In this essay, I seek to provide an account of the scope and justification of gain-based damages for civil wrongs. My starting point is that the main accounts of restitution for wrongs are inconsistent with the structure of the law of damages. My alternative explanation provides a framework which is coherent with the law of obligations and allows a reading of restitution for wrongs in terms of corrective justice. When a wrong affects a proprietary or proprietary-like interest, I argue that the normal response is compensation, not restitution. In this context, I introduce the expression ‘pseudo-restitutionary damages’ to identify those awards in which the claimant’s loss is measured by the defendant’s gain. The true nature of pseudo-restitutionary damages is revealed by their close link to the loss. When the loss disappears, the benefit disappears with it. Unlike pseudo-restitution, proper restitution for wrongs requires a benefit which is independent of the loss and is only connected to the wrong. The benefit cannot be dissociated from the claimant’s loss if it is the consequence of a wrongful direct transfer of wealth from the claimant to the defendant. Corrective justice can account for proper restitutionary damages. It provides a normative ground for the victim to seize the defendant’s gain independently of any loss suffered by the victim. It isolates the wrongdoer and the victim as the parties to a restitutionary claim. The award is granted because it would be unjust if the wrongdoer would go scot-free with his wrongful gains; and it is granted to the victim because any wrongful behaviour is detrimental to the sufferer of the injustice. Although quite distinct, compensation and restitution for wrongs show certain structural similarities. The former aims to place the victim in the same position in which the victim was before the damaging event took place; the latter seeks to place the wrongdoer in the same position in which the wrongdoer was before he performed the wrongful act. Both legal responses aim at neutrality as between the pre- and post-wrong position but in respect of different parties.

In this paper I reconsider the relation between property and unjust enrichment and respond to a recent argument that actions in unjust enrichment cannot be actions in corrective justice. I suggest that any analysis that regards actions in unjust enrichment as embodying principles of corrective justice requires supplementation by considerations that are, at bottom, proprietary in nature. I argue that there is no incompatibility in viewing actions in unjust enrichment as actions whose grounds are broadly proprietary in nature; that understanding unjust enrichment in this manner does not threaten its theoretical coherence; and that understanding unjust enrichment in this manner allows us to view actions in unjust enrichment as actions in corrective justice.

Joseph Raz’s influential account of authority holds that authority is normally justified by the authority’s ability to issue directives that, if followed, would increase a norm subject’s chances of conforming to the requirements of right reason. Jeremy Waldron raises a number of challenging and important questions about whether Raz’s account of authority can usefully illuminate our understanding of law’s authority in contemporary democracies, where laws are enacted by large, diverse legislatures in circumstances of disagreement. I examine a number of these questions, and conclude that Raz’s account of authority is equal to the task of illuminating our understanding of law’s authority in the “circumstances of politics,” where we often disagree about what right reason requires, and where law is enacted by large, diverse legislatures that settle on courses of social action by adopting participatory majoritarian procedures.

The Stufenbaulehre is a central and founding element of the Pure Theory of Law (PTL).Most of the criticism of Stufenbaulehre targets the idea of the basic norm (Grundnorm), however unjustified. This criticism stems from a misunderstanding of the presumptive character of the basic norm and of the whole legal order. Others have criticised the relativisation of the difference between individual and general norms, Kelsen’s monism, and the determination of the validity of a norm by a single other norm. This can be refuted as well - either because their critique does not concern an essential part of Stufenbaulehre (monism), or because Stufenbaulehre can be saved by making a small modification to it. However, there is one lethal criticism. It concerns the founding thought of the whole Stufenbaulehre, i.e., the derivation of validity. In a law-making process, there is never a derivation of validity: the logical result of a law-making process is only a norm saying “The new norm ought to be valid.” Whether the new norm is in fact valid, is a different issue which is not dealt with by the PTL. This has serious consequences: Without this derivation Stufenbaulehre cannot survive, and without Stufenbaulehre, PTL cannot survive either. Some valuable parts of PTL might be used in other legal theories, but these are nothing but transplanted organs from the dead body of PTL whose heart-Stufenbaulehre-can no longer keep the body alive.

This paper argues that constitutionalism raises some serious concerns of moral legitimacy. Following a preliminary outline of the main features of constitutionalism, the paper presents some of the main moral concerns about the legitimacy of constitutions. It then considers in detail a number of arguments which purport to answer those concerns, arguing that they all fail to meet the challenge. The paper concludes with a brief outline of some of the moral implications of this failure and some suggestions for reform.

The concept of modernity has long been central to legal theory. It is an intrinsically temporal concept, expressly or implicitly defined in contrast to pre-modernity. Legal theorists sometimes draw comparisons between, on the one hand, various post-Renaissance positivist, liberal, realist or critical theories, and, on the other hand, the classical natural law or justice theories of antiquity or the middle ages, including such figures as Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine or Aquinas. Many theorists, however, while acknowledging superficial differences among the various classical theories, fail to appreciate the variety and complexity of pre-modern thought. Unduly simplifying pre-modern understandings of law, they end up drawing false distinctions between modern and pre-modern legal theory. The pre-modern example considered in this article is Plato. Unlike scholars within the Humanities, who have continued to revise their approaches to pre-modern thought (often reflecting changes in ethical or political thought today), legal theorists, including many who claim to challenge much of traditional positivism, have scarcely moved beyond traditional positivists’ ahistorical and reductionist views.

Jury nullification refers to the behaviour of a jury that votes to acquit a defendant of criminal charges despite believing that: a) the defendant did in fact commit the actions with which she is charged; and, b) such actions are, indeed, prohibited by law. While there are many objections to this practice, the most striking thing about jury nullification is that nothing is done to actually prevent or punish jurors who behave this way. In this paper, I explore three rationales for why jury nullification is an officially tolerated, if not necessarily welcome, element of Anglo-American criminal law jury trials. All three of these rationales centre in one way or another on the idea that the very concept of a jury trial necessitates allowing the jury to extend its traditional purview in such a manner.

The moral formulation of philosophical anarchism is that most persons, even in just political communities, do not have a moral obligation to obey the law. The epistemological formulation of philosophical anarchism is that most persons are unjustified in believing that they have a moral obligation to obey the law. But the philosophical anarchists’ argument strategies do not, and in fact cannot, show that belief in the moral obligation to obey the law is unjustified. And, further, given that most persons in just political communities do believe that they are under such an obligation, the moral requirement that one ought to act in accordance with one’s conscience implies that most persons have a moral obligation to obey the law. Thus the moral formulation of philosophical anarchism is false and the epistemological formulation unjustified.

Constitutional adjudication in many legal systems crucially involves giving courts the power to override the decisions of other state institutions, even democratically elected legislatures. The task of delimiting the domain of judicial review is of the first importance. In this paper my aim is primarily critical. I want to take issue specifically with Ronald Dworkin’s well-known attempt to discharge this task through his use of the distinction between principle and policy. Courts, he claimed in Taking Rights Seriously, ought to decide on questions of principle and not policy and they are better suited for this purpose than legislatures. Despite the years that have passed since its original conception, Dworkin’s theory is very much alive and also relevant to contemporary constitutional theory. For, I believe it exemplifies a still common -perhaps also the predominant- way of conceiving of the role of courts and especially the practice of judicial review. It taps on the powerful intuition that it falls on judges to decide questions pertaining to the exercise and protection of individual right. Since my interest is pitched to questions of constitutional design, I will not challenge the explanatory adequacy of the principle/policy distinction itself from the point of view of moral theory, as many others have. Rather, I wish to explore whether this distinction adequately accounts for salient features of the division of labour between courts and legislatures. More specifically I will assess the extent to which employing this distinction satisfies three desiderata.

Conduct preparatory to the commission of a crime typically comprises acts such as gathering vital information, making initial contact with the prospective victim, reconnoitering the site of the crime, obtaining materials and tools, and gaining expertise knowledge. Many Western penal codes categorically distinguish preparatory actions from a punishable attempt in attending to cases whereby an actor engages in conduct planned to culminate in the commission of an offence. The article focuses on the desert of an actor who, after having formed an intention to commit a crime, conceives a plan and gets underway by performing acts of preparation - without commencing to commit the substantial offence, let alone bringing about its consummation. The actor’s failure to carry out the offence may be attributed to a vast array of causes, ranging from a decision on his part, prompted by a sudden change of heart, to discontinue the operation, through an inability to gain access to crucial information or tools, to the disappearance of the targeted victim or property. The article is divided in two parts. The first part addresses the factors which affect the blameworthiness of an actor intent on committing a crime as he gradually implements his plan by laying the groundwork for his undertaking. By considering the punishment of acts preparatory to the commission of a crime in the light of the principle of individual autonomy and the dilemma of moral luck, it explores the various respects in which the culpability of an actor who only engages in preparatory conduct differs from that of an actor who commences to commit the targeted offence. The second part takes the analysis a step further by probing the exceptional conditions under which preparatory actions may be sufficiently wrongful to warrant pressing the criminal law into service to provide for a punitive response. In this respect, attention focuses on such factors as the operational significance of the preparatory conduct; the acquisition of specialized tools and equipment; the organizational support available; and the seriousness of the substantial offense targeted.

In the postcolonial era, we have witnessed waves of mass immigration. Consequently, many states are no longer associated with just one or two national languages. Newly formed immigrant minorities raise demands for language rights, alongside national minorities, which raise similar demands.Such a complex situation exists, for example, in Canada, where only French and English are declared official languages although there are other languages, such as Chinese, which are spoken by large communities of people. My paper addresses the general question of which linguistic minorities are most entitled to comprehensive language rights. Will Kymlicka distinguishes between national minorities, which he regards as deserving of comprehensive language rights, and immigrant minorities which are not. Many scholars challenge Kymlicka’s distinction. However, none of them have suggested alternative criteria for distinguishing minority languages that are entitled to protection from minority languages that are less entitled to protection. In my paper, I suggest such a criterion. My alternative criterion is based on the intrinsic interest people have in protecting their own language as the marker of their cultural identity, thus, comprehensive language rights are to be accorded to linguistic minorities that possess the strongest intrinsic interest in the protection of their language as their marker of cultural identity. I apply my criterion to the Israeli case, in which there are two dominant linguistic minorities: the Arab national minority and the Jewish Russian immigrant minority. Relying on general criticism of Kymlicka’s distinction, I argue that this distinction is not applicable to the Israeli linguistic case. Applying my alternative criterion to the Israeli case, I argue that Israeli Arabs have a stronger interest in Arabic than the Russian Jewish minority has in Russian because Arabic constitutes Israeli Arabs’ exclusive marker of identity.

A Jehovah’s Witness suffers severe injuries in an automobile accident, and these injuries result from another person’s negligent driving. The victim refuses to accept standard medical treatment, which includes blood transfusions. Had she accepted standard treatment, the victim would have been returned to a near normal life. As a result of her decision, she now faces the prospect of life in a wheel-chair. Should the tortfeasor be held liable for the additional damages that result from the victim’s religious decision, or should the victim’s religious choice be treated as a failure of reasonable mitigation? I support the former option, arguing that the thin skull rule should be extended to include religious choices such as the refusal of blood transfusions. Our constitutional commitments to religious freedom and equality require us to treat these choices as reasonable ones, and this supports the notion of religious thin skulls. The argument provided here fits neatly with the structure of tort, and with the major Canadian precedents regarding the evaluation of victim behaviour.

In jurisprudence there is an orthodox position which stresses law’s rationality and coherence, and an unorthodox position which stresses law’s inconsistency and malleability. It is often assumed that you have to choose one and reject the other, but I want to consider the position that law cannot reject either orthodoxy or unorthodoxy as general accounts of law. This is not an attempt to produce a synthesis of the two accounts, or an attempt to say that each account is true of part of the law. Rather it is the claim that law is required to tell two incompatible stories about itself in order to do the important jobs assigned to it in Western pluralist societies. I argue that this jurisprudential position is advanced by Thurman Arnold, Oren Perez, Anthony Kronman, Karl Llewellyn and Stanley Fish.

Much of the work in contemporary jurisprudence is done on the assumption that legal philosophy should find the set of necessary and sufficient conditions that something must have in order to count as law. This essay challenges this view. It examines in detail two versions of this view: the first is the view that jurisprudence should find the necessary features of law and then, from among them, those that are “important” for understanding law. I argue that these two features are in tension with each other, and that there are good reasons for thinking that an account that tries to discover the important features about law will not limit itself only to those features that all laws necessarily possess. The second version is one that tries to discover what necessarily belongs to “our” concept (or practice) of law by looking at those features that participants in the practice of law deem most important about it. I argue that this argument is indeterminate because it has no non-circular standard of defining what belongs to “our” concept of law. I then offer an alternative role for jurisprudence that focuses on trying to solve certain puzzles about law, such as explaining how a social practice can create binding norms. Answering questions of legal philosophy does not require finding what features all laws necessarily possess while maintaining a role for jurisprudence alongside other interdisciplinary approaches to law.

The classical view of natural law, often traced to Aquinas’ statement that “unjust law is no law at all,” finds few defenders today. Even those most sympathetic to natural law theories do not embrace the classical account, but, instead, convert Aquinas’ claim into a claim of political theory (unjust law does not obligate) or construct new “natural law” accounts about the connection between legal and moral principles in a theory of adjudication. In this paper, I defend the view that extreme injustice disqualifies otherwise valid official directives from counting as “law”. Indeed, I suggest that modern positivism’s characterization of the normative claims that typify legal systems leads inevitably to the conclusion that “law,” as a conceptual matter, must be understood by insiders who employ the term to admit moral limits on what can count as “law.” I proceed as follows. First, I begin with some preliminary clarifying comments about methodology and the precise issue under discussion. Second, I describe four leading theories about the nature of law and consider how central ideas in each theory can be seen to generate opposing ideas that lead in turn to opposing models of law. Third, I state briefly the affirmative case for thinking that the classical natural law view is correct. Fourth, I identify basic mistakes in current approaches to the question about the nature of law that help explain why modern positivism has overlooked the manner in which it leads logically to the classical natural law view. Finally, I add some brief remarks about why itmatters: what practical consequences follow from acknowledging that there are moral limits on what can count as law.

In his book The Concept of Law, Hart advances an arresting idea: the internal point of view. The idea immediately captured the imagination of legal theorists and was envisaged as a step forward in understanding both the nature of law and its practices. There is, however, lack of clarity and ambiguity on understanding Hart’s important notion and its role in different key jurisprudential problems such as the normativity of law and the methodology of legal theory. This article reconstructs the intellectual roots of the internal point of view and argues that although the seeds of Hart’s idea can be found in Winch’s seminal book The Idea of a Social Science, there are striking differences between Hart’s and Winch’s notions of the internal point of view. Winch endeavors to explain the participant’s viewpoint in terms of what the participants are doing. On the other hand, Hart aims to provide an explanation of how the law enables judges and law-abiding citizens to determine what they ought to do. This difference has been often overlooked by legal scholars; however, it provides the key to understanding Hart’s connection between the internal viewpoint and the normativity of law, i.e., the idea that legal rules provide reasons for action and, in some circumstances, create and impose duties and obligations. The distinction also illuminates the demarcation in the methodology of legal theory between an explanation from a detached perspective, namely the second or third-person standpoint of the practical point of view and, on the other hand, either a theoretical or hermeneutical explanation of the participant’s point of view. I argue that the non-recognition of the practical/participant distinction has been pervasive in two ways. First, there has been an overemphasis on the distinction between the internal and the external point of view. Second, a more fundamental distinction between an ‘engaged’ and ‘detached’ viewpoint which is a predominant feature of the practical point of view has been under-researched.

Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) scholarship provides a trenchant critique of the contemporary international law regime, using concrete historical and cultural evidence to demonstrate that the central doctrines of international law are highly Eurocentric and, therefore, not representative of the values and beliefs of a large portion of the world’s population. Nevertheless, there is almost no recognition of TWAIL’s intellectual contribution in mainstream international law scholarship. It is only in rare cases that mainstream scholars make the effort to directly respond to Twailian critiques. And in these rare cases, TWAIL is positioned as just another “radically critical” post-modern approach to international law. The marginalization of TWAIL scholarship is frustratingly counterproductive, as recent developments in the international order offer unparalleled challenges for populations in the South. Further, Southern perspectives are conspicuously absent from the mainstream international law discourse. TWAIL seeks to represent marginalized world-views and incorporate them into this discourse. My project is to reinterpret the insights of TWAIL so as to make them more palatable to mainstream scholars with modernist theoretical commitments. I will argue that many TWAIL scholars should be understood to subscribe to the same methodological commitments as “naturalized epistemologists” because they are interested in the causes of belief-claims, prioritizing an etiological examination of international law doctrine and scholarship over substantive analytical critique. More specifically, TWAIL promotes a suspicious stance towards belief-claims that have problematic, hidden, and/or misrepresented foundations. I will conclude that TWAIL’s critique of international law is most reminiscent of a “hermeneutics of suspicion,” which is the interpretive approach famously embraced by Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. Such an approach, while undeniably critical, falls squarely within the modernist philosophical tradition. According to TWAIL, practitioners and scholars of international law should engage in self-reflection and critically examine the epistemological foundations of their beliefs and doctrinal claims. If such practitioners and scholars agree that international law should be based on intellectual and moral commitments that reflect its global subject matter and not just its European history, then there is significant space for the insights of TWAIL in mainstream scholarship.

While the roots of the common law of restitution reach back hundreds of years, the idea that it constitutes a domain of private law was first clearly articulated in the American Law Institute’s Restatement of Restitution in 1932. The U.S. was at the forefront of development in the law of restitution but interest has declined. Recently John Langbein offered an explanation, first in terms of law and economics and then through legal realism. Realism, by Langbein’s estimation, has exacted “a terrible toll” on doctrinal study in the postwar period. One of the principal aims of The Law and Ethics of Restitution, Hanoch Dagan writes, is to disprove this claim. Realism, properly understood, is supportive of doctrine and, he argues, in this context, provides a better account of the law than the prevailing view. This book is a challenging and important work not only in the law of restitution but also in legal theory. My main interest in this Critical Notice is to ask whether the kind of justification for liability in restitution Dagan offers is compelling. While part of what separates Dagan from Langbein is their understanding of legal realism, I take Dagan to be right on this point, and ask whether he’s made the case in favour of a realist account of restitution. I do that by considering two examples of the doctrinal analyses that form the bulk of the book: first by outlining a pair of issues on which Dagan takes a position by setting up the question he aims to ask, and then by considering his rejection of the view to which The Law and Ethics of Restitution offers an alternative.

In The Hateful and the Obscene, Sumner offers a consequentialist reading of John Stuart Mill’s political philosophy that blinds him to the complexity and normative attractions of Canadian law's response to hate speech and pornography. This essay argues that qualified deontological moral philosophy provides a more adequate basis on which to understand the bodies of law examined by Sumner. The qualified deontological analysis is more adequate since it (unlike consequentialism) provides a basis on which to account for the presence within Canadian law of incommensurable values. The analysis offered here also addresses three further weaknesses in Sumner’s text. Sumner offers an inadequate account of the role played by the concept of community in the law’s operations. He also fails to recognise that a strong commitment to identity politics has shaped the development of Canadian law. But perhaps the most significant weakness in The Hateful and the Obscene is Sumner’s adoption of a ‘Millian’ position on free expression that fails adequately to address the threats posed by those political activists who seek to undercut liberal democracy's foundations.