At the Singapore Symposium in Legal Theory Roundtable held on 28 October 2025 at the National University of Singapore, Professors Prince Saprai, James Penner, and Associate Professor Tan Zhong Xing convened to examine the evolving landscape of contemporary contract law theory. Over the past few decades, contract theory has undergone a profound transformation—from its traditional focus on the dichotomy between “will” theorists and their critics to a rich plurality of normative frameworks, methodological approaches, and perspectives on obligation, morality, and justice in private law.

In the seminar “Trust in Promise and Contract: One Sense or Two?” held on 27th October 2025, Professor of Law Prince Saprai of University College London defended Charles Fried’s claim in Contract as Promise that contracts, like promises, invoke trust. While much of the “contract and promise” debate focused on whether key contractual doctrines converge with or diverge from the rules governing promises outside the law, Fried’s aforementioned claim has received comparatively little attention, with the notable exception of Dori Kimel.

In the Roundtable “Rationalising Practices” held on 14th October, Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Philosophy and Law Andrei Marmor of Cornell University addressed the concern that the direction of his three conclusions (summarily: epistemic grounding, artifactual constraint, and normative agreement) appears to suggest that any philosophical account of a social practice must rationalise that practice for its participants.

In the seminar “Legal Facts” held on 13th October 2025, Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Philosophy and Law Andrei Marmor of Cornell University conducted a metaphysical inquiry into the nature of legal facts. Building on Hans Kelsen’s conception of law as a scheme of interpretation, Marmor explores how the idea of legal significance as an interpretive construct applies to all semantic and symbolic aspects of human cultures. Crucially, for such broad application to be rendered intelligible, Marmor challenges Kelsen’s view that legal facts derive their validity from the presupposition of a basic norm.

In the book launch held on 6 October 2025, Assistant Professor Ivan of the National University of Singapore presented his latest work Extradition and Empire: Sovereignty and Subjecthood in Hong Kong (Cambridge University Press, 2025), the first comprehensive study of the imperial history of extradition in Hong Kong.

In the seminar “The Power to Contract and the Quid Pro Quo ‘Straitjacket’: (Re)Conceptualising Obligation” held on 22nd September 2025, Dr Irina Sakharova of Durham University reconsiders the nature of contractual obligation through the lens of moral and legal philosophy. Traditional theories conceptualise obligation as an asymmetric relation between a duty-bearer and a right-holder, where the right-holder possesses the authority to release the duty-bearer from their obligation.

The Singapore Symposium in Legal Theory 2025: "Intrinsic Duties and Constitutional Goods" by Associate Professor Lael K. Weis, University of Melbourne

The Centre for Legal Theory (CLT) and co-hosts EW Barker Centre for Law & Business (EWBCLB) and the Private Law Discussion Group (PLDG) at NUS Law are delighted to host the Oxford Studies in Private Law Theory Vol IV Workshop at NUS Bukit Timah Campus on 4-5 August 2025. 

The Singapore Symposium in Legal Theory (SSLT) 2025: "What did Paper do to the Law? Some Extra-Textual Considerations" by Professor Paul Halliday, University of Virginia.

The Singapore Symposium in Legal Theory (SSLT) 2025: "Trials of Sovereignty: Mercy, Violence and the Making of Criminal Law in British India" by Dr. Alastair McClure, University of Hong Kong.

In the seminar “Trials of Sovereignty: Mercy, Discretion, and Colonial Rule” held on 26th March, Dr Alastair McClure interrogates the role of mercy and discretion as integral yet deeply contested mechanisms of colonial governance in nineteenth- and twentieth-century India.

In the lecture “The Stuff of Law: Materiality and Legal Form” on the 10th March by Professor Paul Halliday, the materiality of legal practice was examined as a defining force in shaping both the nature and function of law.