Rule of Law and its Threats

These days one hears lots of talk about “the rule of law” – and threats to it – both in the popular press and in the legal academy. But what exactly is the rule of law? Why (if at all) is it valuable? And what legal or political practices does a commitment to it require and forbid? In this seminar we will take up such questions by examining the rule of law in theory and practice. We will first look to some of the philosophical literature on the rule of law. We will then examine several case studies arising in different legal contexts – from the Fugitive Slave Act to the Nuremberg Trials to the recent protests over policing – where questions about the rule of law (or its absence) have taken center stage. Works studied include those by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Frederick Douglass, Lon Fuller, Catharine MacKinnon, Joseph Raz, and Jeremy Waldron.