Abstract

More than any other legal philosopher in the Anglo-American jurisprudence of the 1970s and 1980s Joseph Raz defined with analytical clarity the parameters for a theory of the limits of laws and legal systems. This work was foundational not only for those wishing to defend such theory but also for others (like myself) who took a systematic approach to challenging it. In laying out the conditions for a limited understanding of laws and legal systems, the early works of Raz also reveal the conditions that must be met for its critique. By reference to Raz, the first paragraph of my PhD dissertation, submitted in July 1991, declared a challenge to the notion of both a limited legal system and the boundedness of individual legal rules and principles. In this sense, it contains clear echoes of the thesis of the limits of law as expounded by Raz. In my critique of the limits of law, I did not follow the Anglo-American tradition, but rather postmodern, notably deconstructive, thought. My aim was to argue for the intrinsically plural and—at that stage _de_-limited—nature of laws and legal systems. It was a further 25 years before I argued more forcefully in favour of an _un_limited aspect to law. Nonetheless a recurring obsession with the question of the limits of law and its relationship to the different notions of legal plurality has defined essentially all my work in legal philosophy. In this paper, I will trace the connections to these early works of Raz and their resonance in my subsequent works. A critical questioning of the limits of law in my view remains essential to a generative view of law appropriate to the 21st century—that is a view of law that is intrinsically open to modern imperatives of decolonisation, anti-hierarchical social relationships, and care for our living planet. This article is a lightly referenced and slightly expanded version of a keynote lecture delivered online as part of the workshop ‘Plural Visions of Law—the Legacy of Joseph Raz’ hosted by York University, 11 May 2023.