Private Law Theory

INTRODUCTION
As Professor Guido Calabresi, the famous American academic and judge, wrote in 1982, we are ‘in the age of statutes’. In a similar vein, Professor Grant Gilmore graphically described the past century and more as involving ‘an orgy of statute-making’. And in the words of my former Oxford colleague Professor Robert Stevens, ‘Judge made rules are … doomed to die … Eventually legislation will cover all, as far as the eye can see’. So it is indisputable that statutes are swallowing up our common law. Yet oddly, in UK law schools, the study of statutes as a coherent whole is sadly neglected. A survey carried out in 2011 for the Statute Law Society by Professor Stefan Voganauer revealed that in fewer than one in five UK law schools was there a dedicated course or teaching unit on legislation; and over half of such courses were for first years …

Lord Burrows, Statutory Interpretation in the Courts Today (Sir Christopher Staughton Memorial Lecture 2022), University of Hertfordshire, 24 March 2022.