The Rule of Law
by Jeremy Waldron

The aim of this course is not to cover the whole range of historical, philosophical and legal ideas concerning “the rule of law.” Instead we will focus on a particular set of issues questioning the relation between the rule of law, private property, and markets—in the context of both established and emerging economies. The close association between the rule of law and market values is familiar from the work of F.A. Hayek, and this will be one of the topics of our study. We shall also look historically at the relation between property and the rule of law in the work of John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, and Karl Marx. 

In modern discussions of the rule of law, there is some tension between those who associate the rule of law with the capacity to enact and administer legislation for the common good and those who associate it with the common law traditions that supposedly secure property rights, freedom of contract, and security for investors. From the latter point of view, the enactment of (for example) social or environmental legislation and its administration and the inculcation of respect for it is actually a threat to the rule of law. We will examine what is at stake in these disputes including: the relation between the rule of law and the modern administrative state; the distinction between substantive and formal and procedural conceptions of the rule of law; the alleged distinction between the rule of law and rule by law; and the relation between the rule of law and democratic ideals.