Legal Theory and the Variety of Legal Cultures

This essay begins with a consideration of two anxieties about courts that are common to the civil and common law traditions: a worry about illegitimate judicial law making, and a worry about judicial bias. It will then move to the contribution legal theories might make in dealing with these shared anxieties, with a focus on a position that draws on the two largest contestants: natural law and legal positivism. It will end with an indication of the further distance that theory needs to take us before these worries about the judiciary can be effectively tackled.