The Surrey Centre for Law and Philosphy is delighted to present an open lecture by Andrei Marmor: ‘Soft Law, Authoritative Advice, and Nonbinding Agreements’.

One of the most fascinating developments in the domain of international law in the last few decades is the astonishing proliferation of non-binding legal instruments, generally referred to as soft law. These are norms, commitments, or directives, explicitly avoiding the imposition of legal obligations on the relevant parties. The legal status of soft law is debated in the literature, but Prof. Marmor’s concern is different: he aims to provide an account of the rationale of soft law from the perspective of the practical reasons that can rationalize, for example, the nonbinding directives of the United Nations and other international authorities.

Andrei Marmor is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Philosophy and Law at Cornell Law School. His research interests span philosophy of law, moral, social and political philosophy, and philosophy of language. Marmor has published dozens of articles, six book monographs and a number of edited volumes. His most recent books include Social Conventions: from language to law (Princeton 2009), Philosophy of Law (Princeton 2011) and The Language of Law (Oxford 2014).