Book Launch: A Rule of Law for Our New Age of Anxiety by Stephen J. Toope

 

Join us on Wednesday, November 22 at 4PM ET as Stephen J. Toope discusses his book A Rule of Law for Our New Age of Anxiety with Munk School Director, Peter Loewen.

 

Taking Auden's Age of Anxiety as a leitmotiv and drawing on literature from law, philosophy, political theory, international relations, and sociology, Toope argues with passion that a renewed faith in the rule of law can address troubling developments in our own anxious times: populist nationalism; globalisation; and disruptive technologies with their dominating platforms. We can address anxiety by bolstering social resilience, drawing upon a plural intellectual heritage. That heritage reveals a unique type of 'authority' in society, 'epistemic practical authority' built up continuously through social discourse and action, shifting focus from the state of 'being' to the dynamic of 'becoming.' What is law's role in this world? The modest, yet powerful, version of the rule of law advocated here is one that draws on a wellspring of practical wisdom - prudence gleaned from pragmatic experience. It chastens power, while not disconnecting law from other sources of social action and human agency.

 

 

Stephen J. Toope is President of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, and President, the University of British Columbia.  A former Dean of Law, McGill University, Toope was also Chair of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2015, and elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2019 and Associate Member of the Institut de droit international in 2021. His most recent book is A Rule of Law for our New Age of Anxiety (Cambridge University Press, 2023).