Massimo Renzo

Biography

Dr Massimo Renzo joined The Dickson Poon School of Law in July, 2015 as a Reader in Politics, Philosophy & Law. Previously he was an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick and before that, a Lecturer at the York Law School. He has held visiting appointments at the Australian National University, the universities of Virginia and Arizona, the Centre for Ethics and Public Affairs at the Murphy Institute (Tulane University) and Osgoode Hall’s Nathanson Centre for Transnational Human Rights, Crime & Security. He is an affiliated researcher at the Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War & Peace and the Honorary Secretary of the Society for Applied Philosophy. He is also one of the editors of the journal Criminal Law and Philosophy.   Dr Massimo Renzo joined The Dickson Poon School of Law in July, 2015 as a Reader in Politics, Philosophy & Law. Previously he was an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick and before that, a Lecturer at the York Law School. He has held visiting appointments at the Australian National University, the universities of Virginia and Arizona, the Centre for Ethics and Public Affairs at the Murphy Institute (Tulane University) and Osgoode Hall’s Nathanson Centre for Transnational Human Rights, Crime & Security. He is an affiliated researcher at the Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War & Peace and the Honorary Secretary of the Society for Applied Philosophy. He is also one of the editors of the journal Criminal Law and Philosophy.  

Research Interest

"Political authority, with a focus on the questions of what justifies the right of states to create and enforce moral obligations, as well as to claim control over certain territories and their natural resources; the question of the relationship between political authority and practical reasoning; the questions of justified disobedience and conscientious objection.  Just war, with a focus on the question of what justifies lability to be killed in war; the question of whether there can be a duty to obey an order to fight an unjust war; the question of the justification of humanitarian intervention and of wars fought in order to protect political goods.  Philosophy of the criminal law, with a focus on the question of the philosophical foundations of self-defence and complicity; the question of how we should understand the authority of international criminal law; the question of the justification and the limits of criminalization. Human Rights, with a focus on the questions of how we should conceptualize human rights and of what justifies their existence."