Many lectures include a news story describing the lecture, and other resources such as academic articles related to the lecture.

  • 2022-2023: Wright Lecture: Jedediah Purdy, Raphael Lemkin Professor of Law at Duke University, "Democracy and Trust" (21 March 2023)
  • 2019-2020 Wright Lecture: Professor Philip Pettit, "The Elusive Sovereign."  Includes link to video and Notes.
  • 2018-19 Wright Lecture: Professor Mark Tushnet, “Institutions for Protecting Constitutional Democracy: Some Conceptual Preliminaries”
  • 2017-18 Wright Lecture: Professor Lucia Zedner, "Counterterrorism on Campus: A Threat to Academic Freedoms?"
    Includes link to article based on the lecture.
  • 2016-17 Wright Lecture: Prof. Kim Lane Scheppele, "The End of the End of History"
    Includes background article.
  • 2015-16 Wright Lecture: Professor Seana Shiffrin, "Enhancing Moral Relationships through Strict Liability"
  • 2014-15 Wright Lecture: Professor Robert W. Gordon, "'Caesar' Wright’s Legacy:  The Necessarily Uneasy Relation Between Legal Education and Legal Practice"
  • 2013-14 Wright Lecture: Professor Gráinne de Búrca, "The European Union: Messianic or Democratic?"
  • 2012-13 Wright Lecture: Professor James Whitman, “Of Wars and Trials:  Can a War be a Lawful Procedure for Claiming Rights?”
  • 2011-12 Wright Lecture: Professor Hanoch Dagan, "Inside Property"
    Includes link to article based on the lecture
  • 2010-11 Wright Lecture: Professor Michel Troper, "Interpretation, Legal Science and Causality"
  • 2009-10 Wright Lecture: Professor Martti Koskenniemi, ""Empire and International Law: The Spanish Contribution"
    Includes text of lecture and link to article based on the lecture
  • 2008-09 Wright Lecture: Professor A.W. Brian Simpson, "Human Rights and the Relics of Empire"
  • 2007-08 Wright Lecture: Professor Susanne Baer, "Dignity  Liberty - Equality. Aspects of a European Constitutional Triangle"
  • 2006-07 Wright Lecture: Professor Nicola Lacey, "From Moll Flanders to Tess of the D’Urbervilles: Women, Autonomy and Criminal Responsibility in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century England"
  • 2005-06 Wright Lecture: Prof. Philip G. Alston, "The UN's 'Reformed' Human Rights Regime: Three Challenges"
  • 2005 Wright Lecture: Prof. Martha L. Minow, "Outsourcing Power: Private Police, Prisons, and War"
  • 2004 Wright Lecture: Prof. Robert E. Scott, "The Death of Contract Law"
  • 2002 Wright Lecture: Prof. Harold Hongju Koh, "Human Rights in the Age of Terror".

See below for the complete list from the inaugural lecture in 1969 up to 2001.

DATE

LECTURER

TITLE

1969

Prof J. Fleming

Univ of California

Tort Damages:  Capital or Rent

1970

Dean W. A. Pedrick

Univ. of Arizona

Publicity or Privacy:  Is It Any of Their Business

1971

Prof J. Beetz

Univ of Montreal

Continuity and Change in Law Reform

1972

Prof P.A. Freund

Harvard Law School

The Case of the Pentagon Papers:  Secrecy and Freedom of Expression

1973

Prof L.C.B. Gower

Univ of Southampton

Reflections on Law Reforming

1974

Spring

Prof J. Willis , Q.C.

Dalhousie University

Canadian Administrative Law in Retrospect

1974

Fall

Prof C. Foote

Univ of California

The Function of Discretion in Criminal Sentencing

1976

Prof A. Cox

Harvard Law School

Watergate and the United States constitution

1977

Prof G. Calabresi

Yale Law School

The Problem of Malpractice:  Trying to Round Out the Circle

1978

Prof Sir R. Cross

Oxford University

Murder Under Duress (Lecture not given due to illness, but manuscript published in UTLJ)

1979

Prof P. C. Weiler

Harvard Law School

Confederation Discontents and Constitutional Change

1980

Prof H. W. Arthurs

Osgoode Law School

Jonah and the Whale:  The Appearance, Disappearance, & appearance of Admin Law

1981

Prof W. R. Lederman

Queen’s University

The Definition & Protection of Basic Human Rights & Freedoms: Courts & Parliaments as Partners

1982

Rt. Hon. Bora Laskin

Chief Justice of Canada

Cecil W. Wright – A Personal Memoir

1983

Prof P. S. Atiyah

Oxford University

Contract and Fair Exchange

1984

Prof G. H. Jones

Cambridge University

The Reform Movement in Nineteenth Century England

Mar/1987

Prof O. Fiss

Yale Law School

“CODA”

Nov/1987

Judge Richard Posner

Is Law an Autonomous Discipline?  The Response Conventionalism

Mar/1992

John Brierley

The Renewal of Quebec’s Distinct Legal Culture

The New Civil Code of Quebec

Nov/1993

Prof Sir G.  Palmer

Univ of Wellington

New Zealand’s Accident Compensation Scheme:  Twenty Years On

Nov/1994

Dean A. Kronman

Yale Law School

“AMOR FATI” (The Love of Fate)

Oct/1995

Prof T. Franck

NYU

“Clan and Superclan:   Loyalty, Identity and Community in Law and Practice”

Mar/1997

Prof C. Sunstein

“Are People Reasonable?  Law and Human Behaviour”

Nov/1997

G. Fletcher

Columbia

‘Justice’ Author:  Crime Victims Need Rights

Feb/2000

Jeremy Waldron

Columbia

 "Homelessness and Community"

Jan/2001

Margaret J. Radin

Stanford

“The Evolution of Property & Contract in the Digital Environment”