Dr. Diego Poole
Diego Poole Derqui (born 18 December 1967 in Bilbao, Spain) is a professor of philosophy of law at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, where he has been a faculty member since 2001. His research and teaching focus on legal philosophy, the natural law tradition, jurisprudential theory, theories of justice, and the philosophical foundations of law.
Professor Poole earned his Licenciatura in Law (LL.B.) from the Complutense University of Madrid (1985–1990), graduating with an excellent academic record (8.28/10). He remained at the same institution to complete his PhD in Law, receiving the distinction ‘Summa cum laude’ for his doctoral thesis, which analysed ‘The Political Character of Jurisprudential Function in the Work of Luigi Lombardi Vallauri’. During his doctoral studies (1990–1994), he was a research fellow and undertook research in Florence under Professor Lombardi Vallauri.
From 1994 to 1998, he served as an Assistant Professor of Natural Law and Philosophy of Law at the Centro Ramón Carande, which is affiliated with the Complutense University of Madrid. He then held a full-time interim position as Associate Professor of Philosophy of Law at Rey Juan Carlos University prior to his current appointment. Alongside his primary academic role, he was a visiting professor at the University of Piura in Peru for four years, contributing to international academic exchange.
Professor Poole’s scholarly work is rooted in jurisprudence and natural law theory, with a particular focus on the natural law tradition from historical and contemporary perspectives. His publications address topics such as the Aristotelian-Thomistic foundations of law, the relationship between practical reason, justice and legal norms, and critiques of modern legal theory. His recent work, The Christian Sense of Nature (2024), is a conceptual exploration of nature’s normative role in Western legal and moral thought. Professor Poole’s research outputs are indexed in major academic databases, and his work on natural law and legal philosophy is referenced across multiple publications in citation indexes such as Google Scholar.
At Rey Juan Carlos University, he teaches courses in Philosophy of Law, Theory of Law, Deontology of Public Service, Ethics of Advertising and Law & Technology, among others. He is also actively involved in supervising theses and final degree projects. He participates in research groups such as the Emerging Research Group in Bio-Aesthetics and the Consolidated Teaching Innovation Group, ‘Art and Creativity for Humanistic Education’.
Alongside his academic duties, he has served as Director of the Natural Law Tradition section at International Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR) congresses, promoting the study of natural law theory within global scholarly forums.
In 2025, he published a website on ethics and law (www.eticayderecho.com), containing over 3,500 reflections on the relationship between law and morality.
He promotes the activities organised by the Iuris Naturalis Societas (World Association of Natural Law Scholars): www.iurisnaturalis.com.
His ORCID researcher identifier is https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9473-1327 , where his complete and updated bibliography can be accessed.