INTRODUCTION
We might generally say, without necessarily reflecting much, that the state has an obligation to resolve private disputes brought to it, particularly to its courts, by its citizens. Parties present a dispute; relevant facts are established; appropriate legal rules and principles are applied; and an authoritative resolution follows. But a vital unsettling question arises: how can decision-makers proceed, and the state fulfil any adjudicative obligation, when the facts of those disputes are hopelessly unknown, even inherently unknowable? Here, we face an intractable disjuncture between the state’s ability to produce knowledge of the facts and its need for the same: an ‘agony of uncertainty’ that seems to threaten an implicit state claim to an unimpeachable capacity to adjudicate. This article confronts that problem of ‘intractable factual uncertainty’ in its impact on the state’s responsibility to achieve resolution, focusing on private law …
[Andrew J Bell and Joanna McCunn, Authoritative Ignorance: State knowledge and factual uncertainty in private law, King’s Law Journal. Published online: 5 November 2025.
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