Nicole Roughan

About/Bio

Nicole Roughan (JSD, LLM (Yale), BA/LLB (Auck) is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Auckland, and co-Director of the NZ Centre for Legal Theory. Nicole has formerly held appointments at the National University of Singapore, University of Cambridge, Trinity College, Cambridge, the University of Kent at Brussels, and Victoria University of Wellington. Nicole’s research field is the philosophy of law, specialising in the interactions of state and non-state legal orders (including Indigenous, international and transnational law) and the resulting challenges for pluralist jurisprudence. In 2017 Nicole was awarded a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship from the Royal Society Te Apārangi, to pursue a major project on Legalities: Jurisprudence without Borders. Nicole’s co-edited volume (with Andrew Halpin) In Pursuit of Pluralist Jurisprudence was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017; and her monograph, Authorities: Conflicts, Cooperation, and Transnational Legal Theory by Oxford University Press in 2013. Nicole is currently working on a new monograph, Officials, which examines the centrality of the idea of the legal official to theories of law, as well as a shorter book on Sovereignty and Law’s Authority Beyond the State.

Recently Published

Comment on Lefkowitz, Philosophy and International Law: a critical introduction

David Lefkowitz has produced a book of remarkable clarity, depth, and insight, which directly explains and addresses international legal scepticism. It is a persuasive demonstration of how to enrich the philosophy of law through attention to matters other than myopic insider debates and systems other than state law; and how to cut through to the core of key…

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