George Pavlakos
George Pavlakos is Professor of Law and Philosophy at the School of Law, University of Glasgow. From 2007 to 2016 he was Research Professor of Globalisation and Legal Theory and director of the Centre for Law and Cosmopolitan Values at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. From this position he attracted and managed a number of substantial research grants with a combined budget of €1.9 Million. Since 2012 he has been consulting director of the Centre for Law and Public Affairs, Institute of State and Law, The Czech Academy of Sciences.
His most important personal research awards include two Alexander von Humboldt Fellowships, an FWO-Odysseus grant, a J.E. Purkyne Senior Research Fellowship (Czech Academy of Sciences) and a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship (EUI, Florence). In recent years he has held visiting and part-time positions at the Universities of Bologna, Glasgow (from 2007-2015), Kiel, the UCLA Law School, the Cornell Law School and the Beihang Law School (Beijing).
His published work includes the monograph Our Knowledge of the Law (Hart Publishing, 2007) and he has co-edited several volumes on a variety of jurisprudential topics, the most recent being Agency, Negligence and Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 2021). He is a general editor of the Cambridge ELEMENTS in Legal Philosophy; a general editor of the journal Jurisprudence (Taylor & Francis); and the general editor of the book series Law and Practical Reason (Hart Publishing). His published work has appeared in such journals as Legal Theory, the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Ratio Juris, the Pacific Philosophical Quarterly and Rechtstheorie.
George has held appointments as panel member on the Belgian Fund of Scientific Research - FNRS (2012-2018); the National Agency for the Accreditation of Greek HEIs (2013); and, more recently, REF 2021 (sub-panel 18: Law).
His most important personal research awards include two Alexander von Humboldt Fellowships, an FWO-Odysseus grant, a J.E. Purkyne Senior Research Fellowship (Czech Academy of Sciences) and a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship (EUI, Florence). In recent years he has held visiting and part-time positions at the Universities of Bologna, Glasgow (from 2007-2015), Kiel, the UCLA Law School, the Cornell Law School and the Beihang Law School (Beijing).
His published work includes the monograph Our Knowledge of the Law (Hart Publishing, 2007) and he has co-edited several volumes on a variety of jurisprudential topics, the most recent being Agency, Negligence and Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 2021). He is a general editor of the Cambridge ELEMENTS in Legal Philosophy; a general editor of the journal Jurisprudence (Taylor & Francis); and the general editor of the book series Law and Practical Reason (Hart Publishing). His published work has appeared in such journals as Legal Theory, the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Ratio Juris, the Pacific Philosophical Quarterly and Rechtstheorie.
George has held appointments as panel member on the Belgian Fund of Scientific Research - FNRS (2012-2018); the National Agency for the Accreditation of Greek HEIs (2013); and, more recently, REF 2021 (sub-panel 18: Law).
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Papers by George Pavlakos
Kantian right, this is the key claim of the chapter, supports a relations-first account of legal obligation.
I will argue, first, that a wide variety of interactions between agents pose the problem of consistency between their respective freedoms. I will model this by saying that such interactions trigger the ‘principle of external freedom’ (PEF) and offer a detailed explanation of how PEF is triggered.
Most of the remaining of the paper will engage with objections. The view defended here stands in stark contrast with the widespread view, shared by positivist and non-positivist lawyers alike, that the legal relation presupposes institutional facts of political community: a key feature of the legal relation is that it generates obligations (for short: legal obligations), which are enforceable on all those who partake in it. The objection to my model would be that the enforceability of legal obligations rests on a kind of authority that is omnilateral or, in other words, authority that emanates in all those involved in the relation. It is this omnilateral dimension of authority that is captured by the institutional element of political organisation and which my conception misses. In doing so, the objection goes, it misconstrues an essential feature of the legal relation. I will propose to resist an understanding of the legal relation in terms of political organisation in a manner that assumes that the latter pre-exists the former. In fact, my account rides on the suggestion that the legal relation is co-original with the political relation: it is when we are in the legal relation (i.e. when the PEF has been triggered) that we enter the political realm. Or, which is the same thing, what it means for you and I to stand in a political relation is that we instantiate between us the legal relation.
In closing, with an eye to fleshing out my proposal, I will advance an account of the structure of the obligations generated by the legal relation and indicate how the more familiar institutional legal obligations form part of that structure, and what their relation is to the other non-institutional obligations within it.
Kantian right, this is the key claim of the chapter, supports a relations-first account of legal obligation.
I will argue, first, that a wide variety of interactions between agents pose the problem of consistency between their respective freedoms. I will model this by saying that such interactions trigger the ‘principle of external freedom’ (PEF) and offer a detailed explanation of how PEF is triggered.
Most of the remaining of the paper will engage with objections. The view defended here stands in stark contrast with the widespread view, shared by positivist and non-positivist lawyers alike, that the legal relation presupposes institutional facts of political community: a key feature of the legal relation is that it generates obligations (for short: legal obligations), which are enforceable on all those who partake in it. The objection to my model would be that the enforceability of legal obligations rests on a kind of authority that is omnilateral or, in other words, authority that emanates in all those involved in the relation. It is this omnilateral dimension of authority that is captured by the institutional element of political organisation and which my conception misses. In doing so, the objection goes, it misconstrues an essential feature of the legal relation. I will propose to resist an understanding of the legal relation in terms of political organisation in a manner that assumes that the latter pre-exists the former. In fact, my account rides on the suggestion that the legal relation is co-original with the political relation: it is when we are in the legal relation (i.e. when the PEF has been triggered) that we enter the political realm. Or, which is the same thing, what it means for you and I to stand in a political relation is that we instantiate between us the legal relation.
In closing, with an eye to fleshing out my proposal, I will advance an account of the structure of the obligations generated by the legal relation and indicate how the more familiar institutional legal obligations form part of that structure, and what their relation is to the other non-institutional obligations within it.