aim: This research focuses on the mode of dispute settlement in the international community, assessment of international laws and treaties on peaceful settlement of conflicts among countries of member states, the methods of dispute settlements, its strengths and weaknesses, and the need to improve the current mechanisms of peaceful settlement in the international community.

Topic 9: The protection of minority shareholders and the majority shareholders' power in Companies, a critical analysis of the Nigerian Companies and Allied Matters Act provisions.

Research Aim: This research will focus on the law’s provisions for protecting minority shareholders in companies and the majority shareholders’ power. How effective are these provisions in protecting the minorities against the management of the majority shareholders, and what is the way forward

More Law Dissertation Topics

Topic 1: world bank developmental projects and greater accountability.

Research Aim: Examine communities impacted by development operations under the World Bank Development project schemes using the project law model to understand the lack of participation and successful influence of these communities to improve accountability and good governance.

Topic 2: The right to bear arms: Rethinking the second amendment

Research Aim: Gun control and the right to bear arms has been an ever-evolving web discourse in the United States. The research aims to analyse how gun control laws have changed in the USA since specifically focusing on the 2nd Amendment and its original framework.

Topic 3: Rethinking the international legal framework protecting journalists in war and conflict zones.

Research Question: Is the current legal framework still appropriate for protecting journalists in today’s conflict zones? Research Aim: The primary body of law that is set out to protect journalists includes the Geneva Conventions and their additional Protocols. However, since the time they were drafted and decades after, there have been conspicuous changes to the way warfare is conducted. It is imperative to examine this body of law in order to improve it, as journalists have now become prime targets in war zones and conflict areas because of their profession.

Topic 4: A critical analysis of the employment law of disabled individuals in the UK and what new policies can be integrated to increase its efficiency.

Research Aim: Employment or labour law has always been under the limelight. Many critiques and researchers have proposed different amendments to the existing law pertaining to labour and employees. The main aim of the research is to critically analyse the employment law of disabled individuals in the UK along with effective recommendations that need to be made in order to make the existing law more efficient and effective.

Topic 5: A critical evaluation of racial discrimination laws in developed countries and how they impact the workplace environment

Research Aim: Racial discrimination has always been a controversial issue in almost every part of the World. However, many developed countries (companies) face severe racial discrimination issues that directly impact their name and brand value. Therefore, this research provides a critical evaluation of racial discrimination laws, particularly in developed countries. Moreover, the research will focus on how racial discrimination laws are impacting the workplace environment.

Topic 6: A comparative analysis of legislation, policy, and guidelines of domestic abuse between the UK and the USA.

Research Aim: Domestic laws basically deal with and provide criminal rules for punishing individuals who have physically or emotionally harmed their own family members. It has been found that many domestic cases of abuse are not reported to the concerned authority. Due to this reason, the main focus of the research is to conduct a comparative analysis of legislation, policy, and guidelines of domestic abuse between the UK and the USA and how effective both countries have been in minimising domestic abuse.

Topic 7: Analysing the negative impact of technology in protecting the intellectual property rights of corporations.

Research Aim: Intellectual property has gained significant importance after the emergence of counterfeit products coming from different parts of the world. It has been found that many factors have motivated the sale of counterfeit products. Therefore, this research aims to analyse the negative impact of technology in protecting the intellectual property rights of products and corporations.

Topic 8: A critical assessment of the terrorism act of 2010 and its impact on Muslims living around the globe.

Research Aim: Since the incident of 9/11, the entire world has been under the pressure of terrorism activities, especially Muslims living around the world. Therefore, this research intends to critically assess the terrorism act of 2010 and its impact on Muslims living around the globe.

Trust Law Dissertation Topics

The trust law requires the settler to meet the three certainties, including the object, intention, and subject matter. As posted to a moral obligation or mere gift, confidence of choice can be best described as clarity of purpose. Some interesting dissertation topics in the field of trust law  are listed below:

• To investigate the attitude of the courts to trusts supporting political agendas.
• To identify and discuss principles on which half-secret and full-secret trusts are enforced. Does a literature review highlight circumstances where it is essential to consider whether such beliefs are constructive and expressive?
• The role and impact of trust law as asset portioning and fiduciary governance
• From law to faith: Letting go of secret trusts
• Critical analysis of the statement “Traditionally, equity and the law of trusts have been concerned with providing justice to balance out the rigour of the common law” regarding modern equity development/operation.
• Should the assumption of resulting trusts and progression be abolished in this modern age? A critical review of the literature
• A critical examination of the courts’ concern of financial reward in the context of “trustee powers of investment.”
• Does the doctrine of cypress do justice to the intentions of the testator?
• The impact of the decision of Harrison v Gibson on the law of the clarity of intention.
• The approval of trustees in the Zimbabwean law of trusts

Want more?   Read this.

How Can ResearchProspect Help?

ResearchProspect writers can send several custom topic ideas to your email address. Once you have chosen a topic that suits your needs and interests, you can order for our dissertation outline service which will include a brief introduction to the topic, research questions , literature review , methodology , expected results , and conclusion . The dissertation outline will enable you to review the quality of our work before placing the order for our full dissertation writing service!

European Law Dissertation Topics

European law has recently attracted wide attention from the academic world, thanks to the growing influence of European Law on administrative law in EU members. It should be noted that every aspect of life in European states is significantly affected by European law, and therefore, this area of research has gained tremendous popularity. Some exciting and specific research areas are given below:

• A critical review of the European anti-discrimination Law
• To investigate the economics and history of European Law.
• An investigation of the European human rights law
• Investigating the impact of “Freedom of Speech” on the German economy
• Investigating the impact of immigration laws on the German economy
• How the French parliamentary sovereignty has been affected by the European Union
• Uniform interpretation of European patent law with a unique view on the creation of a standard patent court
• The impact of European consensus in the jurisprudence of the European court of Human Rights.
• The impact of the European convention on human rights on international human rights law
• A critical analysis of the tensions between European trade and social policy
• To investigate the European Union’s enforcement actions and policies against member countries.
• European Laws amidst the Brexit process

Read this Article.

Family Law Dissertation Topics

A wide range of topics are covered under the field of family law and the law of children. Essentially, this area of law takes into consideration the registration of marriages, statutory rights concerning marriage, the effects of a decree, void and voidable marriages, the impact of the Human Rights Act, the legal stature of unmarried and married individuals, and the case for reform of UK family law . Other research areas include enforcing financial responsibilities in the Magistrates court, enforcing the arrears of maintenance payments, the award of maintenance, enforcing financial obligations to children or a child, financial orders for children, and the Child Support Act. An extremely intriguing area of law that has gained tremendous popularity in the modern era, some specific  dissertation topics  in this area of law studies are listed below:

• Investigating therapeutic and theoretical approaches to deal with spouse abuse in light of the UK government’s latest research on domestic violence
• Unmarried fathers’ access to parental responsibility – Does the current law enforce rights and responsibilities towards children?
• To study the criminal justice process involving a child witness.
• The children’s right to participation – Rhetoric or Reality? – A critical review of literature from the past two decades
• To study the position of unmarried fathers in the UK.
• Does the UK Family law need a major reform?
• A critical review of the rights of married women in real estate
• Child welfare and the role of local authorities
• To study the legal and social foundations of parenting, civil partnership, and marriage.
• To examine whether the Child Support Act has positively influenced child maintenance.

“Complete this short online form and provide as much information as possible to receive instant quotes from our writers specialising in your area of research.”

Employment Law Dissertation Topics

Employment and equality law governs the relationship between the government, trade unions, employers, and employees.  Employment and equality law in the UK is a body of law that prevents bias and negative attitudes towards someone based on their ethnicity or race rather than work skills and experience. Some interesting dissertation topics  in this area of law are below:

• A critical investigation of the right to fair labour practices in the United Kingdom
• To determine the job’s inherent requirements as a defence to unfair discrimination or a claim – A comparison between the United Kingdom and Canada.
• The role of the South African Labour Relations Act in providing unhappy staff sufficient protection against unfair dismissals and discrimination at the workplace
• To investigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on employees’ lives with a focus on unfair dismissal and discrimination.
• To assess ethnic discrimination in the European Union: Derogations from the ban on discrimination – Sexual harassment – Equal pay for equal value work.
• To study the international employment contract – Regulation, perception, and reality.
• To identify and discuss challenges associated with equality at work.
• A study of the legal aspects of the relationship between employer and employee
• How influential is the role of trade unions in English employment law?
• A critical review of discrimination policies in the UK

Order a Proposal

Worried about your dissertation proposal? Not sure where to start?

• Choose any deadline
• Plagiarism free
• Unlimited free amendments
• Free anti-plagiarism report
• Completed to match exact requirements

Commercial Law Dissertation Topics

Commercial law, also known as business law, is the whole body of substantive jurisprudence applicable to the conduct, relations, and rights of sales, trade, merchandising, and businesses and persons associated with commerce. Important issues of law covered by commercial law include real estate, secured transactions, credit transactions, bankruptcy, banking, and contracts. An intriguing area of law within the UK, specific topics for your law dissertation are listed below:

• The impact of legislation for the regulation of investment services with EU economic area on the EU financial services market
• Handling regulatory involvement incorporates organisational structure and strategy.
• A study of convergence and complementarities concerning international corporate governance
• How drafting and diffusion of uniform norms can help to harmonise the law of international commercial arbitration?
• Convergence and adaption in corporate governance to transnational standards in India
• A critical review of the international commercial arbitration system
• Analysing the international commercial law on risk transfer
• The role of the tripartite financial system in the UK on economic development
• A comparative analysis of European contract law, international commercial contracts law, and English commercial contracts law
• Is the European contracts law meeting the needs of the commercial community?
• A critical review of anti-corruption legislation in the UK
• The problems of director accountability in the UK and the impact of soft and hard law on corporate governance

Criminal and Evidence Law Dissertation Topics

Criminal law  can be defined as a system of law dealing with the punishment of criminals. Criminal evidence, on the other hand, concerns evidence/testimony presented in relation to criminal charges. Evidence can be presented in various forms in order to prove and establish crimes. A wide array of topics can be covered in this subject area. To help you narrow down your research focus, some  interesting topics  are suggested below:

• The politics of criminal law reform with a focus on lower-court decision-making
• To understand and establish the historical relationship between human rights and Islamic criminal law
• Investigating the rights of victims in internal criminal courts
• The efficacy of the law of rape in order to prevent misuse by bogus victims and to protect rightful victims
• To assess the criminal law’s approach to Omissions
• To investigate the issues associated with the identification of the distribution, extent, and nature of the crime
• A critical review of the Bad Samaritan laws and the law of omission liability
• How international criminal law has been significantly influenced by the “war on terrors”?
• The efficacy of modern approaches to the definition of intention in International criminal law
• The efficacy of the law of corporate manslaughter

Company Law Dissertation Topics

Company law, also known as the  law of business associations , is the body of law that deals with business organisations and their formation, registration, incorporation, governance, dissolution, and administration. Some suggestions for company law dissertation topics are listed below:

• Developing equity markets in growing economies and the importance of corporate law
• A critical review of English company law and its effects on member workers and creditors
• To investigate the essential aspects of corporate law.
• To study business responsibilities for human rights.
• Identifying disparities in corporate governance – Theories and Realities
• The external relations of company groups in Zambian Corporate law
• To study corporate governance practices concerning minority stakeholders.
• Establishing and evaluating arguments for and against “stakeholder theory.”
• The importance of non-executive directors in the British corporate legal system
• Investigating the regulation of the UK public company

Hire an Expert Writer

Orders completed by our expert writers are

• Formally drafted in academic style
• Free Amendments and 100% Plagiarism Free – or your money back!
• 100% Confidential and Timely Delivery!
• Appreciated by thousands of clients. Check client reviews

Intellectual Property and Tort Law Dissertation topics

All forms of legal injury are dealt with under the subject area of tort law. Essentially, tort law helps to establish the circumstances whereby a person may be held responsible for another person’s injury caused by either accident or intentional acts. On the other hand, intellectual property covers areas of law such as copyright, patents, and trademarks. Trademark dissertation topics trademark directive, trademarks act, infringement of trademarks such as revocation, invalidity, and the use of similar marks. Some interesting dissertation ideas and topics  of tort law and intellectual property are suggested below to help your law studies.

• The efficacy of intellectual property rights in the UK under the influence of European Law
• The efficacy of UK copyright law concerning the needs of rights users and holders
• The impact of intellectual property rights on economic development.
• To investigate the right of confidence in the UK
• Does the trademark law ensure sufficient protection in England?
• The impact of European Law on intellectual property rights in the UK
• The end of the road for loss of a chance?
• To assess the success ratio of psychiatric injury claims in the UK
• Should a no-fault system be implemented into UK law, or should the law of negligence apply to personal injury claims?
• A critical review of economic loss in 21st-century tort law

Human Rights and Immigration Law

The primary objective of human rights and immigration law is to ensure and protect human rights at domestic, regional, and international levels. With the world becoming a global village, human rights and immigration laws have attracted significant attention from academicians and policymakers. Some interesting law dissertation topics in this subject area are suggested below:

• To assess the efficacy of the common European Asylum system in terms of immigration detention.
• A historical analysis of Britain’s immigration and asylum policies
• A critical analysis of immigration policy in Britain since 1990
• A critical analysis of the right of the police and the public right to protest under PACE 1984
• The right of prisoners to vote under the European law of human rights
• Arguments for and against the death penalty in English Law with a focus on human rights treatise
• A critical analysis of the right to private life and family for failed asylum seekers
• The impact of UK immigration policies on the current education industry
• How beneficial the points system has really been in regards to creating a cap in the British immigration system
• To study the impact of privatisation on immigration detention and related functions in the UK.

More Human Rights Law Dissertation Topics

Pandemic Law Dissertation Topics

Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has become the most trending topic in the world since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic that started in China. Here are some interesting Coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic Law topics that you can consider for your law dissertation.

• Co-parenting in the coronavirus pandemic: A family law scholar’s advice
• How San Diego law enforcement operated amid Coronavirus pandemic
• Pandemic preparedness in the workplace and the British with disabilities act
• Why, In a pandemic, rumours of martial Law fly despite reassurances
• Investigating About the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and COVID-19
• Resources to support workers in the UK during the Coronavirus pandemic
• Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic:
• A legal perspective
• Navigating the Coronavirus Pandemic
• Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) and employment laws in the UK going forward
• Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) and employment laws in the US going forward
• Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) and employment laws in Australia going forward

More Examples of Law Dissertation Topics

• A critical analysis of the employment law of disabled individuals in the UK and what new policies can be integrated to increase its efficiency
• A critical evaluation of racial discrimination laws in developed countries and how it impacts the workplace environment
• A comparative analysis of domestic abuse with the legislation, policy, and domestic abuse guidelines between the UK and USA.
• Analysing the negative impact of technology in protecting the intellectual property rights of corporations.
• A critical assessment of the terrorism act of 2010 and its impact on Muslims living around the Globe.
• Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Legal Practice
• The Rise of Blockchain Technology in Contract Law
• The Legal Implications of Gene Editing Technology
• Data Privacy in the Age of Social Media Surveillance
• The Impact of Automation on Employment Law
• The Regulation of Cryptocurrency and its Legal Challenges
• Cybercrime Investigations and International Cooperation
• Ethical Concerns of The Use of Big Data in Criminal Profiling
• The Effectiveness of Rehabilitation Programs for Young Offenders
• The Legal Challenges of Policing Protests and Demonstrations
• The Rise of Hate Speech and the Limits of Free Expression
• The Protection of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in a Globalised World
• Climate Change Litigation and the Rise of Eco-Justice
• The Regulation of Microplastics and its Environmental Impact
• The Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Environmental Protection
• Marine Protected Areas: Balancing Conservation and Economic Interests
• The Legal Challenges of Sustainable Development
• The Role of International Environmental Law in Addressing Climate Change
• The Regulation of Fintech and its Disruptive Potential
• The Rise of Mergers and Acquisitions in a Globalised Economy
• The Legal Challenges of Cross-Border Business Transactions
• Intellectual Property Rights in the Digital Age
• The Regulation of Artificial Intelligence in Businesses
• The Legal Implications of Same-Sex Marriage and Adoption Rights
• Surrogacy Arrangements and the Rights of All Parties Involved
• The Changing Face of Family Structures and the Law
• Child Custody Agreements in International Parental Disputes
• The Use of Mediation in Family Law Disputes
• The Rise of Populism and its Challenges to Democratic Institutions
• The Role of Judicial Review in Holding Governments Accountable
• The Regulation of Lobbying and its Influence on Policymaking
• National Security Laws and the Balance Between Security and Liberty

Hire an Expert Plagiriasm Checker

Uk’s best academic support services. how would you know until you try, important notes:.

As a law dissertation student looking to get good grades, it is essential to develop new ideas and experiment with existing law dissertation theories – i.e., to add value and interest to the topic of your research.

The field of law dissertation is vast and interrelated to many other academic disciplines like civil engineering ,  construction ,  project management , engineering management , healthcare , mental health , artificial intelligence , tourism , physiotherapy , sociology , management , project management , and nursing . That is why it is imperative to create a project management dissertation topic that is articular, sound, and actually solves a practical problem that may be rampant in the field.

We can’t stress how important it is to develop a logical research topic based on your fundamental research. There are several significant downfalls to getting your case wrong: your supervisor may not be interested in working on it, the topic has no academic creditability, the research may not make logical sense, and there is a possibility that the study is not viable.

This impacts your time and efforts in writing your dissertation as you may end up in a cycle of rejection at the initial stage of the dissertation. That is why we recommend reviewing existing research to develop a topic, taking advice from your supervisor, and even asking for help in this particular stage of your dissertation.

While developing a research topic, keeping our advice in mind will allow you to pick one of the best law dissertation topics that fulfils your requirement of writing a research paper and add to the body of knowledge.

Therefore, it is recommended that when finalising your dissertation topic, you read recently published literature to identify gaps in the research that you may help fill.

Remember- dissertation topics need to be unique, solve an identified problem, be logical, and be practically implemented. Please look at some of our sample law dissertation topics to get an idea for your dissertation.

How to Structure Your Law Dissertation

A well-structured dissertation can help students to achieve a high overall academic grade.

• A Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Declaration
• Abstract: A summary of the research completed
• Table of Contents
• Introduction : This chapter includes the project rationale, research background, key research aims and objectives, and the research problems. An outline of the structure of a dissertation can also be added to this chapter.
• Literature Review : This chapter presents relevant theories and frameworks by analysing published and unpublished literature available on the chosen research topic to address research questions . The purpose is to highlight and discuss the selected research area’s relative weaknesses and strengths while identifying any research gaps. Break down the topic, and binding terms can positively impact your dissertation and your tutor.
• Methodology : The data collection and analysis methods and techniques employed by the researcher are presented in the Methodology chapter, which usually includes research design , research philosophy, research limitations, code of conduct, ethical consideration, data collection methods and data analysis strategy .
• Findings and Analysis : Findings of the research are analysed in detail under the Findings and Analysis chapter. All key findings/results are outlined in this chapter without interpreting the data or drawing any conclusions. It can be useful to include graphs, charts and tables in this chapter to identify meaningful trends and relationships.
• Discussion and Conclusion : The researcher presents his interpretation of the results in this chapter, and states whether the research hypothesis has been verified or not. An essential aspect of this section is establishing the link between the products and evidence from the literature. Recommendations with regard to the implications of the findings and directions for the future may also be provided. Finally, a summary of the overall research, along with final judgments, opinions, and comments, must be included in the form of suggestions for improvement.
• References : Make sure to complete this according to your University’s requirements
• Bibliography
• Appendices : Any additional information, diagrams, and graphs used to complete the dissertation but not part of the dissertation should be included in the Appendices chapter. Essentially, the purpose is to expand the information/data.

About ResearchProspect Ltd

ResearchProspect is the world’s most trusted academic writing service that provides help with Dissertation Proposal Writing , PhD Proposal Writing , Dissertation Writing , Dissertation Editing, and Improvement .

Our team of writers is highly qualified. They are experts in their respective fields. They have been working for us for a long time. Thus, they are well aware of the issues and the trends of the subject they specialise in.

Free Dissertation Topic

Phone Number

Academic Level Select Academic Level Undergraduate Graduate PHD

Academic Subject

Area of Research

Frequently Asked Questions

How to find law dissertation topics.

To find law dissertation topics:

• Research recent legal developments.
• Explore unresolved issues or debates.
• Analyse gaps in existing literature.
• Consider societal or technological influences.
• Consult professors and peers.
• Select a topic aligning with your passion and career aspirations.

You May Also Like

Need interesting and manageable E-commerce dissertation topics or thesis? Here are the trending E-commerce dissertation titles so you can choose the most suitable one.

One of the challenging things that demand a lot of creativity is coming up with original journalism dissertation topics. In contrast to other disciplines, journalism dissertations are judged based on the interviewee’s quality of information.

This is a list of dissertation topics related to the lives and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning (LGBTQIA+) individuals.

USEFUL LINKS

LEARNING RESOURCES

COMPANY DETAILS

• How It Works

e-Publications@Marquette

Home > ARTSSCI > Philosophy > dissertations

Philosophy Dissertations and Theses

The Department of Philosophy Dissertations and Theses Series is comprised of dissertations and theses authored by Marquette University's Department of Philosophy doctoral and master's students.

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

Place, Attachment, and Feeling: Indigenous Dispossession and Settler Belonging , Sarah Kizuk

Nepantla and Mestizaje: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Mestizx Historical Consciousness , Jorge Alfredo Montiel

The Categories Argument for the Real Distinction Between Being and Essence: Avicenna, Aquinas, and Their Greek Sources , Nathaniel Taylor

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Modeling, Describing, and Explaining Subjective Consciousness- A Guide to (and for) the Perplexed , Peter Burgess

Looking Through Whiteness: Objectivity, Racism, Method, and Responsibility , Philip Mack

Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Maritain on the Student-Teacher Relationship in Catholic Higher Education , Timothy Rothhaar

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

The Empathetic Autistic: A Phenomenological Look at the Feminine Experience , Dana Fritz

Concerning Aristotelian Animal Essences , Damon Andrew Watson

When to Trust Authoritative Testimony: Generation and Transmission of Knowledge in Saadya Gaon, Al-Ghazālī and Thomas Aquinas , Brett A. Yardley

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

The Status of Irrationality: Karl Jaspers' Response to Davidson and Searle , Daniel Adsett

Cosmic City - Cosmic Teleology: A Reading of Metaphysics Λ 10 and Politics I 2 , Brandon Henrigillis

Phenomenal Consciousness: An Husserlian Approach , John Jered Janes

Al-Fārābī Metaphysics, and the Construction of Social Knowledge: Is Deception Warranted if it Leads to Happiness? , Nicholas Andrew Oschman

The Epistemology of Disagreement: Hume, Kant, and the Current Debate , Robert Kyle Whitaker

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

'Our Feet are Mired In the Same Soil': Deepening Democracy with the Political Virtue of Sympathetic Inquiry , Jennifer Lynn Kiefer Fenton

Towards a Philosophy of the Musical Experience: Phenomenology, Culture, and Ethnomusicology in Conversation , J. Tyler Friedman

Humor, Power and Culture: A New Theory on the Experience and Ethics of Humor , Jennifer Marra

Care of the Sexual Self: Askesis As a Route to Sex Education , Shaun Douglas Miller

Re-Evaluating Augustinian Fatalism through the Eastern and Western Distinction between God's Essence and Energies , Stephen John Plecnik

The Fantastic Structure of Freedom: Sartre, Freud, and Lacan , Gregory A. Trotter

The Province of Conceptual Reason: Hegel's Post-Kantian Rationalism , William Clark Wolf

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Hume on Thick and Thin Causation , Alexander Bozzo

Evolution, Naturalism, and Theism: An Inconsistent Triad? , David H. Gordon

The Parable As Mirror: An Examination of the Use of Parables in the Works of Kierkegaard , Russell Hamer

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Contextualizing Aquinas's Ontology of Soul: An Analysis of His Arabic and Neoplatonic Sources , Nathan McLain Blackerby

The Social and Historical Subject in Sartre and Foucault and Its Implications for Healthcare Ethics , Kimberly Siobhan Engels

Investigations of Worth: Towards a Phenomenology of Values , Dale Hobbs Jr.

Developing Capabilities: A Feminist Discourse Ethics Approach , Chad Kleist

Hegel and the Problem of the Multiplicity of Conflicting Philosophies , Matthew M. Peters

Aquinas, Averroes, and the Human Will , Traci Ann Phillipson

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Nature, Feminism, and Flourishing: Human Nature and the Feminist Ethics of Flourishing , Celeste D. Harvey

Kierkegaard in Light of the East: A Critical Comparison of the Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard with Orthodox Christian Philosophy and Thought , Agust Magnusson

The Secular Transformation of Pride and Humility in the Moral Philosophy of David Hume , Kirstin April Carlson McPherson

Living within the Sacred Tension: Paradox and Its Significance for Christian Existence in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard , Matthew Thomas Nowachek

Moral Imagination and Adorno: Before and After Auschwitz , Catlyn Origitano

Essence and Necessity, and the Aristotelian Modal Syllogistic: A Historical and Analytical Study , Daniel James Vecchio

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Subversive Humor , Chris A. Kramer

Virtue, Oppression, and Resistance Struggles , Trevor William Smith

Health As Embodied Authenticity , Margaret Steele

Recognition and Political Ontology: Fichte, Hegel, and Honneth , Velimir Stojkovski

The Conceptual Priority of the Perfect , Matthew Peter Zdon

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Dangerous Knowledge? Morality And Moral Progress After Naturalism , Daniel Diederich Farmer

Nietzsche's Revaluation of All Values , Joseph Anthony Kranak

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Re-Enchanting The World: An Examination Of Ethics, Religion, And Their Relationship In The Work Of Charles Taylor , David McPherson

Thomas Aquinas on the Apprehension of Being: The Role of Judgement in Light of Thirteenth-Century Semantics , Rosa Vargas Della Casa

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Naturalized Panpsychism: An Alternative to Fundamentalist Physicalism and Supernaturalism , Earl R. Cookson

The Concept of Personhood in the Phenomenology of Edmund Husserl , Colin J. Hahn

The Humanistic, Fideistic Philosophy of Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) , Charles William Peterson

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

Knowledge and Thought in Heidegger and Foucault: Towards an Epistemology of Ruptures , Arun Anantheeswaran Iyer

William James's Undivided Self and the Possibility of Immortality , Anthony Karlin

The Poetics of Remembrance: Communal Memory and Identity in Heidegger and Ricoeur , David Leichter

The Ontological Foundations for Natural Law Theory and Contemporary Ethical Naturalism , Bernard Mauser

Sexualized Violence, Moral Disintegration and Ethical Advocacy , Melissa Mosko

Spinoza on Individuals and Individuation: Metaphysics, Morals, and Politics , Matthew David Wion

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

The Paradox of Nature: Merleau-Ponty's Semi-Naturalistic Critique of Husserlian Phenomenology , Shazad Akhtar

Hume's Conception of Time and its Implications for his Theories of Causation and Induction , Daniel Esposito

Arabic Influences in Aquinas's Doctrine of Intelligible Species , Max Herrera

The Attestation of the Self as a Bridge Between Hermeneutics and Ontology in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur , Sebastian Kaufmann

Love's Lack: The Relationship between Poverty and Eros in Plato's Symposium , Lorelle D. Lamascus

Friendship and Fidelity: An Historical and Critical Examination , Joshua Walter Schulz

Natural Law Theory and the "Is"--"Ought" Problem: A Critique of Four Solutions , Shalina Stilley

Attending to Presence: A Study of John Duns Scotus' Account of Sense Cognition , Amy F. Whitworth

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

Friendship and Self-Identity in the Thought of Paul Ricoeur , Cristina Bucur

The Finality of Religion in Aquinas' Theory of Human Acts , Francisco José Romero Carrasquillo

The finality of religion in Aquinas' theory of human acts , Francisco J Romero

Theses/Dissertations from 2008 2008

Self-Identity in Comparative Theology: The Functional lmportance of Charles Taylor's Concept of the Self for a Theology of Religions , Richard Joseph Hanson

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

Husserl's Noema: A Critical Assessment of the Gestalt and Analytic Interpretations , Peter M. Chukwu

A Social Contract Analysis of Rawls and Rousseau: Supplanting the Original Position As Philosophically Most Favored , Paul Neiman

To Validate a Feeling: the Role of the Mood of Angst in Human Being , Gregory P. Schulz

The Conception and Attributes of God: A Comparison of Charles Sanders Peirce and Alfred North Whitehead , Scott W. Sinclair

John Rawls, Public Reason, and Natural Law: A Study of the Principles of Public Justification , Christopher Ward

Submissions from 2006 2006

Hans Jonas's ethic of responsibility applied to anti-aging technologies and the indefinite extension of the human life span , Jeffrey P Goins

David Hume and the Principle of Sufficient Reason , Ginger Lee

Virtue Theory in Plato's Republic , Griffin T. Nelson

The Principle of Alternate Possibilities: Finding Freedom after Frankfurt , Matthew F. Pierlott

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

Is There a Future for Marxist Humanism? , Jacob M. Held

Self-Love and Morality: Beyond Egoism and Altruism , Li Jing

Eikos Logos and Eikos Muthos: A Study of the Nature of the Likely Story in Plato's Timaeus , Ryan Kenneth McBride

Hume's Conclusions on the Existence and Nature of God , Timothy S. Yoder

Submissions from 2004 2004

The foundations of the politics of difference , Peter Nathaniel Bwanali

The Foundations of the Politics of Difference , Peter Nathaniel Bwanali

The Place of Justice in the Thinking of Emmanuel Levinas , Michael H. Gillick

New Waves in Metaethics: Naturalist Realism, Naturalist Antirealism and Divine Commands , Daniel R. Kern

Reason in Hume's Moral System , John Muenzberg

Conceiving Mind: A Critique of Descartes' Dualism and Contemporary Immaterialist Views of Consciousness , Kristin P. Schaupp

Respecting Plurality in Times of Change: Hannah Arendt's Conceptions of Political, Personal, and Ethical Responsibility , Stephen Schulman

Francis Suárez on the Ontological Status of Individual Unity vis-à-vis the Aristotelian Doctrine of Primary Substance , John W. Simmons

Through a Glass Darkly: Bernard Lonergan and Richard Rorty on the Possibility of Knowing Without a God's-Eye-View , Russell Snell

Theses/Dissertations from 2003 2003

Building a Heideggerian Ethic , Kelly A. Burns

St. Thomas Aquinas and the Self-Evident Proposition: A Study of the Manifold Senses of a Medieval Concept , Michael V. Dougherty

Ricoeur's Narrative Development of Gadamer's Hermeneutics: Continuity and Discontinuity , Keith D'Souza

Beauty's Resting Place: Unity in St. Augustine's Sensible Aesthetic , Matthew J. Hayes

Empathy and Knowledge: Husserl's Introductions to Phenomenology , Kevin Hermberg

The Transactional Model: A Critical Examination of John Dewey's Philosophy of Freedom , Mark N. Lenker III

Reflection on the "good" As a Source of Freedom in Virtue Theory , John D. Morse

Theses/Dissertations from 2002 2002

An Evaluation of Alvin Plantinga's Religious Epistemology Does It Function Properly? , James Beilby

Merleau-Ponty: Embodied Subjectivity and the Foundation of Ethics , Sarah A. Fischer

Advanced Search

• Notify me via email or RSS
• Collections
• Disciplines

Information about e-Pubs@MU

• General FAQ
• Philosophy Website

Home | About | FAQ | My Account | Accessibility Statement

Privacy Copyright

*Philosophy 120 EC: Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics

Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics is a specialisation of the MA Philosophy 120 EC .

Generally, students will be enrolled in two master’s programmes: the MA Philosophy 120 EC, and a master’s programme in Law, Political Science, or Public Administration.

Structure of the programme

The two-year programme consists of the following components:

MA courses in the chosen discipline outside philosophy (for a total of 40 EC)

Students complete 500-level master's courses in the desiplines of law, political science, or public adminstration for a total of 40 EC. These courses should form a coherent combination of subjects. These non-philosophical courses will be included in both master’s programmes.

Specialist courses (for a total of 20 EC)

Students complete two mandatory specialist courses, which are selected for the specialisation Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics (10 EC each). Please be informed that there will be one specialist course on offer each academic year.

Core seminar (10 EC)

Students complete one mandatory core seminar in practical philosophy that is specified for their programme.

Mandatory course in philosophy (10 EC)

Students complete one mandatory course in philosophy that is selected for the specialisation Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics. There will be one mandatory course on offer each academic year, the topic of which may vary from year to year.

Optional courses in philosophy (for a total of 20 EC)

Students select two optional courses in philosophy (each 10 EC), which can be spread over two years. Course topics are varying from year to year.

Master’s thesis, thesis seminar, and final exam (20 EC)

The MA programme will be concluded by a master’s thesis of 20 EC. The master’s thesis is an independent academic contribution to philosophy of law, political science, or public administration. Students follow the mandatory Thesis Seminar during the semester in which the thesis is being written. Before graduation students sit for a final exam for which they defend their thesis.

As students will generally be enrolled in two master’s programmes the MA Philosophy 120 EC requires a careful planning. Please see More info (below) for additional information and a possible (recommended) planning. Students are strongly advised to set up their study plan in consultation with the Coordinator of Studies before the start of the programme.

Leidse combinatie: recht en filosofie

Students who have completed the Leiden LL.M programme Encyclopedie en filosofie van het recht can be admitted to the MA Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics with a deficiency of 15 EC. These students are exempted from the non-philosophical part of the programme (40 EC). The requirements for the philosophical component of their MA programme in Philosophy 120 EC, however, are identical to those for students whithout a degree in Encyclopedie en filosofie van het recht, i.e. 80 EC's in total.

Transitional provisions

The specialisations Philosophy of Law, and Philosophy of Political Science are merged into the specialisation Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics. As of 1 September 2020 students in the former specialisations Philosophy of Law and Philosophy of Political Science will be registered in the specialisation Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics.

The following transitional provisions apply:

Students who started the specialisation Philosophy of Law before 1 September 2020 and have completed only one of the two specialist courses Philosophy of Law are required to complete one specialist course Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics.

Students who started the specialisation Philosophy of Law before 1 September 2020 and have completed both specialist courses Philosophy of Law are considered to have fulfilled the requirement for the two specialist courses Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics.

Students who started the specialisation Philosophy of Political Science before 1 September 2020 and have completed only one of the two specialist courses Philosophy Political Science are required to complete one specialist course Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics.

Students who started the specialisation Philosophy of Political Science before 1 September 2020 and have completed both specialist courses Philosophy Political Science are considered to have fulfilled the requirement for the two specialist courses Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics.

These transitional provisions will apply in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 for the full time programme, and from 2020-2021 to 2023-2024 for the part time programme.

Ending of part-time programme

The part-time programme of the MA Philosophy 120 EC is being phased out. As of 1 September 2020 starting the MA programme with part time tuition is no longer possible. Students who have started one of the specialisations of the MA Philosophy 120 EC as a part-time programme before 1 September 2020 will be allowed to complete the part-time programme up until August 2024.

Further information

For additional information concerning the objectives of the programme, the master’s thesis and requirements for graduation, see More info .

*First Year / Second Year

Objectives and achievement levels, contact data.

The MA Philosophy 120 EC programme has the following objectives:

• to enable students to acquire academic knowledge, understanding and skills, and train them in the use of scientific methods in the field of the philosophy of a discipline;
• to enable students to develop the following academic and professional skills:

independent academic reasoning and conduct,

the ability to analyse complex problems,

the ability to clearly report academic results, both in writing and orally;

• to prepare students for an academic career and further education;
• to prepare students for a career outside academia.

Learning outcomes

Graduates of the programme have attained the following learning outcomes, listed according to the Dublin descriptors:

1. Knowledge and understanding

a. knowledge and understanding in the field of the history, foundations, methodology and/or ethics of the specific discipline, in particular for

Philosophy of Humanities : knowledge and understanding of the methodologies, key terms, and philosophical foundations of the literary arts and humanities, as well as the philosophical reflection on the social and cultural meaning of the literary arts and humanities;

Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics : knowledge and understanding of the methodologies, key terms, and philosophical foundations of legal and social sciences, as well as the philosophical reflection on the social and cultural impact of these;

Philosophy in World Traditions : knowledge and understanding of one or more of the non-western philosophical traditions and their histories, as well as the relevant methodologies, key terms, and philosophical reflection on their linguistic, cultural, geographical, and historical underpinnings.

b. knowledge and understanding with regard to the social and cultural meaning of philosophy in general and the philosophy of the specific disciplines in particular;

c. knowledge and understanding of the main philosophical elements of the discipline as well as knowledge and understanding of the problems, methods and key terms of these elements.

2. Applying knowledge and understanding

• the ability, based on the acquired knowledge and understanding, to contribute to discussions in philosophy of the specific discipline, and in related areas.

3. Judgement

the ability, on the basis of the sound knowledge of philosophy acquired during the programme, to analyse complex philosophical problems;

the abilty to judge the reliability of different kinds of sources;

to forme judgements based on different kinds of sources;

a realistic view of the reliability of their conclusions;

the ability to integrate different approaches to philosophical questions and compare these with each other.

4. Communication

the ability to give a clear presentation of philosophical problems, ideas, theories, interpretations and arguments, for specialist audiences as well as for a general audience;

the ability to write philosophical papers at an academic level.

5. Learning skills

• the possession of learning skills that allow graduates to continue their study of philosophy of the specific discipline, and to formulate a research proposal for a PhD.

The MA Philosophy 120 EC consists of the following components:

Philosophical component

20 EC / 2 Mandatory specialist courses in philosophy of the specific discipline

10 EC / 1 Mandatory core seminar

10 EC / 1 Mandatory course in philosophy

20 EC / 2 Optional courses in philosophy

20 EC / Master’s thesis, Thesis seminar, and Final exam

Non-philosophical component

• 40 EC / Master's courses in the chosen academic discipline outside philosophy (level 500)

Students are expected to hold a bachelor’s degree in the discipline of the chosen specialisation, which enables them to enrol in a second programme and complete the non-philosophical component of their master’s programme. Students who have already obtained a master’s degree in the chosen (non-philosophical) discipline before starting the MA Philosophy 120 EC are normally exempted from this part of the programme.

A maximum of 10 EC of the non-philosophical component of the MA programme in Philosophy 120 EC can be replaced by an internship. If more than 10 EC have been obtained for the internship the extra credits will be recorded as extra-curricular components on the diploma supplement.

A possible, or recommended planning of the two-year programme is presented below. Please note that the sequence of the various components of individual programmes may deviate from the scheme proposed due to the availability of courses in a particular semester, or to the extent to which the non-philosophical part of the programme has already been completed. Students must keep in mind that there will be one specialist course on offer each year; therefore one of these mandatory specialist courses must be completed in the first year and the other one in the second year.

30 EC / MA/Msc courses in the chosen discipline outside philosophy

10 EC / Specialist course

10 EC / Core seminar

10 EC / Optional course in philosophy

Second Year

10 EC / MA/Msc courses in the chosen discipline outside philosophy

10 EC / Specialist course Philosophy of Humanities

10 EC / Mandatory course in philosophy

20 EC / MA thesis, Thesis seminar, and Final exam

Depending on the number of enrolments the specialist courses will be offered either as a full seminar or as a series of tutorial sessions.

The part-time programme is offered as a daytime course. The full-time programme spans two years (including the non-philosophical component), the part-time programme spans three years. The only difference between the two programmes is in the length of time required for their completion; in content they are identical.

Master’s thesis and requirements for graduation

Requirements for graduation.

In order to graduate, students must have successfully completed the 120 EC programme and have completed their final thesis as a component of that programme. The master’s thesis is an independent academic contribution to philosophy of the specific discipline. The student is required to write a master’s thesis in the second year of the MA Philosophy 120 EC – normally in the last semester.

Attainment levels

The master’s thesis should clearly show that the student meets the attainment levels which have been set for this programme in terms of knowledge and skills. More specifically, the master’s thesis and the working method for the thesis should demonstrate that the student:

has acquired knowledge and understanding in the field of the history, foundations, methodology and/or ethics of the specific discipline, that provides a basis for originality in developing and applying original ideas and analyses;

knows the discussions in the forefront of his/her field;

is able to contribute to current discussions in philosophy of the specific discipline and related areas;

is able to analyse complex philosophical problems and to forme judgements based on different kinds of sources;

has a realistic view of the tenability and reliability of his/her conclusions;

is able to integrate or confront different approaches to philosophical questions;

in short, is able to write philosophical papers at an academic level.

Formal requirements and assessment criteria

The thesis for the MA Philosophy 120 EC has a workload of 20 EC's and the length of the thesis is normally approximately 20,000 words. Depending on the subject, the student and the supervisor may agree on a different length. Other formal requirements that the thesis must satisfy are listed in the Protocol Graduation Phase

Agreements and supervision

The thesis must be supervised by a staff member of the Leiden Institute for Philosophy. The agreements relating to the planning and supervision of the writing of the MA thesis are set out in writing by the student and the supervisor in the Agreements relating to the MA thesis form . The agreements include details on the choice of subject of the thesis, on the frequency of sessions with the thesis supervisor and the manner of supervision, and on the phasing of the research leading up to the thesis.

Final examination

The master’s thesis shall be defended as part of the final examination. The grade of the master’s thesis is determined by the examiners after the questioning (defence of the thesis) in the MA examination. Graduation is possible at any time during the academic year, except for July. However, graduation within the current academic year is only guaranteed when the final draft of the thesis has been approved of by the supervisor and sent to the Board of Examiners not later on June 15th .

Specialisations

The two-year MA programme in Philosophy 120 EC offers three specialisations, in which students are able to combine the study of philosophy with a non-philosophical discipline:

Philosophy in World Traditions

Philosophy of Humanities

Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics

Philosophy of Natural Sciences (to be phased out, enrolment no longer possible)

Philosophy of Psychology (to be phased out, enrolment no longer possible)

Specialisation coordinator

Dr. B.J.E. (Bruno) Verbeek For questions relating to the contents of the specialisation Philosophy of Law, Governance, and Politics.

Coordinator of Studies

Coordinator of Studies of the MA Philosophy 120 EC. For questions relating to programme requirements, planning, regulations, graduation, etc.

*Career Preparation

Career preparation in the ma philosophy 120 ec, the programme.

The MA Philosophy 120 EC at Leiden is a demanding two-year master’s programme that investigates the philosophical foundations and methodological approaches of various non-philosophical disciplines. As students generally combine a master’s in a non-philosophical discipline with the MA Philosophy 120 EC, their career perspectives obviously exceed those of students who complete an MA in Philosophy only. The comments below concern the philosophy component of their education.

The MA Philosophy 120 EC consists of five specialisations. In each specialisation, the progamme aims to enhance knowledge of a particular discipline with complementary understanding of its philosophical foundations, and offers a sophisticated knowledge of the field’s traditional and recent philosophical developments, as well as an advanced training in philosophical methodologies and skills.

The intellectual skills students will develop in the MA Philosophy 120 EC are transferable to most non-philosophical professions. The programme will train students to become a critical thinker, capable of analysing complex ideas and evaluating the principles of various positions. Students will study, analyse and discuss primary philosophical texts, and learn to develop and communicate their ideas both orally and in writing.

How can you use this knowledge and the skills that you acquire? Which specialisation should you choose within your study programme and why? What skills do you already have, and what further skills do you still want to learn? How do you translate the courses that you choose into something that you would like to do after graduation?

These questions and more will be discussed at various times during your study programme. You may already have spoken about them with your study coordinator, the Humanities Career Service or other students, or made use of the Leiden University Career Zone . Many different activities are organised to help you reflect on your own wishes and options, and give you the chance to explore the job market. All these activities are focused on the questions: ‘What can I do?’, ‘What do I want?’ and ‘How do I achieve my goals?’.

You will be notified via the Faculty website, your study programme website and email about further activities in the area of job market preparation. The following activities will help you to thoroughly explore your options, so we advise you to take careful note of them:

Introductory interview with Coordinator of Studies

Introduction to the the Humanities Career Service

Internship information session

Humanities Career Event

Activities of study association Symposion

Guest lectures by alumni with study association Symposion

Workshop ‘Insight into your skills’

Workshop [‘How do I find a job?’]https://careerzone.universiteitleiden.nl/en/workshops-events/workshops-career-service-humanities)

Workshop ‘CV and letter’

Various other Humanities Career Service workshops

Transferable skills

Future employers are interested not only in the subject-related knowledge that you acquired during your study programme, but also in the ‘transferable skills’. These include cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, reasoning and argumentation and innovation; intrapersonal skills, such as flexibility, initiative, appreciating diversity and metacognition; and interpersonal skills, such as communication, accountability and conflict resolution. In short, they are skills that all professionals need in order to perform well.

It is therefore important that during your study programme you not only acquire as much knowledge as possible about your subject, but also are aware of the skills you have gained and the further skills you still want to learn. The course descriptions in the Prospectus of the MA Philosophy 120 EC include, in addition to the courses’ learning objectives, a list of the skills that they aim to develop.

The skills you may encounter in the various courses are:

Collaboration

Self-directed learning

Creative thinking

Courses of the MA Philosophy 120 EC

Courses of the study programme obviously help to prepare you for the job market. As a study programme, we aim to cover this topic either directly or less directly in each semester. Within the MA Philosophy, this takes place within, for example, the following courses:

• Thesis Seminar Philosophy

In addition students may follow an extra-curriculair module that will be offerewd by the Honours Acamedy:

• What’s Next?

If you have any questions about career choices, whether in your studies or on the job market, you are welcome to make an appointment with the career adviser of the Humanities Career Service 071-5272235, or with your Coordinator of Studies, Patsy Casse .

45,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today

Here’s your new year gift, one app for all your, study abroad needs, start your journey, track your progress, grow with the community and so much more.

Verification Code

An OTP has been sent to your registered mobile no. Please verify

Thanks for your comment !

Our team will review it before it's shown to our readers.

Dissertation Topics in Law for LLM Students

• Updated on  
• May 9, 2023

The last academic challenge before the completion of your postgraduate degree is a dissertation or thesis. Many students pursuing LLM are often confused while deciding the correct topic for the dissertation as it requires a lot of research. To help you with the dissertation this blog contains ideal law dissertation topics for LLM in India. Keep reading to know more!

This Blog Includes:

How to choose the best dissertation topic, advantages of choosing a good dissertation topic, criminal law dissertation topics, international law dissertation topics, family law dissertation topics, employment law dissertation topics, international commercial law dissertation topics, law dissertation topics india, intellectual property law topics in dissertation, constitutional law topics in dissertation, sports law topics in dissertation, medical law topics in dissertation, commercial law dissertation topics, company law dissertation topics, tort law dissertation topics, eu law dissertation topics, the english legal system and constitutional and administrative law dissertation topics.

A lot of research and hard work is required to decide what is a correct and valuable topic for the dissertation or thesis. It is seen in various students that before graduation the dissertation is the last hurdle in the way. It is advised to pursue a topic after valuable research and most importantly that goes with the student’s interests.

Also Read: Dissertation Topics

There are an array of benefits when you choose a good and valuable dissertation topic. These advantages include:

• This helps you in the analysis of the topic and deep research.
• Present you with a program to enhance your investigative skills.
• In explaining your subject option, you should be prepared to show how your previous research experiences ended up with great knowledge. 
• You can find a degree of education useful for postgraduate research.

Also Read: Law Entrance Exams: India & Abroad

Criminal law is the body of law regulating crime and criminal activities in India. This proves to be an important topic and is interesting as well. Some of the criminal law dissertation topics are:

• A Significant Study of Struggle against Girls in India
• Case Debate on business trial in India
• An Analysis on Terrorism and Lawlessness Against Infants in India
• A survey on Legislation against private terrorism in India
• Significant Evaluation Of Death Cost In India
• An Analysis of Juvenile Justice System and Order in India
• The appearance of the group is in the criminal law process
• The Root Elements of the Infant Mergers
• White-Collar Crime Law in India
• Criminology and Criminal Justice

Also Read: How to Write a Dissertation?

International law dissertation is another amazing topic where you can add your relevant thoughts. Some of the unique international law dissertation topics are:

• What are the significant aspects of collective civil obligations in now’s global order?
• What are the causes that cause application of foreign order at the state standard also complex?
• Figure out the very important issues encountered by establishing universal rules.
• What are the effects of accelerated market restraints on people? Can such a thing be explained?
• What are global challenges encountered by international businessmen, when installing service projects in third group societies?
• What are the effects of letting offenders continue to their native land for action?
• How seeing abuse as a foreign war case will change the position of African people?
• What are the important challenges encountered by companies that are coming in the global travel industry from the ocean.
• What universal rules regulate copy? How should this case be corrected?
• Which governmental law of the UK is sufficiently sufficient to be carried out universally?

Also Read: What is a Dissertation? Meaning, Projects, Report Work

Some of the most important and unique family law dissertation topics are:

• Separation case for father and female representatives of the group, makes it favour any particular gender or is it merely a sense
• Matrimonial Act and how it affects women who join without their permission. What is the attitude of decisions about made mergers and how can one explain it in the court of decision
• Residential part by stepmothers and offspring, how goes on the case provide everybody has their got right and place
• Youth insurance problems in the unified kingdom, which of the state shows to have very trouble with such arguments and why is it so
• Adolescent abuse-is it important to discipline your children and youths? What is the perimeter between youth abuse and correcting your children for setting their limits
• Internal disorder and its effect on the boy and female representatives personally, which of them picks up a greater claim in the mind of order and how can we get rid of that biasness
• Protection problems for separated mothers, how goes on it go and what goes on the statute have to do about the protection of the child for each mother
• How looks at the proper form thing if a man is incapable to provide and provide his house owing to lack or scarcity of means
• Long-distance communications and their fair significance cut off from the spiritual and artistic attitudes
• Minor job- what are we looking at to abolish it and how goes on our constitutional process set limits and provide that they are found

Employment law dissertation enables you to craft perfect research on your thesis or dissertation. Some of the employment law dissertation topics are:

• The link between trade and morality in the UK. An academic context.
• A study of the relationship between sports departments and their service contracts.
• The effect of variation in the business decisions of the UK after starting the EU.
• The task of infant employment regulations in the UK. How does the judiciary remain fighting developing youth employment?
• The influence of civil responsibility service in UK regulations.
• A study of the market association in the UK study of the business requirements and principles.
• A provisional review of business decisions in the station waggon part of the UK and EU. Who gets the first job benefit and rights insurance systems?
• An in-depth study of justice fees in the validities of UK legislation.

Some of the international commercial law dissertations you can choose from are:

• An assessment of the enemy-pollution bill in the UK. Its origins and effects on the state leaders.
• A strategic study of the joint cloak and how the decision can pass through it.
• The performance of UK legislation in affecting joint difficulties while preserving major human rights.
• A symposium on the differences enveloping the purview of field 33 groups do 2006 in the UK
• The effects of setting reasonable requirements for the principal’s needs. How does the organisation do well under this?
• An in-depth assessment of economic regulation programs at attending institutions in the UK.
• The effect of UNCITRAL’s performance on the unification of universal economic legislation in the UK.

Also Read: How to Write Acknowledgement for Dissertation?

Some of the Indian legal topics you can choose for your dissertation are:

• Handgun Case in India: Provision of a Different Structure
•  Animal investigation: Order in India
• Wire advertising and constitutional structure
•  Joint Civil Power and change
• Moral Orders and Cases in producing societies
• Men Investigations and Indian constitutional practice
•  Improvement of infants and proper conflict

Some of the catchy and interesting dissertation topics that you can choose as a dissertation topic for law assignment:

• Scientific advances and present IP rule in India
• IP rules and the safety of/on Internet
•  New patent statutes and digitalisation

Also Read: University of Law: Eligibility, Application, Courses & More

Here are some of the finest dissertation or thesis topics for constitutional law dissertation topics are:

• Accident plans in India: A study
• Legal exploitation and its interest: An assessment
• Application of International Cases in Indian Legal Structure
• Able expression in virtual life and Indian Custom

Also Read: Dissertation vs Thesis

A constantly fascinating subject, sports provides a large range of fields and issues to judge from to create your analysis report. It can deal with universal order, national order, carrying out parties, power, and often better.

Here are some of the finest dissertation (thesis)points on Sports law:

• Doping and Sports: National and International fair innuendo
• Legalisation of speculating in India: Law and Cons
• Handling sports organisations and their constitutional ramifications
• Transgender animals and Indian Custom

Medical law dissertation is another great topic you can choose from, some of the medical law dissertation topics are:

• Member retention: Fair experts and cons
• Miscarriage in India: A global review
• Made fertilisation: Provision of primary training to find out these matters
• Supported suicide: Fair, honest and therapeutic ethics
• Animal torture: A fair claim research

Also Read: Law Courses

Commercial Law is one such topic where a wide area of study is to be covered because it cannot be described within a single legal jurisdiction. A commercial law dissertation often involves comparisons with other countries. Listed below are some topics for Commercial Law Dissertation:

• A critical assessment of the international commercial arbitration system as a cost-effective and efficient means to administer justice in commercial disputes
• An assessment of security over personal property when it comes to the matter of possessory and non-possessory forms of security and other legal devices
• An investigation of the emergence of new manifestations of international commercial law
• A critical assessment of the passing of risk in the commercial law in England and Wales
• A critical assessment of the Future of consumer protection in England and Wales in the post-Brexit era

There is a great scope of producing an effective Company Law Dissertation as it provides you with potential sources. From the Companies Act 2006 to corporate governance, you have a lot of options to choose from. Listed below are some great Company Law Dissertation Topics:

• A critical analysis of the shareholder versus stakeholder basis of corporate governance
• Arguments for and against ‘stakeholder theory’ and to what extent are they still valid?
• Should the OECD’s Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital 2010 be ratified into UK Law?
• To what extent has Environmental Law merged together Vicarious and Corporate Liability
• Is the English maintenance of the “internal management” model failing to bring company law in the 21st Century?

The word Tort comes from the Latin term torture which means “Wrong”. In simple terms, Tort Law is supposed to address the civil wrongs done to a person, accidentally or incidentally. The victim/injured/aggrieved party is provided with compensation for the damages.

This area of law is one of the most important aspects of law study as it demonstrates the circumstances through which an individual is held accountable for another party’s injury either done intentionally or omissions or even by accident. Listed below are some topics for a Tort Law Dissertation to make it easier for you to draft an effective dissertation:

• Importance of foreseeability and policy in establishing a duty of care
• Analysis of the rules regarding the recovery of economic losses in tortious actions
• When it comes to matters of occupiers’ liability under the Occupiers Liability Acts of 1957 and 1984 respectively, when is a trespasser, not a trespasser?
• Wrongful Restraint of a man’s Liberty: Meaning, Defense and Remedy
• Why might the duty of care afforded to children be considered to be a step too far regarding the recognition of tortious liability?

Also Read: All About PhD Thesis

EU Law is considered as an expandable area of academic interest, particularly due to the UK’s recent Brexit from the Union. There is a wide range of dissertation topics you can consider for an EU Law Dissertation, from UK’s Brexit to the superiority of EU Law. Listed below are some great dissertation topics to start with your EU Law Dissertation:

• Critical Analysis of the UK’s Separation from the EU.
• Brexit and EU economy: How the UK’s decision has affected EU trade.
• An argument: Is EU Law actually superior?
• Importance of the enforcement actions against EU Member States as part of the European law-making process.
• How has the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950 contributed to the recognition of human rights internationally?

The English Legal System and Constitutional and Administrative Law may be classified into 3 key areas-

• The nature of the Constitution may be considered in areas including, but not limited to, the recognition and application of conventions and the rule of law. 
• Evaluation of the roles of the legislature, executive and parliament in the context of the recognition of the separation of powers, which could include legislation’s passage through Parliament, the delegation of legislation, the relationship between Parliament, the crown and the Royal Prerogative, and the executive, legislative and judiciary’s relationship.
• Judicial Review includes the basis for intervention, such as ultra vires and illegality, procedural irregularity, irrationality, proportionality, and the nemo judex rule.

A number of areas can be covered in this dissertation as the English Legal System and Constitutional and Administrative Law is quite different from other legal systems as the role of the judge differs in an adversarial system. The major difference is in how a trial is pursued. Some topics for an English Legal System and Constitutional and Administrative Law Dissertation are as mentioned below:

• The Role of natural justice  in the UK Constitution
• Are conventions still a valid part of the UK Constitution?
• Is the Royal Prerogative an essential part of the British Constitution?
• Are the current models of statutory interpretation fit for purpose, especially as the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) infer a more active approach for judges?
• In what ways will the relationship between constitutional and administrative law in England and Wales be affected by Brexit?

The following are the popular law universities in the world: Harvard University Columbia University Stanford University

Here are some of the finest dissertation or thesis topics for constitutional law dissertation topics are: Accident plans in India: A study Legal exploitation and its interest: An assessment Application of International Cases in the Indian Legal Structure Able expression in virtual life and Indian Custom

The average salary of a lawyer in India is 3.5 Lakh per year.

Grab the expert assistance of Leverage Edu student counsellors to kickstart your admission and application process to study in the UK in 2023 Call us immediately at 1800 57 2000 for a free 30-minute therapy consultation. 

Team Leverage Edu

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Contact no. *

Leaving already?

8 Universities with higher ROI than IITs and IIMs

Grab this one-time opportunity to download this ebook

Connect With Us

45,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. take the first step today..

Resend OTP in

Need help with?

Study abroad.

UK, Canada, US & More

IELTS, GRE, GMAT & More

Scholarship, Loans & Forex

Country Preference

New Zealand

Which English test are you planning to take?

Which academic test are you planning to take.

Not Sure yet

When are you planning to take the exam?

Already booked my exam slot

Within 2 Months

Want to learn about the test

Which Degree do you wish to pursue?

When do you want to start studying abroad.

September 2024

January 2025

What is your budget to study abroad?

How would you describe this article ?

Please rate this article

We would like to hear more.

EU environmental law obligations based on the state of waters and the marine environment challenge existing legal structures

Doctoral defence of muhammad ali shahbaz, msc, 12 june 2024: air pollution and alzheimer’s disease could worsen covid-19 outcomes, doctoral defence of alexander paz carvajal,  bsc, 7.6.2024: novel methodologies for generation and simulation of knee joint finite element models, course on multilateral environmental agreements, gulraiz iqbal choudhary, msc: doctoral defence in computer science, joensuu, international workshop on orthodox theology: ad fontes – back to the roots.

Find more news and events

Refine your search

Doctoral defence of Suvi-Tuuli Puharinen, M.Sc. (Admin.) , 12 June 2024: EU environmental law obligations based on the state of waters and the marine environment challenge existing legal structures

The doctoral dissertation in the field of Environmental Law will be examined at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies at Joensuu campus. The public examination will be streamed online.

• Environment and natural resources

What is the topic of your doctoral research? Why is it important to study the topic?

My dissertation examines a frequently used regulatory approach in EU environmental law, setting legally binding environmental quality objectives, and their effectiveness. In particular, the dissertation studies the regulatory solutions to protect waters and the marine environment in the EU Water Framework Directive and Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The topic is particularly relevant and timely in the light of the EU Green Deal, which has included ambitious targets for promoting new, lower-emission industries while improving and restoring the state of the environment, including water and the marine environment. In Finland too, the green transition has been a key focus of Prime Minister Orpo's government programme and its legislative agenda. 

In terms of EU regulation, my dissertation examines how successful existing regulatory solutions for water protection and marine conservation have been in safeguarding water status. At least in Finland, water status objectives have received attention primarily due to the constraints they have imposed on the permitting of new industrial projects (most notably the Finnpulp pulp mill, which received a negative permit decision in 2019 at the KHO). 

While environmental quality objectives have created strict conditions for the permitting of new projects, their wider legal implications, particularly in terms of water and marine improvement and restoration, remain unclear. Understanding EU legislation on water and marine protection and the need for legally binding measures to protect water and the marine environment is essential.

What are the key findings or observations of your doctoral research?

A key finding of the study was that EU environmental law has been heavily regulated on the basis of theories and assumptions developed in other disciplines, particularly natural sciences, environmental policy and social sciences, about the effective way to manage, for example, the water environment. However, a key finding of the study is that legal regulation behaves and its effectiveness is built on a different operational logic, which needs to be approached from within the legal order. 

The EU WFD and MSFD rely on the setting of legally binding environmental quality objectives: the idea is that Member States would have a binding obligation to prevent deterioration of surface, ground and marine waters and to take active measures to improve their status. The study shows that, due to the structure of the legal order, which makes it easier to take a strict approach to new activities than to tackle old ones or to impose active environmental measures, the legal content of these directives has evolved mainly to restrict new activities. In particular, the objectives of the Water Framework Directive have become rather strict conditions for the granting of permits for new projects. 

At the same time, the Directives have failed to formulate clear legal obligations for Member States, for example, to address pollution from existing activities, to develop new instruments, for example, diffuse pollution or seek active legislative solutions to support restoration. A key finding of the study is that the structure of the legal order influences the effectiveness and efficiency with which such regulatory instruments can guide the development of water status. With regard to the Water Framework Directive and the Marine Strategy Directive, it is clear that the state of water and the seas has not improved much since the implementation of the Directives. 

The key conclusion is that, rather than using environmental law as an instrument in its own right, achieving sustainability objectives requires that legal guidance be considered specifically outside the realm of environmental law, for example studying the structural elements of the legal order and societies prevent or slow down the steering towards environmental quality objectives and how regulatory and policy instruments that shape and promote sectors of economic activity take account the need for a reduction of negative environmental impacts.

How can the results of your doctoral research be utilised in practice?

The results of the dissertation are specifically targeted at EU legislative work and can be used to assess new regulatory needs to achieve the goals of the Green Deal. The results will also be useful for national law-making in that the dissertation will provide a better understanding of Finland's EU legal obligations in the field of water and marine protection.

What are the key research methods and materials used in your doctoral research?

The main research methods used in my dissertation were regulatory theory and legal doctrinal analysis, which approached EU water and marine protection legislation as part of a broader EU legal context. My dissertation research was linked to several broader multidisciplinary research projects, most importantly the STN project  Blueadapt , the Academy project  Sushydro – towards environmentally, economically and socially sustainable hydropower management and the EU Horizon project  Crossgov .

If your doctoral dissertation consists of several articles, when was the most recent article published/will be published (estimate)?

The most recent PhD article was published in the Journal of Environmental Law in March 2024 (Vol 36, Issue 1). The article is a joint article with Mari Pihalehdo, PhD researcher at the University of Helsinki, and is entitled Uncharted Interplay and Troubled Implementation:  Managing Hydropower's Environmental Impacts under the EU Water Framework and Environmental Liability Directives .

For further information:

M.Sc. (Admin.) Suvi-Tuuli Puharinen, [email protected], p. 050 449 4701

The doctoral dissertation of Suvi-Tuuli Puharinen , M.Sc. (Admin.), entitled Normative Environmental Quality as a Regulatory Strategy in EU environmental law : Legal implications of water status objectives will be examined at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies. The Opponent in the public examination will be Professor Marleen van Rijswick of the University of Utrecht, and the Custos will be Professor Antti Belinskij of the University of Eastern Finland.

• Dissertation event online
• Dissertation online
• Environmental law

GOP's 'law and order' message at odds with their defense of Trump: ANALYSIS

"I don't really see how you can have it both ways," one expert told ABC News.

Republicans have long proclaimed themselves the party of "law and order."

That political philosophy, however, doesn't seem to have extended to the historic criminal trial of Donald Trump that ended this week in a first-ever conviction of a former president -- 34 guilty verdicts handed down by 12 ordinary Americans.

Conservative allies of their party's presumptive presidential nominee didn't miss a beat jumping to his defense, or echoing his denouncement of the case as "rigged."

House Speaker Mike Johnson called it "a shameful day in American history" and claimed the trial was a "political" exercise, not a legal one. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the other leading Republican on Capitol Hill, asserted the charges levied against Trump "never should have been brought in the first place."

MORE: 'Shameful': Republicans quickly come to Trump's defense after his conviction

Trump's legal challenges have been rejected so far, but he still can appeal and has vowed to do so. Yet, many GOP members of Congress continue to parrot Trump's falsehoods about the trial and the American legal system more broadly.

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik said -- despite a jury deciding -- that the trial's outcome showed how "corrupt, rigged, and unAmerican the weaponized justice system has become under Joe Biden and Democrats."

Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the influential House Judiciary Committee, is demanding Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and prosecutor Matthew Coangelo testify before Congress, alleging "political persecution." And a group of GOP senators are vowing to block any of Biden's agenda from passing in response, they say, to his making a "mockery of the rule of law."

"I don't really see how you can have it both ways, to claim to be the party of law and order and then to denounce trials that don't come out the way you want them to," William Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told ABC News about the Republican response.

In the New York trial, Trump's attacks are largely geared toward the district attorney, the judge and the jury -- all of which he's claimed are unfairly politically biased against him. He and other Republicans have taken aim at Bragg being an elected Democrat, and the jury being made up of residents of a liberal-leaning city.

Their ire also extends to President Joe Biden, whom Trump has claimed, without evidence, was behind the prosecution despite the case being handled entirely at the state level.

"These are bad people," Trump said in grievance-filled remarks at Trump Tower the morning after his conviction. "These are, in many cases, I believe, sick people."

Trending Reader Picks

What Americans think of Trump's verdict: POLL

• Jun 2, 9:01 AM

What Trump's conviction could mean for his rights

• Jun 1, 2:31 PM

Pilot prepared for suicide mission on 9/11 retires

• May 31, 7:17 PM

President Biden, in his own remarks later that day from the White House, pushed back that the rule of law was "reaffirmed" and statements questioning the legitimacy of the process were "reckless" and "dangerous."

"[Trump's] attacks on the judicial system have a long history and are part of a larger strategy to undermine the legitimacy of any aspect of the political system or process that criticizes him or tries to hold him accountable for his actions," Lisa Miller, a political science professor at Rutgers University who specializes in crime research, told ABC News.

"As far as I am aware, the process in New York followed the same rules of evidence and procedure as any other criminal trial and the defense has just as much opportunity to select the jurors as the prosecution," Miller continued. "By all accounts, the judge was fair-minded and even-handed. It serves only Donald Trump to say otherwise."

Galston agreed, saying in his view "the process of the trial stayed within normal bounds."

"There was a normal and impartial jury selection process," he said. "Each side could reject people for cause and had a certain number of peremptory challenges. There hasn't been a whisper of jury misconduct, which is relatively rare in such high-profile cases."

MORE: How Trump’s guilty verdict will impact the 2024 presidential election

Trump has been leading the charge in decrying not only the hush-money case, but the other three indictments against him, including federal cases levying more serious allegations of conspiracy to defraud the United States and willful retention of national defense information. Trump has denied any alleged wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty in every case.

In each circumstance, he and his conservative allies have pointed to what they claim is a corrupt justice system as the real culprit of wrongdoing.

The statements, experts said, are likely to have a harmful effect on the nation's confidence in bedrock American principles.

"Unfortunately, a lot of damage has already been inflicted on public trust in American institutions," Galston said. "Certainly trust in Congress has been at rock bottom. The presidency isn't doing so well. The judiciary enjoyed a good measure of public trust and confidence a lot longer than other institutions did, but that's been falling for some time and I'm afraid that this will add momentum to the decline."

Related Topics

• Donald Trump
• Republican Primary

Chad Daybell sentenced in triple murder of family

• Jun 1, 1:38 PM

1 dead, 26 wounded in Ohio shooting: Reports

• Jun 2, 6:12 AM

ABC News Live

24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events