University of Guyana 2025/2026

— LAW 2107 —

Jurisprudence

(& Caribbean Legal Theory)

Level: LL.B. Year 2, Semester 1 · Credits: 3 · Duration: 11 weeks

Class time: Thursdays, 18:15–21:10 (online)

Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/91546923160?pwd=b6XKkbjR43aaIO2iS6XrTmeqVZFAM2.1

Contact & Office Hours (Prof. Abel):

• Message via Moodle anytime (please allow up to 36 hours Mon–Thu; messages Fri–Sun answered on Monday; longer during public holidays).
• Virtual Office: Wednesdays, 08:00–10:00 (drop-in via the Zoom link).

Course Aim & Rationale

This course examines the origins, nature, and purpose of law across Western, Eastern, African, and Caribbean traditions, with a particular focus on the Commonwealth Caribbean and Guyana. It weaves together the “canon” of jurisprudence (Western, Eastern, and Ancient traditions) with Caribbean and Guyanese post-colonial contributions, showing both continuity and contestation.

The goal is to inspire our law students to contribute to a shared regional and national jurisprudential consensus. This will be achieved by fostering an environment that promotes strategic, critical and analytical thinking, problem-solving, and legal skills. Students will learn to move beyond simplistic approaches to real-world issues, viewing jurisprudence as a dynamic toolkit for nation-building, informed by historical and cultural foundations.

You will be encouraged to think beyond simple “either/or” positions and to contribute thoughtfully to a regional and national jurisprudential conversation grounded in shared values, history, and culture.

We therefore treat jurisprudence not as abstract speculation, but as a practical toolkit for legal reasoning, advocacy, judging, and policy.

Core Questions

We will return to these throughout the semester:

1. Where does law come from?
2. What is the nature, function, and purpose of law?
3. Why does law matter to societies in general?
4. What is the law’s significance in Western, Eastern, and Commonwealth Caribbean contexts?
5. What is the relationship between law and morals?
6. What is a legal obligation?
7. How do legal rules and principles work, and how do judges decide cases?

These questions include critical engagement with the law–morality divide, justice, social order, and the role of legal systems in shaping ethical behaviour.

Answers to these questions will be sought by studying different methods of theoretical and practical legal reasoning as employed by leading theorists, ancient wisdom traditions, and Caribbean jurists and judicial decision-makers.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

• Identify major sources of legal philosophy across Western, Eastern, African, and Caribbean traditions.
• Describe and critically compare key schools of jurisprudence.
• Explain central concepts in jurisprudential debates.
• Think independently and question the law with rigour and respect.
• Apply theoretical frameworks to concrete Caribbean legal problems.
• Appraise the relevance of these theories to the Commonwealth Caribbean and Guyana.
• Evaluate which approaches best address particular issues.
• Write clearly and critically about law, culture, and justice.

Teaching Team

Professor Justice (Ret.) Courtney Ashton Abel — Professor of Legal Practice, University of Guyana; former Justice of the Supreme Court of Belize; Barrister of the Inner Temple (Bencher). Practice and judicial experience across the Caribbean; research on J.O.F. Haynes; advocate for realistic and practice-oriented jurisprudence.

Professor Dawid Bunikowski — Philosopher of law based in Finland and Poland; works on legal philosophy, ethics, law & religion, and Arctic Indigenous rights; extensive international teaching and publications.

Mr. Chevy Devonish — Legal consultant and lecturer; experience in constitutional, administrative, and human rights law (Guyana AG Chambers); international arbitration exposure (Arnold & Porter, D.C.); writer on AI and the Caribbean.

How the Course Works

• One weekly online lecture (2 hours) led mainly by Profs. Abel and Bunikowski.
• One weekly tutorial (1 hour) led mainly by Mr. Devonish, focused on discussion, case analysis, and application.
• Moodle hosts slides, readings, worksheets, and prompts.
• Preparation: Complete the assigned readings and bring any questions to tutorials.

Study groups are encouraged for shared reading, debate, and practice writing.

Assessment

• Mid-term (Approximately Week 6): 30%
  Group project on a leading jurist, tying biography, ideas, and impact to the course aims.
• Tutorial presentation & participation: 10%
• Final Exam: 60%
  Two essays chosen from at least four questions covering the full syllabus.

Course Content (Topics)

I. Orientation: What is Jurisprudence & its Sources?

• Jurisprudence as a toolkit for law in action.
• Ancient traditions: African Ma’at; Indian Dharma; Chinese Confucianism & Legalism; Greco-Roman thought.
• Western traditions: Judeo-Christian sources; Natural Law; Positivism.
• Law as culture, history, conflict, and community.
• Perspectives across Ancient, Traditional, Modern & Post-Modern thought.
• Caribbean voices: J.O.F. Haynes; Derek Walcott.
• Caribbean traditions: customary law, creolised/poetic/political jurisprudence.

II. Nature, Content & Relevance of Jurisprudence

• Methods of theorising law: linking theory, practice, and case law.
• Law as culture, community, and conflict in the Commonwealth Caribbean.

III. Natural Law

• Aristotle, Aquinas, Grotius, Fuller, Finnis.
• Caribbean contributions: C.L.R. James; Frantz Fanon; Lloyd Barnett; Simion McIntosh; Hilary Beckles.
• Applications in constitutional litigation.

IV. Positivism

• Bentham, Austin, Kelsen, Hart; the Hart–Fuller debate.
• Caribbean contributions: Telford Georges; Sir Hugh Wooding; Fenton Ramsahoye.
• Statutory and constitutional interpretation in the Caribbean.

V. The Historical School

• Savigny; organic development of law.
• Legal transplantation and colonial/post-colonial critique.
• Hybrid legal systems in the Caribbean.

VI. Marxism, Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL).

• Marx & Engels: law as superstructure; Althusser on ideology/state apparatus.
• Bhabha, Spivak, Fanon; Caribbean contributions: Shridath Ramphal; Mohamed Shahabuddeen.
• Responses to IMF/WTO conditionalities.

VII. Post-Colonial Theory Introduced & Explained

• Fanon; C.L.R. James; Édouard Glissant; Stuart Hall; Sylvia Wynter; George Lamming; Kamau Brathwaite; Derek Walcott; J.O.F. Haynes (judicial decolonisation); Simion McIntosh (constitutional emancipation); Mohamed Shahabuddeen (international law).
• Constitutional reform, sovereignty, rights discourse; CCJ and Guyanese case law.

VIII. Dworkin

• Response to positivism; law as integrity; principles vs. rules.
• Application to Caribbean rights jurisprudence.

IX. Legal Realism

• American Realists: Holmes, Llewellyn, Frank.
• Scandinavian Realists: Ross, Olivecrona.
• Prediction, institutions, and practice; Haynes’ judgments; CCJ decisions.

X. Kelsen

• Norms and the Grundnorm: legality after revolution.
• Grenada Revolution: constitutional crises and continuity/discontinuity.

XI. Postmodern & Contemporary Theories

• Structuralism; Critical Legal Studies; Feminist Jurisprudence; Critical Race Theory.
• Caribbean engagements: Walcott; Brathwaite; Glissant.
• Futures: pluralism, re-indigenisation, hybridity.

Required & Recommended Texts

Required

• J.W. Harris, Legal Philosophies (latest ed.), Butterworths.
• Michael Freeman, Lloyd’s Introduction to Jurisprudence (latest ed.), Sweet & Maxwell.
• James Penner, David Schiff & Richard Nobles, Jurisprudence and Legal Theory: Commentary and Materials (latest ed.), OUP.

Recommended (Caribbean & Comparative Focus)

• J.O.F. Haynes, Selected Writings on Law and Society.
• Simion McIntosh, Constitutional Reform in the Commonwealth Caribbean.
• Fenton Ramsahoye, The Development of Land Law in Guyana.
• Mohamed Shahabuddeen, Precedent in the World Court and essays on international law.
• Shridath Ramphal, Our Country, The Planet.
• Derek Walcott, The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory; Omeros.
• Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation.
• Key CCJ judgments: Maya Leaders Alliance v AG of Belize; AG v Joseph and Boyce (Barbados); leading Guyanese constitutional cases.

Expectations of Students

• Engage fully, read consistently, and think critically and independently.
• Meet deadlines; if challenges arise, communicate early.
• Come to tutorials ready to discuss, question, and apply ideas to cases.

Final Welcome

We look forward to a lively, rigorous, and relevant semester. Be curious, respectful, and bold in your thinking. Jurisprudence should change how you see the law—and how you will practice it.

Professor Justice (Ret.) Courtney Ashton Abel