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Thoughtfulness and the Rule of Law

Text of British Academy Law Lecture, by Professor Jeremy Waldron FBA, read 1 February 2011.

• Jeremy Waldron

The whole article can be downloaded as a PDF file.

Published in British Academy Review, Issue 18 (Summer 2011).

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Thoughtfulness and the Rule of Law
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British Academy Law Lecture, delivered by Professor Jeremy Waldron FBA, on 1 February 2011 (venue: The British Academy). The rule of law is sometimes associated with the precision and determinacy of legal rules, and the predictability of the environment that they provide. But it is important also to think about the various ways in which law helps to make us more thoughtful and reflective, governing us through standards and principles rather than through the robotic precision of rules. Whether in private law (with standards of reasonable care), or in human rights law (with norms prohibiting inhuman and degrading treatment), law sometimes invites its subjects to make thoughtful judgments about their behaviour or about the situations that they face, structuring and channelling those judgments in various ways.
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