Justice and the Slaughter Bench

'An indispensable starting point for those interested in what a genuinely critical, philosophically-engaged and social-theoretical approach to law looks like. It is the most recent instalment in a far-reaching, illuminating and important project that seeks to chart both law's nature and its place in the ethical landscape.'

Professor William Lucy, Durham University, UK.

‘Alan Norrie is one of the leading voices in the critical analysis of criminal law. In this book he brings together a collection of recent essays and articles that develop two distinctive themes in his work to date. The first is the critique of what he calls law’s ‘architectonic’ - the internal structure of the criminal law and in particular its structural incapacity to do the work of moral judgement without creating constant tension and instability in its legal doctrine. Here the focus is on Norrie’s challenge to liberal legal theory. The second is the exploration of what he calls law’s ‘constellation’, which is to say an ethical critique of legal justice in its wider social, historical setting. Here the focus shifts to Norrie’s challenge to critical theory. Together the two themes constitute a project of ‘Judging law’s judgment’, as the title of his introductory chapter has it.…Justice and the Slaughter Bench offers a fascinating search for a new philosophical ground for criminal justice, one that transcends the limitations of liberalism. With the advanced state of decay of the liberal state now palpable, there are few more urgent tasks for legal theory.’

Peter Ramsay, Modern Law Review