William Twining

William Twining is Quain Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at University College London and an Associate of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, with which he has been involved in several capacities since the early 1970s. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Academy for Social Sciences, and a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

At the start of his career William Twining taught for seven years in Sudan and Tanzania and has maintained an interest in Eastern Africa, and more broadly the Commonwealth, ever since. He has studied and taught in several leading UK and American law schools. He is a prominent member of the Law in Context movement, with significant contributions to jurisprudence,  evidence and proof, legal method, socio-legal studies,  legal education, and preservation of legal records.

His recent work explores the implications of “globalisation” for legal scholarship and legal theory. Central themes include the variety and complexity of legal phenomena; that many so-called “global” processes and patterns,  are sub-global, linked to empires, diasporas, alliances and legal traditions;  that diffusion,  legal pluralism, and surface law are important topics requiring the attention of both analytical and empirically oriented jurists; that, in a world characterised by profound diversity of beliefs and radical poverty,  a more cosmopolitan  discipline of law needs to engage with problems of constructing  just and workable supra-national institutions and practices; and that adopting a global perspective challenges some of the main working assumptions of Western traditions of academic law.

Current Projects

• Legal Records at Risk
• Globalisation and legal theory