About
Thomas Poole joined LSE in 2006, and has been Professor of Law since 2015. His research interests include UK constitutional and administrative law, legal and political theory, foreign relations law, constitutional history, law and empire, and the history of political thought. He is author of Reason of State: Law, Prerogative and Empire (Cambridge, 2015) and co-editor of volumes on Hobbes and the Law (Cambridge, 2012), Law, Liberty and State: Oakeshott, Hayek and Schmitt on the Rule of Law (Cambridge, 2015) and The Double-Facing Constitution: Legal Externalities and the Reshaping of Constitutional Order (Cambridge, 2019).
Tom is General Editor of the Modern Law Review and General Editor of the Cambridge Studies in Constitutional Law (with David Dyzenhaus).. He also sits on the editorial boards of Public Law Review, Human Rights Law Review and the NILS UK Law Review. Tom has held visiting positions the University of New South Wales (2003-4 & 2005-6), the European University Institute (2007), Melbourne University (2008), the University of Toronto (2008), Princeton University (2008), Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas (2013-14), Auckland University (2016) and the University of Western Australia (2017).
Research
Research Interests
- Public law
- Constitutional theory
- History of constitutional thought
Publications
The Double-Facing Constitution (edited with David Dyzenhaus and Jacco Bomhoff) (Cambridge University Press, 2020)
This collection explores some of the many ways in which constitutional orders engage with, and are shaped by, their exteriors. Constitutional and legal theory often marginalize 'foreign' elements, such as norms originating in other legal systems, the movement of individuals across borders, or the application of domestic law to foreign affairs. In The Double-Facing Constitution, these instances of boundary crossing lie at the heart of an alternative understanding of constitutions as permeable membranes, through which norms can and sometimes must travel. Constitutional orders are facing both inwards and outwards - and the outside world influences their interiors just as much as their internal orders help shape their surroundings. Different essays discuss the theoretical and historical foundations of this view (grounded in Kelsen, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and others), and its contemporary relevance for areas as diverse as migration law, the conflict of laws, and foreign relations law.
click here for publisher's site
Reason of State: Law, Prerogative and Empire (Cambridge University Press, July 2015)
This historically embedded treatment of theoretical debates about prerogative and reason of state spans over four centuries of constitutional development. Commencing with the English Civil War and the constitutional theories of Hobbes and the Republicans, it moves through eighteenth-century arguments over jealousy of trade and commercial reason of state to early imperial concerns and the nineteenth-century debate on the legislative empire, to martial law and twentieth-century articulations of the state at the end of empire. It concludes with reflections on the contemporary post-imperial security state. The book synthesises a wealth of theoretical and empirical literature that allows a link to be made between the development of constitutional ideas and global realpolitik. It exposes the relationship between internal and external pressures and designs in the making of the modern constitutional polity and explores the relationship between law, politics and economics in a way that remains rare in constitutional scholarship.
click here for publisher's site
Law, Liberty and State edited by Thomas Poole, David Dyzenhaus (Cambridge University Press, May 2015)
Oakeshott, Hayek and Schmitt are associated with a conservative reaction to the 'progressive' forces of the twentieth century. Each was an acute analyst of the juristic form of the modern state and the relationship of that form to the idea of liberty under a system of public, general law. Hayek had the highest regard for Schmitt's understanding of the rule of law state despite Schmitt's hostility to it, and he owed the distinction he drew in his own work between a purpose-governed form of state and a law-governed form to Oakeshott. However, the three have until now rarely been considered together, something which will be ever more apparent as political theorists, lawyers and theorists of international relations turn to the foundational texts of twentieth-century thought at a time when debate about liberal democratic theory might appear to have run out of steam.
click here for publisher's site
Hobbes and the Law, edited by Thomas Poole, David Dyzenhaus (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
Hobbes's political thought provokes a perennial fascination. It has become particularly prominent in recent years, with the surge of scholarly interest evidenced by a number of monographs in political theory and philosophy. At the same time, there has been a turn in legal scholarship towards political theory in a way that engages recognisably Hobbesian themes, for example the relationship between security and liberty. However, there is surprisingly little engagement with Hobbes's views on legal theory in general and on certain legal topics, despite the fact that Hobbes devoted whole works to legal inquiry and gave law a prominent role in his works focused on politics. This volume seeks to remedy this gap by providing the first collection of specially commissioned essays devoted to Hobbes and the law.
- 'The Fragile Power of Political Nations: Adam Smith's Federative' (2025) 22 Modern Intellectual History 1-22(with Martin Clark)
- 'Locke on the "True Foundations" of Government' in Lucia Rubinelli, Markus Patberg and Peter Niesen (eds), Oxford Handbook of Constituent Power (OUP, 2025)
- 'Judicial Review and Guidance' (2024) 140 Law Quarterly Review 381-406 (with Tom Hickman)
- 'The Old Commonwealth Model of Constitutionalism' (2023) 1 Comparative Constitutional Studies 197-221 (with David Dyzenhaus)
- 'Prerogative' in Richard Bellamy and Jeff King (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022)
- 'Time for Federalist Speculation' (2021) European Journal of International Law 32 (3) pp.1009–1016
- 'The Script of Alliance: Locke on the Federative' (2021) History of Political Thought 42 (4) pp.683-704
- 'The Idea of the Federative' in Jacco Bomhoff, David Dyzenhaus and Thomas Poole (eds), The Double-Facing Constitution (Cambridge, 2020); working paper available on SSRN
- 'Time and Timelessness in Constitutional Thought' (2020) 26 Res Publica
- 'Independent Fiscal Institutions' (with Cal Viney) in Roger Masterman and Roger Schutze (eds), Cambridge Companion to Comparative Constitutional Law (Cambridge, 2019)
- 'The Spirit of Legislation' (2019) Philosophy & Public Issues Vol.9 No.1 pp.37-53
- 'The Executive in Public Law' in Jeffrey Jowell and Colm O’Cinneide (eds), The Changing Constitution (9th edition, OUP, 2019)
- 'New Dominion Constitutionalism at the Twilight of the British Empire' (2019) International Journal of Constitutional Law 17 (4) pp.1166–1172 (with Mara Malagodi and Luke McDonagh)
- 'The Dominion Model of Transnational Constitutionalism' (2019) 17 International Journal of Constitutional Law 17 (4) pp.1283–1300 (with Mara Malagodi and Luke McDonagh)
- 'The Strange Death of Prerogative in England' (2018) 43 University of Western Australia Law Review 42
- 'Devotion to Legalism: On the Brexit Case'Modern Law Review (2017) 80 (4) pp.696–710
- 'The Constitution and Foreign Affairs' (2016) Current Legal Problems 69 (1) pp.143-174
- 'Rights and Opinion: Or, The Progress of Sentiments' (2016) 10 Law & Ethics of Human Rights pp.453-478
- 'A Very Successful Action? Keyu and Historical Wrongs at Common Law' (with Sangeeta Shah) UK Supreme Court Yearbook (2016) 7 Part 1
- 'The Law of Emergency and Reason of State' in Evan Criddle (ed.), Human Rights in Emergencies (Cambridge University Press, 2016)
- 'Constitutional Reason of State' in David Dyzenhaus and Malcolm Thorburn (eds), The Philosophical Foundations of Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press, 2016)
- 'The Mystery of Lawlessness: War, Law, and the Modern State' in David Dyzenhaus and Thomas Poole (eds), Law, Liberty and State (Cambridge University Press, 2015)
- 'The Elegiac Tradition: Public Law and Memory'Public Law (2014) pp.68-84
- 'Rights, Interveners and the Law Lords' (with Sangeeta Shah and Michael Blackwell) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (2014) 34 pp.295-324
- 'Hobbes on Law and Prerogative' in Hobbes and the Law, edited by Thomas Poole, David Dyzenhaus (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
- 'Sovereign Indignities: International Law as Public Law' (2011) 22 European Journal of International Law 351-361
- 'Wissenschaft vom Verwaltungsrecht: Großbritannien (England und Wales)' in von Bogdandy, Cassese and Huber (Hg.), Handbuch Ius Publicum Europaeum, Band IV: Verwaltungsrecht in Europa: Wisshenschaft (Heidelberg: C.F. Müller, 2011), pp 121-153
- 'The Law Lords and Human Rights' (2011) 74 Modern Law Review 79-105 (with Sangeeta Shah)
- 'Proportionality in Perspective' (2010) New Zealand Law Review 369-391
- 'Judicial Review at the Margins: Law, Power, and Prerogative' (2010) 60 University of Toronto Law Journal
- 'United Kingdom: The Royal Prerogative' (2010) 8 International Journal of Constitutional Law 146-155
- 'The Impact of the Human Rights Act on the House of Lords' (2009) Public Law (with Sangeeta Shah) Apr, 347-371
- 'The Reformation of English Administrative Law' (2009) 68 Cambridge Law Journal 142
- 'Constitutional Exceptionalism and the Common Law' (2009) 7 (2) International Journal of Constitutional Law 247
- 'The Devil's Account: Men, Morals, and Constitutional Goods' (2009) 22 Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 113
- 'Courts and Conditions of Uncertainty in Times of Crisis' (2008) Public Law 234-259.
- 'Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Administrative Law in an Age of Rights' in Linda Pearson, Carol Harlow and Michael Taggart (eds), Administrative Law in a Changing State (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2008) pp.15-44
- 'The Return of Grand Theory in the Juridical Sciences?' (2007) 70 Modern Law Review 484-504
- 'Tilting at Windmills? Truth and Illusion in "The Political Constitution"' (2007) 70 Modern Law Review 250-277
- 'Recent Developments on the "War on Terrorism" in Canada' (2007) 7 Human Rights Law Review 633-642
- 'Of Headscarves and Heresies: the Denbigh High School case and Public Authority Decision-Making under the Human Rights Act' [2005] Public Law 685-695
- 'Harnessing the Power of the Past? Lord Hoffmann and the Belmarsh Detainees Case' (2005) 32 Journal of Law and Society 534-561
- 'Legitimacy, Rights and Judicial Review' (2005) 25 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 697-725
- 'Questioning Common Law Constitutionalism' (2005) 25 Legal Studies 142-163
- 'What's God Got to Do With It? Waldron on Equality' (2004) 31 Journal of Law and Society 387-407
- 'Bills of Rights in Australia' (2004) 4 Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal 197-212
- 'Back to the Future? Unearthing the Theory of Common Law Constitutionalism' (2003) 23 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 435-454
- 'Dogmatic Liberalism? T.R.S. Allan and Common Law Constitutionalism' (2002) 65 Modern Law Review 463-475