James 
PENNER

 
Kwa Geok Choo Professor of Property Law

Co-Director, Centre for Legal Theory

James Penner took an honours BSc in Genetics at the University of Western Ontario in 1985, an LLB at the University of Toronto in 1988 and completed his DPhil at University College, Oxford in 1992. His thesis formed the basis of The Idea of Property in Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) which won the 1997 Society of Public Teachers of Law First Prize for Outstanding Scholarship by a Younger Scholar (now renamed the ‘SLS Peter Birks Prize’).

FULL BIOGRAPHY

Contact

lawjep@nus.edu.sg
(65) 6601-3460
TB-08-01L

Education

DPhil (University of Oxford); LLB (University of Toronto); BSc (University of Western Ontario); Barrister (Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn)

Curriculum Vitae

View CV

Current Courses

Jurisprudence

James Penner took an honours BSc in Genetics at the University of Western Ontario in 1985, an LLB at the University of Toronto in 1988 and completed his DPhil at University College, Oxford in 1992. His thesis formed the basis of The Idea of Property in Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) which won the 1997 Society of Public Teachers of Law First Prize for Outstanding Scholarship by a Younger Scholar (now renamed the ‘SLS Peter Birks Prize’).
Since 1992 he has taught law at Brunel University, the London School of Economics, King’s College London, and most recently from 2008 until 2013 as Professor of Property Law at the Faculty of Laws, University College London, serving from 2011 to 2013 as Head of Department. He has established himself as one of the world’s leading experts in the philosophy of property and the law of trusts, and writes more widely in the areas of private law and the philosophy of law. He has been a visiting professor in China, Canada, Belgium, and Australia.

Representative Publications
James E. Penner, The Idea of Property in Law (Oxford University Press, 1997)

James E. Penner and Henry E Smith (eds), Philosophical Foundations of Property Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)

Robert Chambers, Charles Mitchell, and James E. Penner (eds), Philosophical Foundations of the Law of Unjust Enrichment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)


  • Law of Trusts
  • Law and Philosophy of Property
  • Philosophical Foundations of the Common Law
  • General Jurisprudence
  • Philosophy of Law