This chapter highlights the way in which Ekins and his co-authors in the Judicial Power Project market their publications politically as a backdrop to the debate over the Rwanda Bill. The chapter then describes the Supreme Court’s judgment that declared Rwanda ‘unsafe’ and how the subsequent Treaty between the UK and Rwanda plus the Bill, far from making Rwanda safe from the perspective of human rights law, rendered such law irrelevant. That makes it evident that Ekins and his coauthors were attempting to defend the indefensible. But what is really striking is that they wanted the Act to excise the few slivers of judicial review it preserved, thus giving the executive a completely free hand. The chapter also exposes the inconsistencies in their approach to international law in their different attempts to show that breaking international law is consistent with both the rule of law and international law itself.

This chapter sets out the argument for Bingham’s conception of the rule of law. First, it exposes the political roots of the legal positivist ‘thin’ conception of the rule of law. Second, it shows that examples on which the thin conception relies, notably slavery and apartheid South Africa, when properly examined, both support the thick conception and illustrate the important connection between the procedural and the substantive dimensions of the rule of law. That connection raises the issue of the status of international law and it shows, third, how the UK dualist tradition is merely the way that the UK manages its commitment to international law, understood as part of its commitment to the rule of law. Finally, the chapter shows that the common good lawyers’ conception of sovereignty is one of executive, not parliamentary sovereignty.

This chapter reintroduces the ‘common good lawyers’ who are the principal figures in the Judicial Power Project, John Finnis and Richard Ekins, as well as the think tank that hosts the project, Policy Exchange, and sketches how that project has operated in conjunction with Conservative governments to undermine international law and the rule of law. That project operates in turn in conjunction with the Common Good Project, an alliance between right-wing academics across the Atlantic, and prominent figures in it are deeply connected to far-right intellectuals and politicians in Eastern Europe. The chapter closes with an exploration of the resonances between the ideology of the people involved in these projects and the authoritarian political and legal theorists of the Weimar period, Carl Schmitt and Eric Voegelin, in that their understandings of the common good are mostly negative: anything-but-liberalism.

The focus of this chapter is the debate in the House of Lords and the attack there on Attorney General Richard Hermer’s adoption of Lord Bingham’s ‘thick’ definition of the rule of law in place of their allegedly apolitical ‘thin’ definition. It argues that the main attackers can’t help but espouse a thick conception of the rule of law, which, although less thick than the Hermer/Bingham conception, still shows that the Rwanda Act violated the rule of law. It also shows that the common good lawyers rely on a legal positivist position, which excludes human rights and international law from the content of the rule of law, while Hermer and Bingham, following Dicey, adopt a common law methodology that includes human rights and international law in the content of the rule of law.

We are sometimes told that the Declaration is an airy statement about individual rights, whereas the Constitution does the hard work of structuring a government. This Part argues that the Declaration is primarily concerned, not with individual rights, but with the structure of government. That is, how do we structure a government so that our rights are most reliably protected? And the answer is not as little government as possible, but a competently structured government, subject to the rule of law, that works for the benefit of the people.

AI applications are increasingly deployed in the judiciary for a wide array of tasks, denoted as ‘judicial AI’. The implications for the legal system are vast. In this chapter, I focus on the effects of judicial AI on the rule of law, given the judiciary’s essential role in safeguarding this value. After examining what is meant by the rule of law, three sets of questions guide my analysis. First, how does the turn from text-driven to code- and data-driven legal interpretation affect the nature of law? Is there a risk that instead of fostering the rule of law, this leads to algorithmic rule by law? Second, since AI applications are designed by human beings, delegating judicial tasks to AI implies a delegation to the coders developing it. To what extent can this result in a rule of coders? And last, what impact does judicial AI have on the separation of powers, given that the executive and legislative branch of power control the judiciary’s resources? Can it undermine the judiciary’s ability to check and balance the other branches of power? The answers to these questions force me to conclude that many concerns must be addressed prior to judicial AI’s wide-scale adoption.

The increasing reliance on algorithmic and AI systems by judges is reshaping the judiciary and its way of working in numerous ways. One aspect that has remain under- examined is how the judicial duty to state reasons may be affected. This refers to the obligation of judges to provide reasons whenever they rule in a case. In fact, the duty constitutes an essential component of the rule of law and the right to a fair trial, and fulfils important normative goals, such as legitimacy, transparency, and accountability of the judicial decision-making process. The chapter therefore first provides a concise conceptualisation of the duty, including its underlying normative goals. It then examines how and to what extent the judicial duty to state reasons can be impacted whenever judges rely on AI systems, focusing on the impact of such systems on the underlying normative goals of the duty. The chapter concludes with some reflections on how the duty can be safeguarded in the age of automation.

The chapter discusses how the Gulf republics, namely Iran and Iraq, have distinct political cultures shaped by historical factors. In contrast, the monarchies, often underestimated by rentier theory, have exhibited resilience and adaptability. The analysis encompasses the Gulf states’ political institutions, examining the role of constitutions, electoral chambers, and guarantees of political and civil liberties. It highlights the political diversity within the Gulf subregion, showcasing various political systems beyond simplistic labels of ‘republic’ or ‘monarchy’. Despite these apparent structures, the chapter underscores the limitations on political and civil activities, judicial independence and press freedom in the Gulf. The discussion delves into the nuanced nature of political activism, from platforms in Iraq and Iran to the emergence of political tendencies in Bahrain and Kuwait. The text further explores the use of force to suppress dissent in various Gulf states, leading to a lack of transparency and the absence of the rule of law. Finally, the chapter assesses the IDEA ratings, revealing the subregion’s generally low scores on the ‘democratic index’. Despite the challenges and limitations, the Gulf states remain dynamic entities with diverse political organisations, and in the absence of shocks or geopolitical disruptions, the author anticipates an evolutionary rather than revolutionary change in these countries’ political systems.

Legal futurists have urged judiciaries to experiment with automated legal systems. However, for many aspects of legal systems, there is a common sense that their translation into computation would be inappropriate. The simultaneous malleability of legal systems and prevalence of constitutive practices within them, should lead to a two-level consideration of (1) what aspects of a liberal legal order are crucial, and (2) for those that are crucial, what is lost when that aspect is either partially or fully automated. In legal decision-making, some patterns of action are merely instrumental to achieving ends, while others are essential, or constitutive: the activity should no longer even be considered part of a liberal legal order when the practice ceases. Administrative processes that are simply incidental and instrumental to the legitimate resolution of a case are well primed for automation. Other practices are essential and intrinsically important, and properly resist being converted into machine-readable code. Distinctions between incidental and constitutive, or instrumentally and intrinsically important, aspects of law, should both bound and guide legal automation.

Can AI adjudicative tools in principle better enable us to achieve the rule of law by replacing judges? This chapter argues that answers to this question have been excessively focused on ‘output’ dimensions of the rule of law – such as conformity of decisions with the applicable law – at the expense of vital ‘process’ considerations such as explainability, answerability, and reciprocity. These process considerations do not by themselves warrant the conclusion that AI adjudicative tools can never, in any context, properly replace human judges. But they help bring out the complexity of the issues – and the potential costs – that are involved in this domain.

The evolution of AI presents both challenges and opportunities for courts. To date, most discussion and examination of AI and courts has focused on decision-making tools, reflecting a broader trend in discourse around courts that unduly centres on courts’ adjudicatory functions. Yet courts perform a far wider set of functions and societal roles. This chapter examines the current and potential uses of AI, questions of suitability and ethics, and the challenges and opportunities that arise through this broader consideration of what it is courts actually do, beyond determining disputes. While AI may enhance access to justice, reduce costs, save time, and potentially improve the quality of justice, significant challenges arise, including the potential erosion of judicial respect, inaccuracy, and concerns for the separation of powers. Crucially, court users and the public ought to be more widely consulted in how AI is developed and deployed for courts to achieve better, fairer, and more effective justice.

Conceptual confusion remains a persistent challenge in political analysis. W. B. Gallie’s 1956 theory of “essentially contested concepts” remains a foundational attempt to address this issue by highlighting the normative dimensions of key political terms. This chapter revisits Gallie’s framework, applying it to the concepts of democracy and the rule of law. We explore both the strengths and the controversies surrounding his seven proposed criteria for contestedness. Critics have argued that several of Gallie’s criteria are overly narrow or ambiguous. In response, we contend that Gallie actually offers both restrictive and broader interpretations of these criteria, and we propose ways to reconcile his intentions with the critiques. Further criticisms claim Gallie encourages conceptual relativism or is too optimistic about resolving disagreement. We acknowledge these concerns but argue that his framework – especially when refined – offers a promising basis for fostering reasoned debate over contested terms. While political concepts often reflect deep normative divisions, this analysis shows how Gallie’s approach, enhanced by our proposed clarifications, can help structure more productive scholarly dialogue. The chapter concludes with a schematic summary of these refinements, presented in Table 10.1, to guide future work on conceptual disagreement and contested meaning in political science.