Month: November 2012
-
Awful Process, Terrible Ending and (Most likely) Disastrous Results
—Andrew Arato, Dorothy Hart Hirshon Professor of Political and Social Theory, The New School No serious interpreter has claimed that the Egyptian constitution-making process has been satisfactory or even adequate. Even in the context of revolutionary populist constitution making to which this case belongs, the Egyptian version is distinguished by its inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies.
-
Tunisian Constitutionalism and Women’s Rights
—Adrien K. Wing, Bessie Dutton Murray Professor of Law, University of Iowa College of Law The world was in shock and awe in the winter of 2010 when Tunisia, a small North African country, was able to remove its twenty-three-year leader President Zine El Abedine Ben Ali from power in less than a month—and with relatively little violence.
-
Nuclear protest and the right of assembly in Japan
As disturbing new reports come in [see here, here and here] finding abnormally high levels of thyroid growths in children of Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, there is renewed attention being drawn to the Democratic Party of Japan government’s controversial decision to re-open some nuclear plants this past summer.
-
The Secessionist Challenge In Spain: An Independent Catalonia?
Constitutional waters are turbulent in Spain, as a result of recent events in Catalonia. On September 11, large numbers of Catalans took to the streets in Barcelona to celebrate the annual Diada nacional. This time, however, they did so under a new banner: “Catalonia: the next European state”.
-
Join I-CON: Debate!
In I.CON’S latest issue, Marek Szydło and Stephen Weatherhill present opposing views on the desirability of designating national parliaments as national regulatory authorities of network industries. Marek’s paper is entitled National parliaments as regulators of network industries: In search of the dividing line between regulatory powers of national parliaments and national regulatory authorities; Weatherhill’s reply is here.
-
I·CON 10 Issue 4: Editorial
I have invited my co-Editor-in-Chief, Michel Rosenfeld to write the Editorial for our last issue for 2012. His contribution follows below. Individual rights and the excesses of individualism: Heading back to a Hobbesian state of nature? In Hobbes’s vision, the state of nature is one of extreme individualism leading to a war of all against all and in which human life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
-
New papers on transnational constitutionalism
There are two new papers up on SSRN concerning the contribution of outsiders to the formation and interpretation of national constitutions. As recently previewed here, Rosalind Dixon and Vicki Jackson have a forthcoming paper in Wake Forest Law Review called Constitutions Inside Out: Outsider Interventions In Domestic Constitutional Contests.
-
Article Review & Response: Mark Tushnet and Oliver Gerstenberg on Rights Adjudication
[Editor’s Note: In this installment of I•CONnect’s Article Review Series, Mark Tushnet reviews Oliver Gerstenberg’s just-published I-CON article on “Negative/Positive Constitutionalism, ‘Fair Balance,” and the Problem of Justiciability.” Professor Gerstenberg then responds to Professor Tushnet’s review.] A Review of Gerstenberg’s article on “Negative/Positive Constitutionalism, ‘Fair Balance,” and the Problem of Justiciability” —Mark Tushnet, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Harvard Law School Oliver Gerstenberg develops an argument that experimentalist modes of adjudication can coexist with “strong” rights.
-
Is Egypt’s Transition to Democracy Really So Stupid?
—William Partlett, Columbia University Law School & Brookings Institution [Editors’ Note: In this forum on Egypt and New Perspectives on Constitution-Making, three young scholars of comparative constitutional law – Ozan Varol, Will Partlett, and David Landau – discuss their recent work on constitution-making and democratic transitions, focusing on Egypt.
-
Egypt and the Forgotten Lessons of Democratic Transitions (Or: Democracy is Hard)
—David Landau, Florida State University College of Law [Editors’ Note: In this forum on Egypt and New Perspectives on Constitution-Making, three young scholars of comparative constitutional law – Ozan Varol, Will Partlett, and David Landau – discuss their recent work on constitution-making and democratic transitions, focusing on Egypt.