Stephen Tierney

Visiting Professor and Distinguished Fellow
Notre Dame London Law Programme

Home Affiliation: Professor of Constitutional Theory in the Law School and Director of Postgraduate Studies, University of Edinburgh Law School

Stephen Tierney is Professor of Constitutional Theory at the University of Edinburgh Law School, where he is Deputy Head of the Law School and serves as Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law.

He has held a British Academy Senior Research Fellowship and an ESRC Senior Research Fellowship. He is currently a Senior Fellow of the Centre on Constitutional Change, which has attracted approximately £5,000,000 in grant funding over the past four years.

He is co-editor of the United Kingdom Constitutional Law blog and a member of the Executive Committee of the UK Constitutional Law Association. He also serves as Legal Adviser to the House of Lords Constitution Committee and is a member of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland. He previously served as Constitutional Adviser to the Scottish Parliament Independence Referendum Bill Committee in 2013-14.

Tierney teaches and researches on U.K. and comparative constitutional law and constitutional theory. He is committed to research impact and engages widely with government, parliamentary committees and the media on issues such as devolution, referendum law and Brexit.

He has published nine books, including two monographs with Oxford University Press — Constitutional Law and National Pluralism, and Constitutional Referendums: The Theory and Practice of Republican Deliberation. He is writing a third book for OUP on Federalism and editing a book on Federalism and the U.K. with Robert Schutze.

Global Spotlight Lecture Series

Professor Tierney presented "Parliament’s Role in the Brexit Process" in November 2020.