Leah Trueblood

I am currently a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Surrey. I previously studied for my D.Phil. in Oxford. I was then a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, as well as Fellow and Tutor in Law at Worcester College. My research is about how law can help to build resilient democracies. Some of my publications are:

                                                                                    Book

Referendums as Representative Democracy (Hart 2024 – Hardback) (Hart 2025 – Paperback)

Reviewed in The International Constitutional Law Journal (Spanish Edition) by Maris Köpcke; in Public Law (2005) Jan 195-199 by Pedro Nobuyuki Urashima, in The Modern Law Review by Richard Stacey, on the British Association of Comparative Law blog by Joel Cólon-Ríos and the subject of a forthcoming symposium in Comparative Constitutional Studies with Jeff King, Daniel Moeckli, and Ayesha Wijayaleth.                                                                          

                                                                                  Articles

'Judicial Review, Ouster Clauses, and the Democratic Credentials of the Judiciary in the United Kingdom' forthcoming in Legal Studies, published online 17 June 2025

'The Science of Accountability:The Role of Reason-Giving When Deferring to Scientific Assessments in Judicial Review (2025) 30(1) Judicial Review 55–71

‘Public Functions of Political Parties' (2025) 88 Modern Law Review 660-688

‘The Impact of Federalism on Secession Referendums: Comparing Scotland and Québec’ (2023) 34 King’s Law Journal (Special Issue on Referendums) Keith Ewing and Chris McCorkindale (eds) 321-339

‘The Case for Supermajority Requirements in Referendums’ with Matt Qvortrup (2023) 21 International Journal of Constitutional Law 187-204

‘Schmitt, Dicey, and the Power and Limits of Referendums in the United Kingdom’ with Matt Qvortrup (2022) 42 Legal Studies 396-407

‘Are Referendums Directly Democratic?’ (2020) 40 OJLS 425-448

‘Legislating for Referendums in the United Kingdom’ (2020) Public Law 49-56

                                                                            Chapters

‘Precedent as Paradigm: Thomas Kuhn on Science and the Common Law’ with Peter Hatfield in Endicott, Kristijánsson, and Lewis (eds) The Philosophical Foundations of Precedent (OUP 2023) 89-100

‘Brexit and Two Roles for Referendums in the United Kingdom’ in Richard Stacey and Richard Albert (eds) The Limits and Legitimacy of Referendums (OUP 2022) 183-201

‘Referendums and New Labour’s Constitutional Reforms’ in Adam Tucker and Michael Gordon (eds) The New Labour Constitution: Twenty Years On (Hart 2022) 200-224