The Romantic Allure of Old Europe: Pertinent Questions and Non‐Responses
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12509 |
| Author | Johan der Walt |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
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Modern Law Review
DOI: 10.1111/1468-2230.12509
REVIEW ARTICLE
The Romantic Allure of Old Europe: Pertinent
Questions and Non-Responses
Johan van der Walt∗
M. Wilkinson and M. Dowdle,Questioning the Foundations of Public Law,
Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2017, 320 pp, hb £70.00.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Questioning the Foundations of Public Law (QFPL), edited by Wilkinson and
Dowdle in 2017, hosts a collection of probing essays on Martin Loughlin’s
formidable Foundations of Public Law (FPL) which appeared in 2010.1The
review of the volume offered here is divided into three sections. The first
section provides an overview of the questions put to Loughlin in QFPL.The
second turns to Loughlin’s reactions to these questions. I use the word ‘reaction’
here to suggest at the outset that Loughlin largely does not respond to but only
deflects – very astutely, no doubt – the questions put to him in QFPL.The
third section engages with the key concerns that emerge from the exchange
between Loughlin and his interlocutors in QFPL.
THE KEY QUESTIONS PUT TO LOUGHLIN
The essays in QFPL by and large amount to a multi-perspective critique of
the key arguments that Loughlin puts forward in FPL regarding the founda-
tions of public law. Public law, contends Loughlin, pivots on the concepts of
‘political right’ and ‘political jurispr udence’. These concepts emerged from a
long tradition of European legal and political theory towards the end of the
19th and beginning of the 20th century and found eminent expression in the
∗Professor of Philosophy of Law, University of Luxembourg; Extraordinary Professor, University of
the Free State, South Africa.
1 M. Loughlin, Foundations of Public Law (Oxford: OUP, 2010).
C2020 The Author. The Modern Law Review C2020The Moder n Law ReviewLimited. (2020)83(5) MLR 1086–1100
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