Logo

Joseph Raz awarded prestigious Tang Prize

Professor Joseph Raz, who was Professor of Philosophy of Law at Oxford from 1985-2006 has been awarded the Tang Prize in the 'Rule of Law' category. Joseph was Tutorial Fellow in Law at Balliol College from 1972-1985. He was then Professor of the Philosophy of Law, an ad hominem chair, from 1985-2006, and a research professor from 2006-9. He is now the Thomas M. Macioce Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and a Research Professor of Law at King's College London.  

He is one of the foremost legal philosophers of our time, and was awarded the prize for:

his path-breaking contributions to the rule of law, and for deepening our understanding of the very nature of law, legal reasoning, and the relationship between law, morality and freedom.

About the Tang Prize

The Tang Prize (Chinese: 唐獎) is a set of biennial international awards bestowed in four fields: Sustainable Development, Biopharmaceutical Science, Sinology, and Rule of Law. Nomination and selection are conducted by an independent selection committee, which is formed in partial cooperation with the Academia Sinica, Taiwan's top research institution. The Prize in Rule of Law recognizes individual(s) or institution(s) who have made significant contributions to the rule of law, reflected not only in the achievement of the candidate(s) in terms of the advancement of legal theory or practice, but also in the realization of the rule of law in contemporary societies through the influences or inspiration of the work of the candidate(s).  The Tang Prize was founded in 2012 by Taiwanese entrepreneur Samuel Yin (尹衍樑), presenting awards in sustainable development, biopharmaceutical science, Sinology and rule of law.
 
Awarded biennially, the Tang Prize bestows upon each category a cash prize of NT$40 million (approx. US$1.33 million). In addition, research projects proposed by the laureates receive a grant of up to NT$10 million (approx. US$0.33 million). Should multiple candidates (up to three) be named in the same category, the cash reward and grant are shared.

About Joseph Raz

Joseph Raz received his Magister Juris, summa cum laude from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, in 1963, and then came to Oxford for the DPhil, which he completed in 1967. 

A Fellow of the British Academy since 1987 and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences since 1992, he received an Honorary Doctorate from Katholieke Universiteit, Brussels in 1993, and the International Prize for Legal Research ‘Hector Fix‐Zamudio’ of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in 2005.  His best‐known book, The Morality of Freedom (1986) received the W.J.M. Mackenzie book prize of the Political Studies Association of the UK in 1987, and the Elaine and David Spitz Book Prize of the Conference for the Study of Political Thought in 1988. He has been a Seeley Lecturer at Cambridge and a Tanner Lecturer at Berkeley. His books, which have been translated into ten foreign languages, also include The Authority of Law (1979), The Concept of a Legal System (1980), Practical Reason and Norms (1975; second edition 1999), Ethics in the Public Domain (1994), Engaging Reason (2000), Value, Respect and Attachment (2001) and The Practice of Value (2003), and Between Interpretation and Authority (2009).