This book provides a lucid, critical account of when and why a person is under a legal duty to protect others from harm, and not merely a duty not to harm. It explains the legal principles that determine when both private individuals and public authorities will be subject to liability for failures to protect from harm.

Sandy Steel has been a Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, since 2014, and Professor of Law and Philosophy of Law at the University of Oxford since 2021. His work focuses on foundational issues in private law, including causation, the moral basis of duties to compensate, the relationship between remedies and self-defence, and the role of fault. His other books include Proof of Causation in Tort Law (CUP, 2015), and co-authored with Nick McBride, Great Debates in Jurisprudence (2nd edn, 2018).