This is the first ever collected volume on John Austin, whose role in the founding of analytical jurisprudence is unquestionable. After 150 years, time has come to assess his legacy. The book fills a void in existing literature, by letting top scholars with diverse outlooks flesh out and discuss Austin’s legacy today. A nuanced, vibrant, and richly diverse picture of both his legal and ethical theories emerges, making a case for a renewal of interest in his work. The book applies multiple perspectives, reflecting Austin’s various interests – stretching from moral theory to theory of law and state, from Roman Law to Constitutional Law – and it offers a comparative outlook on Austin and his legacy in the light of the contemporary debate and major movements within legal theory. It sheds new light on some central issues of practical reasoning: the relation between law and morals, the nature of legal systems, the function of effectiveness, the value-free character of legal theory, the connection between normative and factual inquiries in the law, the role of power, the character of obedience and the notion of duty.​

Gathering together an impressive array of legal scholars from around the world, this book features essays on Jeremy Bentham’s major legal theoretical treatise, Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence, reassessing Bentham’s theories of law as well as his impact on jurisprudence. While offering a suggestive picture of contemporary Bentham studies, the book provides a thorough examination of concepts such as legal discourse, legal norms, legal system, and subjective legal positions. The book compares Bentham’s approach with other landmark theories and the works of major legal philosophers including Austin, Hart and Kelsen, and explores Bentham’s treatise through major trends in contemporary legal thought, such as the imperative theory of law, deontic logic, Scandinavian and American legal realisms, the pure theory of law, and critical legal thought. Resisting any apologetic stance, the book elucidates how consistent with Bentham’s all-encompassing project of utilitarian reform ‘Limits’ turns out to be, and how this sheds light on contemporary modes of governance. The book will be great use and interest to scholars and students of contemporary jurisprudence, legal theory, 19th century philosophy, and public law.

This challenging book on jurisprudence begins by posing questions in the post-modern context,and then seeks to bridge the gap between our traditions and contemporary situation. It offers a narrative encompassing the birth of western philosophy in the Greeks and moves through medieval Christendom, Hobbes, the defence of the common law with David Hume, the beginnings of utilitarianism in Adam Smith, Bentham and John Stuart Mill, the hope for enlightenment with Kant, Rousseau, Hegel and Marx, onto the more pessimistic warnings of Weber and Nietzsche. It defends the work of Austin against the reductionism of HLA Hart, analyses the period of high modernity in the writings of Kelsen, Hart and Fuller, and compares the different approaches to justice of Rawls and Nozick. The liberal defence of legality in Ronald Dworkin is contrasted with the more disillusioned accounts of the critical legal studies movement and the personalised accounts of prominent feminist writers.

When a claimant demands an interpretation of a right in international law that goes beyond existing conventional, statutory or customary norms, proceedings enter the uncharted area of equity in international law. This original book tackles this complex subject with precision and authority. Evaluating past applications of equity, it contributes to improving the record of judicial performance in controversies for which equity is alleged to be relevant. Any decisionmaker confronted with a claim to apply equity will benefit greatly from this book. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.