Professor Hans Lindahl, Law degree, Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá; MA in philosophy, Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá; PhD in philosophy, University of Louvain, Belgium.

Profile

Hans Lindahl holds the chair of legal philosophy at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, and a chair of global law at the Law Department of Queen Mary University of London. He obtained law and philosophy degrees at the Universidad Javeriana, in Bogotá, Colombia, before taking a doctorate at the Higher Institute of Philosophy of the University of Louvain (Belgium) in 1994.  His primary areas of research are legal and political philosophy. Lindahl has published numerous articles in these fields. His monograph, Fault Lines of Globalization: Legal Order and the Politics of A-Legality, was published with Oxford University Press in 2013 (Italian and Spanish translations; a Japanese translation forthcoming in 2024). A follow-up monograph, Authority and the Globalisation of Inclusion and Exclusion, has been published with Cambridge University Press in 2018 (Portuguese translation; a Spanish forthcoming in 2023). His current research explores how the challenges raised by the Anthropocene demand reconsidering key features of the ways in which modern legal and political philosophy have conceptualized legal order. This project draws on and radicalizes his earlier research on issues germane to globalization processes, such as the concept of legal order in a global setting; a politics of boundary-setting alternative to both cosmopolitanism and communitarianism; transformations of legal authority and political representation. In dealing with these topics Lindahl draws on (post-)phenomenology and theories of collective action of analytical provenance, while also seeking to do justice to the nitty-gritty of positive law.

For more information please visit his personal website: www.hanslindahl.org.

Research

My primary areas of research are the philosophy of law and political philosophy. As concerns the philosophy of law, my research has focused on  the concept of legal order in a global setting; constituent power; legal authority; transnational constitutionalism; migration and the EU’s ‘Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice’. My research in political philosophy has explored issues pertaining to political agonism; representation and democracy; politics beyond cosmopolitanism and communitarianism; politics and indexicals; collective identity and difference. My current research focuses on  ‘geoconstitutionalism’, the name I give to an inquiry into reimagining the conditions for authoritative lawmaking in the Anthropocene. In dealing with these topics I draw on (post-)phenomenology and theories of collective action of analytical provenance, while also seeking to do justice to the nitty-gritty of positive law.

Funded research

I currently participate as a senior researcher in six-year, €1.2 million research project, ‘Constitutionalizing in the Anthropocene’, funded by the Ministry of Education of the Netherlands.

Earlier funding:

• Five-month Research Fellowship by the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, June-October 2010, with expenditures for the fellowship of €14,700 (ZAR 147,000)
• Transformation of the journal Rechtsfilosofie & Rechtstheorie into an Open Access journal. Netherlands Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) for the period 2012-2015. €22,500
• Design, coordination of and participation in the research program, ‘Boundaries and Legal Authority in a Global Context’, as part of a five-year research theme sponsored by the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (2013-2018), with dedicated funding from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. I drew up this research program, which attracted a range of international researchers to work together at STIAS, at the behest of STIAS and is specifically tailored to my research interests.

Forthcoming and recent conferences and conference papers:

2021

• Keynote lecture, Asymmetrical Recognition and the Representation of Future Generations, in the conference, “Rethinking Responsibility,” hosted by the Institute for Ethics of the Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät Tübingen, in November.
• Panel presentation in the seminar on “Capitalism’s Epistemology,” in Globinar, “Law, Capitalism and Global Crisis: Revisi(ti)ng the Canons, hosted by the research group, Private International Law as Global Governance - PILAGG, Sciences-Po, in March.
• The Other in Ourselves: Conflict of Laws and Asymmetrical Recognition, paper at the conference, “Philosophical Foundations of Private International Law,” hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Private Law at Hamburg, in February.

2020

• La globalización de la inclusión y la exclusión, keynote lecture of the IX Jornadas Internacionales de filosofía del derecho, hosted by the law school of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, in November.
• Legitimidad y efectividad del uso de indicadores en el derecho: una perspectiva iusfilosófica, opening lecture for the Postgraduation Program in Law and Public Policies' new academic year at the Federal University of Goiás, Brazil, in October.
• Terrestrializing (European) Private Law, extended abstract in the workshop, “Exploring European Private Law in the (Re-)Shaping of Global Markets and Orders,” hosted by the Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki, in September.
• Inside and Outside Global Law, inaugural seminar of the seminar series of the Sector Plan on Law and Globalization, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education, in June.
• Keynote lecture in the symposium, Global Norms in a Divided World, hosted by the Faculty of Law of Queens University of Belfast, in February.
• Symposium on Authority and the Globalisation of Inclusion and Exclusion, hosted by the Faculty of Law of the University of Tokyo, in February.

2019

• “Authority and Contestation in International Law”, a workshop hosted by Peter Niesen and Markus Patberg, of the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Hamburg, on the occasion of the publication of Hans Lindahl, Authority and the Globalisation of Inclusion and Exclusion, and Antje Wiener, Contestation and Constitution of Norms in Global International Relations, in January.
• A paper for and discussion with MA and PhD researchers in philosophy of law at the University of Rome 3, in January.
• A paper for and discussion with MA and PhD researchers in philosophy of law at the University of Naples Federico II, in January
• A seminar for PhD researchers at the Universitá della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, in January

2018

• A seminar on Authority and the Globalisation of Inclusion and Exclusion, hosted by the Tilburg Law School, in November.
• A cycle of seminars on Authority and the Globalisation of Inclusion and Exclusion at the Faculties of Philosophy and Law of the Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, in October.
• Book launch of Authority and the Globalisation of Inclusion and Exclusion, hosted by the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context of the School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London, in October.
• Paper at a workshop on recognition and authority organized by Nicole Roughan, of the Law School of the University of Auckland, in September.
• Seminar on Authority and the Globalisation of Inclusion and Exclusion at the Law School of the University of New South Wales, in September.
• The 2018 Julius Stone Address, by invitation of the Law School of the University of Sydney, in September.
• Symposium on Authority and the Globalisation of Inclusion and Exclusion, as the closing event of the 2018 Legal Theory Festival hosted by the Edinburgh Legal Theory Research Group, of the University of Edinburgh, in June.
• Seminar on a chapter of Authority and the Globalisation of Inclusion and Exclusion, hosted by the legal theory group of the Free University Amsterdam, in May.
• Seminar on the theory of constituent power at the Higher Institute of Philosophy of the University of Leuven, in May.
• Discussion of Authority and the Globalisation of Inclusion and Exclusion, hosted by the Political Constitutional Theory Network of the Law School of the University of Helsinki, in March.
• Paper discussion at a workshop on Politics & Law, organized by the Dutch Research School of Philosophy, in January.

2017

• Paper at the Faculty Seminar of Sciences Po, Paris, in November
  Paper at the conference “Die Phaenomenologie und das Politische” of the German Society for Phenomenological Research, University of Hagen, Germany, in September.
• Paper at “The People“: Democracy, Populism and the Popular Constituent Power” conference hosted by Panu Minkkinen and the Political Constitutional Theory Network, Helsinki University, in late June.
• Research fellowship at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, South Africa, in early June
• Paper at a workshop organized by the Law School of the Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, in May.
• Research presentation at a meeting organized by the Faculties of Philosophy and Law of the Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, in May.
• Paper at the special symposium organized by the Indiana University Maurer School of Law on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, in March.
• Extended paper at the “Stealth Legal Order” seminar series hosted by the Law Department of the European University Institute (Florence), in February.

Publications

• Inside and Outside Global Law, the Julius Stone Address 2018, in the Sydney Law Review, 41 (2019) 1, 1-34.
• Authority and the Globalisation of Inclusion and Exclusion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). A Spanish language translation, La autoridad y la globalización de la inclusión y la exclusión, is forthcoming in 2020 (Editorial Herder, Barcelona/Editorial Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá).
• Special sections on this monograph have been published in:
• Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law, 29 (2019) 3, with comments by Paul S. Berman, Ralf Michaels, Nicole Roughan, and Alexander Somek, with a reply to critics by the author.
• Ethics & Politics, 21 (2019) 3, edited by Ferdinando Menga, with comments by Alessandro Ferrara, Thomas Fossen, David Owen, Markus Patberg, and Gianfrancesco Zanetti, with a reply to critics by the author. A follow-up exchange between Alessandro Ferrara and the author was published in Ethics & Politics, 22 (2020) 2, and edited by Ferdinando Menga.
• Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 27 (2020) 2, with comments by Christine Bell, Friedrich Kratochwil, Hans Micklitz, Bert van Roermund, and Carlos Thiebaut, with a reply to critics by the author.
• Possibility, Actuality, Rupture: Constituent Power and the Ontology of Change, in Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 22 (2015) 2, 163-174.
• Fault Lines of Globalization: Legal Order and the Politics of A-Legality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). A Spanish language translation, Fallas de la globalización. Ordenamiento jurídico y la política de la a-juridicidad, was published by Editorial Siglo del Hombre/Editorial Universidad del Rosario, in 2018.
  • Special sections on this monograph have been published in:
    • Ethics & Politics: A Review of Philosophy, a symposium on Fault Lines of Globalization, edited by Ferdinando Menga, with contributions by Emilios Christodoulidis, Fabio Ciaramelli, Martin Loughlin Sofia Näsström, Stefan Rummens, and Neil Walker, together with a reply to critics by the author. (Vol. XVI, No. 2, 2014)
    • Contemporary Political Theory, a critical exchange on Fault Lines of Globalization in December, 2015, with an introduction by Andrew Schaap, comments by David Owen and James Ingram (McMaster), together with a reply to critics by the author.
    • Jurisprudence, a symposium on Fault Lines of Globalization in 2016, vol. 7, issue 2, with contributions by Massimo La Torre, Emmanuel Melissaris, Panu Minkkinen, and Scott Veitch, together with a reply to critics by the author.
• A-legality: Postnationalism and the Question of Legal Boundaries, in Modern Law Review 73 (2010) 1, 30-56.
• Breaking Promises to Keep Them: Immigration and the Boundaries of Distributive Justice, in Hans Lindahl (ed.), A Right to Inclusion and Exclusion? Normative Fault Lines of the EU’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (Oxford: Hart Publishers, 2009), 137-159.
• Collective Self-Legislation as an Actus Impurus: A Response to Heidegger’s Critique of European Nihilism. In Continental Philosophy Review, 3 (2008), 323-342.
• The Paradox of Constituent Power: The Ambiguous Self-Constitution of the European Union, in Ratio Juris. An International Journal of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law, 20 (2007) 4, 485-505.
• Give and Take: Arendt and the Nomos of Political Community, in Philosophy and Social Criticism, Vol. 32 (2006) 7, 881-901.
• Finding a Place for Freedom, Security and Justice: The European Unity and its Claim to Territorial Unity, European Law Review 29 (2004), 461-484.
• Dialectic and Revolution: Confronting Kelsen and Gadamer on Legal Interpretation, in Cardozo Law Review, 24 (2003) 2, 769-798.
• Sovereignty and the Institutionalization of Normative Order, in Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 21 (2001) 1, 165-180.
• Authority and Representation, in Law and Philosophy. An International Journal for Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy 19 (2000) 2, 223-246.
• The Purposiveness of Law: Two Concepts of Representation in the European Union, in Law and Philosophy. An International Journal for Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy 17 (1998) 5-6, 481-507.
• Democracy and the Symbolic Constitution of Society, in Ratio Juris. An International Journal of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law, 11 (1998) 1, 12-37.

Public Engagement

Related news

• Prof. Lindahl contributes as a main researcher in 'Constitutionalizing the Anthropocene' project
  19 September 2019
• Symposium on Prof. Lindahl's new book published in Duke journal
  8 May 2019
• Professor Hans Lindahl’s monograph, Authority and the Globalisation of Inclusion and Exclusion, is due to be published
  22 August 2018
• Professor Hans Lindahl to deliver the 2018 Julius Stone Address
  20 August 2018