Book Review: The Autonomy of Labour Law
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/138826271601800408 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book Reviews
European Jour nal of Social Sec urity, Volume 18 (2016), No. 4 417
their social dimensions instead of repeating stereotypes. is would probably make
the book more appealing to advoc ates of free competition who could certainly ga in a
lot from the insights in t he book.
Constanze Janda
Deutsche Universität für Verwaltungswissenscha en, Speyer
Germany
Constanze Janda is Professor of S ocial Security Law and Administrative Sciences at the
German University of Administrative Science Speye r. She teaches and conducts research
in European, international and national socia l security law.
Alan Bogg, Cat hryn Costello, A nne Davies and Jeremias Pras sl (eds.), e Autonomy
of Labour Law, Oxford, Portland, Oregon: Hart Publishing, 2015, 431 pp., ISBN:
978–1–84 946 –6 21–9.
is book is based on the papers presented at a conference entitled ‘Oxford Labour Law:
Past, P resent , Future ’ held at St John’s College, Oxford, in July 2013. e conference
was dedicated to Professor Mark Freedland on the occasion of his retirement from
his Chair. Freedland ’s persona determined the choice of contributors, since a ll of
them are either his former students or col leagues. e collection of essays in honour
of Professor Freedland shows similarities to a German-style festschri . e long list
of highly esteemed scholars who have been taught by, or co-operated with, him, is
extremely impressive.
e book focuses on the question of t he extent to which labour law is an autonomous
eld of study in terms of normativity, institut ionalism and substantialit y. e chapters
address the core themes of the identit y, purposes a nd regulatory techniques of labour
law as an autonomous discipline. e contributions challenge the boundaries , and
at the same time t he tight connections that labour law shares with other disciplines,
such as economics and politica l philosophy, but also with ot her legal disciplines such
as public law, contract law and company law.
e book is composed of an introduct ion and four parts. e introduction gives
an excellent overview of t he chapters and an outline of the trajectory of labour
law teaching in Oxford. e editors provide an extremely valuable insight into the
trajectory of teaching labour law in Oxford (pp. 19–25). e rst postgraduate labour
law course was established by Otto Kahn-Freund in 1968. e rather inhospitable
environment could not deter Mark Freedla nd and Paul Davies, who with persistence
and enthusiasm, proposed, and in 1980 nally introduced, an undergraduate course
on labour law as well. e great in uence of these two personalities has impacted
not only upon the teaching of labour law in Ox ford. eir complementary research
interests – Freedland on indiv idual labour law, Davies on collective matters – created
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