Malcolm Thorburn

Malcolm Thorburn, B.A. (Hons.) (Toronto); M.A. (Pennsylvania); J.D. (Toronto); LL.M. (Columbia); J.S.D. (Columbia) is a Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. In 2000-2001, he served as Law Clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada for Mr. Justice Louis LeBel.

He is a fellow of the Trudeau Foundation (2024-2027). He has held visiting fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, Freiburg, Germany (2024), Sciences Po, Paris, France (2019), Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany (2011), the French National Centre for Criminology (CESDIP) in Paris, France (2011), the Australian National University (2008). In the 2011-2012 academic year, he was the Robert S. Campbell visiting fellow at Magdalen College, University of Oxford, UK. In 2025, he will be a visiting professor at Columbia Law School, New York, USA. Prior to joining the Faculty of Law in 2013, he was Canada Research Chair in Crime, Security and Constitutionalism at Queen’s University.

His writing focuses on theoretical issues in criminal justice and public law including criminal law and procedure, sentencing, policing, and constitutional questions of rights and proportionality reasoning. He is the editor of two books: The Philosophical Foundations of Constitutional Law (with David Dyzenhaus) and The Dignity of Law (with Dwight Newman). His work has appeared in such publications as the Yale Law Journal, Ratio Juris, the Boston University Law Review, the University of Toronto Law Journal, Criminal Law and Philosophy and many books. 

He is co-convenor of the Legal Theory Workshop, and a member of the editorial boards of Law and Philosophy and Criminal Law and Philosophy.