Our fellows work in a wide array of areas across law, philosophy, technology, and beyond. The SCLP’s organises its research around several key clusters, reflecting our fellows’ diverse interests and expertise. Below is an overview of our main areas of focus. We invite you to explore the full range of our fellows’ work by reviewing their individual profiles and publications.

Criminal Law Theory (criminalisation; theories of punishment; offences; defences; excuses and justifications; mens rea concepts including intention, knowledge, recklessness negligence, wilful ignorance; criminal responsibility; free will; corporate punishment; collective responsibility; legal moralism; retributive justice; blameworthiness; malum prohibitum offences; public wrongs; complicity; principles of the liberal criminal law; relevance of empirical/experimental work for criminal law; criminal law and the regulation of emerging technologies; neuroscience and criminal offence).

General Jurisprudence (legal validity; legal authority; various approaches to the nature of law; legal normativity; sources of law; legal reasoning; legal interpretation and adjudication; morality and law; law and epistemology; law and metaethics; law and language, including theories of vagueness, communicative content, and contextual enrichment; discretion; coercion and the limits of the law; experimental jurisprudence; grounding in law; social conventions; legal conventionalism; artefactual theories of law; the nature of social rules and legal rules; custom formation; the institutional nature of law).

International Law and Armed Conflict (international humanitarian law; international sanctions; national security and foreign relations law; armed conflict and counterterrorism operations; counterintelligence; autonomous weaponry; collateral damage; transnational Rule of Law; global health justice; global trade; circular economies; cybersecurity).

Law and AI, Copyright, Crypto, Regulation, and Technology (AI-generated output; intellectual property rights; AI and dispute resolution; AI, taxes, and regulation; AI and criminal punishment; market manipulation; crypto markets and policy; blockchain).

Moral and Political Philosophy (practical reasoning; sources of normativity; free will; moral luck; moral responsibility; moral ignorance; moral psychology; moral disagreements; theory of action; Kantian ethics; neuroscience and moral responsibility; liberal equality; distributive justice).

Private Law Theory (property theory; tort law theory; conventions in private law; fairness in global taxation; torts; negligence liability; moral psychology; action theory; moral responsibility in private law contexts; moral principles of the private law; criminal-tort distinction; private law and insurance; economic analysis of private law).

Public Law Theory (the Rule of Law; legal and political constitutionalism; constitutional design; global economic constitutionalism; cosmopolitanism; the moral aims of public governance; executive powers, separation of powers; judicial independence and judicial accountability; judicial powers and judicial review; constituent power; constitutional statutes; constitutional crisis and revolutions; constitutional change; empirical analysis in judicial review; courts’ systems and courts’ procedures; human rights law).