The Rule of Law: from Unconscious Unawareness to Conscious Awareness (and beyond?)

Time:

  • 07/10/2020
    13:00 - 14:00
It seems uncontroversial to say that the Rule of Law is a good thing. Everyone seems to be in favour of it and, at times, everyone seems to be talking about it. But, do we really know what it is? And, even if we do know what it is, do we take it to mean the same thing as other people? In this webinar, by considering some of the ideas that are often taken to be constitutive of the meaning of the concept of the Rule of Law, Dr Paul Burgess will expose some of the problems in thinking that we all know, or agree, what the Rule of Law is. (Because, without this, we certainly can’t agree on what it can or should do.) In broad terms, the aim is to facilitate a conscious awareness that the meaning of the concept of the Rule of Law is not only contested, but also that each invocation of ‘the Rule of Law’ — and, hence, each statement regarding the concept with which we are expected to agree — may reflect a very different notion to the one that we personally hold.

Dr Paul Burgess is Senior Teaching Fellow in Public Law & Human Rights Law at University College London.

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