Jurisprudence

1. Introduction

Part I. Law As It Is:

2. British legal positivism: philosophical roots and command theories

3. Herbert Hart's new beginning and new questions

4. Germanic legal positivism: Hans Kelsen's quest for the pure theory of law

5. Realism in legal theory

Part II. Law and Morality:

6. Natural law tradition from antiquity to the Enlightenment

7. John Finnis' restatement of classical natural law

8. Separation of law and morality

Part III. Social Dimensions of Law:

9. Sociological jurisprudence and sociology of law

10. Radical jurisprudence: challenges to liberal legal theory

11. Economic analysis of law

12. Evolutionary jurisprudence

Part IV. Rights and Justice:

13. Fundamental legal conceptions: the building blocks of legal norms

14. Justice.

Suri Ratnapala has taught jurisprudence, constitutional law and constitutional political economy for thirty years, principally at the University of Queensland but also occasionally at universities in the US, UK, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic. He held the Chair of Public Law at the TC Beirne School of Law until his retirement in 2015. Ratnapala's postgraduate teaching has included the supervision of a large number of successful Ph.D. students. The value of his contributions has been recognised through a number of international awards and fellowships including a Sir Anthony Fisher Memorial Award, a John Templeton Foundation Award and a Centenary of Australian Federation Medal. In 2012, he was invited to become a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. The Academy invites only 'persons of exceptional distinction in the discipline of law who are demonstrably committed to the objects of the Academy'. His book Welfare State or Constitutional State (1990) won the Sir Anthony Fisher Award. Suri Ratnapala is a co-author and contributing editor of a number of other books.