The Clarendon Law Lecture Series

Professor Sheila Jasanoff

The Clarendon Law Lectures 2025-26: Science, Technology and the Constitution of Modernity

Is law simply a follower of science and technology? Does the law always lag behind rapid technological advancement?

This lecture series argued that law is no less important than science in helping us understand and articulate the nature of our existence.

The Clarendon Lecture Series brings leading thinkers in Law to the University of Oxford. Sheila Jasanoff is Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Harvard University, and the 2022 recipient of the Holberg Prize.

This lecture series took place on 18, 19 and 20 November 2026. Recordings of the lectures and a podcast interview with the Oxford University Undergraduate Law Journal are available on the Faculty of Law YouTube channel.

Watch the lectures on YouTube

Past Events

The Clarendon Law Lectures Series has been running for many years with several distinguished guest speakers taking the platform, including the likes of Lord Collins of Mapesbury, Professor Harold Koh and Professor Ernie Weinrib. The series covers three lectures given over a week or two week period and are normally held in Michaelmas Term of each academic year although there are exceptions to this. The lecture series is co-hosted with Oxford University Press.

Clarendon Law Lecture Series Past Events

 

Past Clarendon Speakers:
2026Professor Sheila Jasanoff

Science, Technology and the Constitution of Modernity

YouTube video playlist

2025The Right Hon Lord Sales, Justice of the Supreme CourtConstitutional Agency

YouTube video playlist
2022Professor Steve Weatherill

The resistance and regulation of governing bodies in sport

YouTube video playlist

2018Professor Jane Stapleton (Cambridge)Thoughts on Torts
2017Professor Dan Kahan (Yale)Cognition, Freedom, and truth in the liberal state
2015Professor Roberta Romano (Yale)

Sunsetting the Iron Law of Financial Regulation

Lecture 1Lecture 2 and Lecture 3

2014Professor Ernie Weinrib (Toronto)The Jurisprudence of Corrective Justice
2013Professor Harold Koh (Yale)Law and Globalization
2011Lord Collins of MapesburyJusticiability in National and International Law
2009Professor Hugh BealeMistake and Non-Disclosure of Fact
2008Professor Nicola Lacey (LSE)Women, Autonomy and Criminal Law
2006Justice Stephen Breyer (US Supreme Court)Active Liberty: The United States and Europe
2004Professor William CornishIP - Omnipresent, Distracting, Irrelevant?
2003Carol HarlowState Liablility – Tort Law and Beyond
2002Professor Guenter TreitelSome Landmarks of 20th Century Contract Law
2001Prfoessor Sir John BakerThe Law’s Two Bodies – Some Evidential Problems in English Legal History
2000Professor Reinhard ZimmermannRoman Law, Contemporary Law, European Law
1999The Hon William GummowChange and Continuity – Statute, Equity and Federalism
1997Richard A. PosnerLaw and Legal Theory in England and America
1996Tony WeirEconomic Torts