Matthew Dyson

Global Professor of Law
Notre Dame London Law Programme

Home Affiliation: Professor of Civil and Criminal Law, Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford

Matthew Dyson is a professor of law in the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, and a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

He researches and teaches criminal law and tort law, drawing particularly on historical and comparative materials from around the world. He has published widely in criminal law, tort law, comparative law and legal history.

Dyson came to the Faculty of Law at Oxford and to Corpus Christi in 2016, having previously been a Fellow in Law and Director of Studies at Trinity College, Cambridge (2011-2016) and Jesus College, Cambridge (2008-11). He is also: an associate member of 6KBW College Hill, a leading set of Barristers' Chambers specialising in criminal law and related areas of public and civil law; a Research Fellow of the Utrecht Centre for Accountability and Liability Law and President of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. He has held visiting positions at institutions including the Universities of Paris-Dauphine, Cape Town, Iowa, São Paulo, Göttingen, Sydney, and the Max Planck Institute for International and Comparative Private Law, Hamburg.

He is currently on the advisory boards of Glossae (2012-);

Comparative Legal History (2012-);

Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht (2017-);

Zeitschrift fur Internationale Strafrechtsdogmatick (2017-);

Journal of the Instituto Brasileiro de Estudos de Responsabilidade Civil (2018-);

Utrecht Law Review (2020-);

Criminal Law Forum (2020-);

Revista Electrónica de Ciencia Penal y Criminología (2020-);

Zeitschrift für die Gesamten Strafrechtswissenschaft (2023-);

European Journal of Privacy Law & Technologies (2024-);

Revista de Derecho Privado de la Universidad de Chile (2024-);

Problemy Prawa Karnego (2025-);

Quaderno di storia del penale e della giustizia (2025-).

Scholarship

Books

[2025] Criminal Law: A Very Short Introduction (OUP)

[2022] Explaining Tort and Crime (CUP)

Edited Books

[2025] (ed) Understanding Illegal Tort Claims: Comparative Legal Reasoning in Global Perspective (Hart)

[2023] Blackstone’s Statutes on Criminal Law 33rd edition (OUP)

Recent Articles

[2022] “The contribution of complicity” (2022) 86 Journal of Criminal Law 389-419 cited by the Court of Appeal in R v Hussain [2023] EWCA Crim 697, [58]-[59].

Book Chapters

(forthcoming) (with L. Eldridge and A. Hannay) ‘Legal History Teaching in England and Wales’ in V. Kluger et al, (eds), “Diálogos transnacionales entre historiadores del derecho/Transnational Dialogues amongst Legal Historians” (Pautas, 2024)

(forthcoming) ‘Naked Rights’ in P-A Hirsch and E. Moser (eds), Rights in Criminal Law (Hart, 2024)

(forthcoming) ‘Pilfered Ginger’ in M. Cappelletti et al (eds), Essays in Honour of Simon Whittaker (Hart, 2024)

(forthcoming) ‘Prohibiting Ignorance’ in A. Heinze et al. (eds), Blame for Ignorance (publisher tbc, 2025)

(in press) ‘Private Coherence: legal reasoning across parts of the legal system’ in P. Miller and J. Oberdiek (eds), Oxford Studies in Private Law Theory Vol III (OUP, 2024)

(in press) ‘Beyond Crime’ in A. Loughnan et al (eds) Routledge International Handbook on Criminal Responsibility (Routledge, 2024)

(in press) (with M. Stevenson) “Response to Proposal for pre-charge anonymity” in M. Bone et al (eds) Criminal Law Reform Now Vol. II (Hart, 2024)

(in press) ‘The Place of Strict Liability in England’ in E. Karner et al. (eds) Fault-based and Strict Liability. Chinese and European Perspectives (Jan Sramek, 2024)

(in press) (with Thomas Weigend) ‘Intention’ in K. Ambos et al. (eds) Core Concepts in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice vol 3 (CUP, 2024)

(in press) ‘The spectrum of factual and legal uncertainty in criminal law’ in J. McCunn and A. Bell (eds), Known Unknowns (Routledge, 2024)

(in press) ‘Justice and Legal Change’ in E. Urso (ed) Quale Diritto per quale giustizia (Jovene, 2023)

(in press) (with E. Gordon) ‘Tort Law and Stability’ in J. Sampson and S. Tofaris (eds), Essays in Law and History for David Ibbetson: Querella (Hart, 2024)

‘Intention in Tort’ in J. Eldridge et al. (eds) Australian Tort Law in the 21st Century (Federation Press, 2023)

(et al.) ‘England’ in R. Rijnhout and T. Arons (eds), The Common Core of Mass Torts (Intersentia, 2023)

‘Roundabout Law’ in S. Turenne (ed), Reasons and Context in Comparative Law: Essays in Honour of John Bell (CUP, 2023)

(with C. Sepúlveda Penna) ‘Participation and Complicity’ in V. Mitseilegas et al. (eds) Elgar Encyclopedia of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice (Elgar, 2022)

(with M. Pantaleón Díaz) ‘Tort and Crime’ in V. Mitseilegas et al. (eds) Elgar Encyclopedia of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice (Elgar, 2022)

[2022] (with Frank Meyer) ‘Structures within Criminal Legal Reasoning’ in K. Ambos et al. (eds) Core Concepts in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice vol 2 (CUP, 2021)

[2021] “Age Before Beauty; Pearls Before Swine: when the Criminal Law’s Content Gives Way” in M. Engelhart et al. (eds) Digitalisierung, Globalisierung und Risikoprävention: Festschrift für Ulrich Sieber zum 70. Geburtstag (Duncker & Humblot), vol 1, 15-26.

[2021] “Presence of mind and the future of legal history” in C. Häthén et al. (eds) Legal History: Reflecting the Past and the Present, Current Perspectives for the Future (Olin), 38-54.

[2021] “Tort and Crime” in Mauro Bussani & Antony Sebok (eds), Comparative Tort Law: Global Perspectives (Edward Elgar), 84-111.

[2020] (with S. Taylor and D. Fairgrieve) “Regards comparatifs sur les projets de réforme français et belge. La perspective du droit anglais”, in B. Dubuisson (ed) La réforme de la responsabilité civile en France et en Belgique. Regards croisés et aspects de droit comparé (Bruylant), 133-152.

[2020] “Beyond anecdote and synecdoche” in W. Ernst and B. Häcker (eds) Collective Judging in Comparative Perspective (Intesentia) 327-339.

[2020] “Unavoidable procedural questions about tort and crime” in CE Pianovski and N Rosenvald (eds) Novas Fronteiras da responsabilidade civil: direito comparado (Foco), 385-408.

[2020] “The Queen v C, D and E: In the Supreme Court of Ruritania” in B Krebs (ed) Accessorial Liability after Jogee (Hart), 133-156.