After Public Law

Public law has been conceived in many different ways, sometimes overlapping, often conflicting. However in recent years a common theme running through the discussions of public law is one of loss. What function and future can public law have in this rapidly transforming landscape, where globalized states and supranational institutions have ever-increasing importance?

The contributions to this volume take stock of the idea, concepts, and values of public law as it has developed alongside the growth of the modern state, and assess its continued usefulness as a distinct area of legal inquiry and normativity in light of various historical trends and contemporary pressures affecting the global configuration of law in general.

Divided into three parts, the first provides a conceptual, philosophical, and historical understanding of the nature of public law, the nature of private law and the relationship between the public, the private, and the concept of law. The second part focuses on the domains, values, and functions of public law in contemporary (state) legal practice, as seen, in part, through its relationship with private domains, values, and functions. The final part engages with the new legal scholarship on global transformation, analyzing the changes in public law at the national level, including the new forms of interpenetration of public and private in the market state, as well as exploring the ubiquitous use of public law values and concepts beyond the state.

Cormac Mac Amhlaigh, Lecturer in Public Law, School of Law, University of Edinburgh,Claudio Michelon, Senior Lecturer in Law and Legal Theory, School of Law, University of Edinburgh,Neil Walker, Regius Professor of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations, School of Law, University of Edinburgh

Cormac Mac Amhlaigh is a Lecturer in Public Law at the University of Edinburgh School of Law. He received his PhD from the European University Institute and his research focuses on UK constitutional law, public law and constitutional theory, the relevance and use of public law concepts beyond the state, and the theory and practice of human rights law.

Claudio Michelon is Senior Lecturer in Law and Legal Theory at the University of Edinburgh School of Law. In 2006 he was awarded both a British Academy Visiting Fellowship and the H.L.A Hart Visiting Fellowship by the Oxford Centre for Ethics and the Philosophy of Law. His research focuses on legal decision-making, ethics, and epistemology, and also the law's political authority.

Neil Walker holds the Regius Chair of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations at the University of Edinburgh. He recently completed a review for the Scottish Government into the final appellate jurisdiction of the Scottish legal system. He is the author or editor of numerous volumes, including The Paradox of Constitutionalism (with Martin Loughlin, OUP 2007) and Europe's Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice (OUP 2004).