Exploring the Fundamentals of Public Law

Paul Craig has been Professor of English Law at St John’s since 1998, and is at the scholarly frontiers of exploring the essential nature of public law in a range of different jurisdictions. His work is remarkable for its scholarly breadth, and ambition. It is widely cited in both legal scholarship and practice, and is instrumental in opening up new areas for research and analysis.

Using Paul Craig’s inspiring work in public and EU law as a launching pad, leading scholars and practitioners from across the world explored and debated the fundamentals of these subjects and possible future trajectories. The conference was attended by over 120 people and the conference structure was designed to maximise discussion through the two days. And that it did. Debate and analysis ranged across a range of topics including the rise of algorithmic public decision-making, delegated legislation, the challenges of multi-linguistic law-making, the nature of case law, the essence of the administrative state and the future of constitutionalism. The papers from the conference will be published by Oxford University Press. 

The conference was generously supported by a British Academy Small Grant, Programme for the Foundations of Law and Constitutional Government, and the Oxford Law Faculty Research Support Fund.