William Twining
Quain Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at University College London, Visiting Professor at the University of Miami School of Law
William Twining is Quain Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at University College London and a regular Visiting Professor at the University of Miami School of Law. He has held chairs in Belfast and Warwick and numerous visiting appointments, including at several leading US and Commonwealth Law Schools. He taught for seven years in Sudan and Tanzania and has maintained his interests in legal affairs in the Commonwealth, especially Eastern Africa.
His main interests have been Jurisprudence, Evidence, Legal Education and Law and Development. His recent work explores the implications of “globalisation” for legal scholarship and legal theory (General Jurisprudence (2009), Human Rights: Southern Voices (2009) and Globalisation and Legal Scholarship (2011)). Central themes of this work include the variety and complexity of legal phenomena; that many so-called “global” processes, patterns, and issues are sub-global, linked to empires, diasporas, alliances legal traditions, and language groups; and the contemporary significance of diffusion of law, legal pluralism, and cross-cultural attitudes to human rights. He has been responsible for over twenty books, including Karl Llewellyn and the Realist Movement (1973, to be reissued 2012) and Law in Context: Enlarging a Discipline (1997).
William has degrees from Oxford University (MA, DCL) and the University of Chicago (JD), but he learned more about the importance of “context” from his experiences in Africa.
