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We plan to host a service of celebration in memory of our much‑loved colleague, Emilios, on 14 May at 12.30 pm in the Memorial Chapel on Professors’ Square, University of Glasgow. It will last approximately 30 minutes and is open to all who wish to attend.
At the service, we will remember Emilios as a scholar, teacher, and dear friend. The date has been chosen to coincide with the annual Adam Smith Lecture in Jurisprudence (which will take place later that day, 3 pm - 5 pm). We hope that this will allow those travelling to Glasgow for the lecture the opportunity to join us in remembrance. This week, a blossom tree will be planted in Emilios’s honour in the new garden beside No. 11 of the Stair Building. Our hope is to visit and dedicate the tree following the service, although this may take place at a later date. Further details will be shared in due course. There are also several ongoing projects to celebrate and remember Emilios, and we will try to keep you posted. If you are organising something, please do get in touch with us and we will ensure the wider community are aware. We can happily host information about future events and projects on the GLT webpages. Lastly, as you know, a book of condolences, created earlier this year, remains open and continues to grow with new tributes. Many moving reflections on Emilios's life and work have already been shared: https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/Ljppyz4x.  A book of condolences in memory of Emilios can be accessed here.
Emilios was a leading scholar in legal theory and the philosophy of law. He held the chair of jurisprudence at the School of Law, University of Glasgow from 2006, having previously served at the University of Edinburgh as lecturer and then reader in jurisprudence (1990-2006). He received his first degree in law from the University of Athens and completed his master’s and doctoral studies at the University of Edinburgh. One of the most prominent scholars of his generation, Emilios made formative contributions to constitutional theory, critical legal theory, democratic theory, and transitional justice. His work combined analytical rigour with a deep engagement in the critical tradition and was distinguished by unusual philosophical depth and a marked resistance to facile, fashionable thinking. An uncompromising thinker and an elegant writer, he placed his scholarship in the service of progressive politics, inspired by the values of democracy, the labour movement, solidarity, and social justice. His book Law and Reflexive Politics received the European Award for Legal Theory in 1996 and the Society of Legal Scholars’ Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship in 1998. His later monograph, The Redress of Law (2021), was widely acclaimed and translated into several languages. His work reached an international readership and exerted a lasting influence across jurisdictions and traditions. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to scholarship, he received many distinctions, culminating in his election as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2023. During his years in Glasgow, Emilios played a central role in founding and sustaining Glasgow Legal Theory, one of the leading jurisprudential communities in the United Kingdom and beyond. Generous with his time and unfailingly supportive of colleagues and students alike, he inspired generations of graduate students, many of whom have gone on to become established scholars in their own right. His intellectual generosity was matched by a deeply cultivated and elegant personal manner, and by the warmth and kindness of his personality, that left a lasting impression on all who knew him. Diagnosed with brain cancer in the summer of 2024, Emilios remained actively engaged in academic life for most of his illness, which he faced with courage, dignity, and without bitterness. He continued to write, teach, and mentor until shortly before his death. He passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family. He is survived by his wife, Jane; his children, Theodoros, Annie, and Andreas; and his grandson, Elias. Emilios Alexandros Christodoulidis, philosopher of law, born 3 September 1963; died 3 February 2026. Dr Julieta Lobato is a Research Associate at the University of Glasgow, visiting as a British Academy International Fellow. Professor Ruth Dukes is hosting Julieta as she develops her postdoctorate research project 'Regulating the Labour-Capital Conflict in a Turbulent Era. Neoliberalism Reloaded or New Right-Wing Populist Wave?'. Dr Lobato presented a work in progress paper on the informal work sector in Argentina, entitled 'Unveiling the Structural Character of Informal Work: New Labour Subject and Financial Exploitation beyond the Promise of Transition'. Julieta's engaging presentation was followed by a discussion and informal drinks session to end our reading group for the winter semester.  On the 15th of November, the annual Disputatio collaboration between the Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Surrey was held in the Raeburn Room at Edinburgh's Old College. Contributors from Glasgow included Pinar Ozzcan as chair of the Jurisprudence section, Pudit Ovattananavakhun on freedom in Kelsen's Theory, Yuhan Wang on Dworkin and feminism, and Carlos Gabriel Ramaglia Mota on the constitutionalisation of international law in South America. See Edinburgh Legal Theory (@legaltheoryed.bsky.social) — Bluesky and Glasgow Legal Theory (@uofglt.bsky.social) — Bluesky for further photographs and information.   On Friday, 3rd of May, we will be joined by Daniela Dover (University of Oxford), for our final Law and Philosophy Network seminar of the academic year. She will speak on the following topic:
Abstract This paper begins by introducing Beauvoirian moral psychology through its key concepts: ambiguity, project, situation, anxiety, justification, natural freedom, and moral freedom. It goes on to show how Beauvoir derives substantive ethical conclusions from her portrait of the human psyche. In its most general form, the Beauvoirian ‘existential imperative’ holds that, on pain of unmitigated anxiety, each human being must will freedom absolutely—‘the man who seeks to justify his life must will freedom itself, first of all and absolutely’ (Beauvoir, Pour une morale de l'ambiguïté [Gallimard 1947], 34-35). Echoing Kant, whose categorical imperative can be stated in three ways that are ultimately, but not obviously, equivalent, we distinguish among what we call three ‘formulations’ of this imperative, each of which corresponds to a step in Beauvoir’s overall argument. Beauvoir begins by arguing that each of us must will our own freedom. Next, she argues that each of us must will the freedom of at least some others. Finally, she holds that each of us must will the freedom of all. This in turn requires political action.  The 2024 Adam Smith Lecture in Jurisprudence will be delivered by in Glasgow by Professor Martin Krygier, of the University of New South Wales, on Monday, 10th June 2024.
Abstract: According to Laurent Pech, the rule of law was described as a “‘buzzword’ by [Hungary’s] justice minister; a fiction by a Fidesz MP; and a ‘magic word’ by the FideszKDNP Delegation to the European Parliament. Not to be undone, a judge from Hungary’s (captured) constitutional court, has presented the rule of law ‘as a normative yardstick’ which is little more than an empty nineteenth century ideal and a political joker [sic] for all purposes.” In contrast, the English historian, E.P. Thompson, controversially called the rule of law ‘a cultural achievement of universal significance.’ With some small amendments, Krygier will agree with Thompson. Each word in that encomium, he will seek to demonstrate, deserves emphasis and respect. However, he will argue, it makes a huge difference what one takes the rule of law to be about. What is universal is the notion and realisation of a state of affairs in which power is reliably tempered, with the aid of law, so as not to be available for arbitrary abuse. It is that which is a cultural achievement of universal significance. It is a mistake to identify it, as so many do, with any allegedly canonical arrangement of forms and institutions and rules that are enlisted or assumed to embody it. Many people make that mistake. Some do so, because they naively think that installation of familiar institutions they associate with ‘the rule of law’ is the same as achieving the ideal itself. The disappointing history of rule of law promotion around the world shows that is not the case. On the other hand, modern illiberal, often populist, regimes are happy to endorse such a mistake and pretend that they are committed to the ideal by making a show of conformity to legal forms, while systematically subverting and abusing the rule of law itself. If criticised, they claim their cultural, constitutional, identity is under attack. Both the naïve and the malicious interpretations should be rejected. This will be followed by a workshop on Prof Krygier's book Phillip Selznick: Ideals in the World and the themes developed therein, which will be held on Tuesday, 11th June.  Glasgow Legal Theory are delighted announce that the 14th Annual Jurisprudence public lecture will be held at the University of Glasgow on the 19th June.
This year's lecture, coordinated by Taylor and Francis and the editorial board of Jurisprudence: An International Journal of Legal and Political Thought, will be delivered by Miranda Fricker of NYU. Abstract: Foucault famously traced the history of a form of testimony he labelled ‘avowal’ (aveu)—effectively a social institution of testimony that counts, necessarily, as true. Looking to the present, I will focus on two institutions of testimony, each of which forms part of a system of procedures of criminal justice—one in the UK and the other in the US—and I will analyse them as present-day institutional constructions of avowal. Each practice involves a highly problematic degree of testimonial extraction under unequal power, one ostensibly a technique of investigation, the other ostensibly a technique of rehabilitation. I will offer an analysis of the ethical and epistemic dysfunctionalities of each, and tentatively question whether there is any place for avowal in just institutional processes. |
