Blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law

Month: April 2016

  • The Brexiteers: Right Answer, Wrong Question

    —Nicholas Barber, Associate Professor of Constitutional Law, Oxford University Towards the end of the 1990s I was invited to a workshop just outside of Berlin at which a group of young academics gathered to discuss the future of the European Union. 

  • Book Review: Bogdan Iancu on Bianca Selejan-Guțan’s “The Constitution of Romania: A Contextual Analysis”

    [Editor’s Note: In this installment of I•CONnect’s Book Review Series, Bogdan Iancu reviews Bianca Selejan-Guțan’s book on The Constitution of Romania: A Contextual Analysis.] Contextualizing Romania’s Fragmented Constitutionalism —Bogdan Iancu, Associate Professor (Comparative Constitutional Law and Constitutional Theory), University of Bucharest, Faculty of Political Science For a long time after the collapse of state socialism, the countries that had just emerged from under the Iron Curtain were collectively referred to by the conceptual proxy of ‘post-communism’.

  • What’s New in Comparative Public Law

    –Patrick Yingling, Reed Smith LLP In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in comparative public law. “Developments” may include a selection of links to news, high court decisions, new or recent scholarly books and articles, and blog posts from around the comparative public law blogosphere.

  • Abusive Impeachment? Brazilian Political Turmoil and the Judicialization of Mega-Politics

    —Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasília In 2007, Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, an Argentinian professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh, wrote that “impeachments are likely when the mass media systematically investigate and expose political scandals and when the president fails to keep tight control over Congress… When a broad social coalition takes the street to demand the resignation of the president, the fall of the administration is usually in sight.”[1]

  • The Democratic Recession and the “New” Public Law: Toward Systematic Analysis

    —Tom Gerald Daly, Associate Director, Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law 2016 thus far has been marked by democratic backsliding and constitutional crises worldwide: European Commission ‘rule of law’ investigations into Polish laws on the Constitutional Tribunal and media;[1] Turkish President Erdoğan’s insistence that he will not comply with decisions of the Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights,[2] combined with accelerated plans for a problematic new constitution;[3] talk of an ‘implosion’ of South Africa’s democratic institutions;[4] a disturbing crackdown on dissent in India;[5] pro-democracy rallies in Brazil against a perceived political coup d’état through impeachment of President Rousseff;[6] and warnings that democracy in the Maldives is on a ‘negative trajectory’.[7]

  • International IDEA Report on Transition in Yemen

    —Richard Albert, Boston College Law School Readers of I-CONnect will be interested in the following update we have received from Zaid Al-Ali, Senior Adviser on Constitution-Building for the Arab Region at International IDEA. I am very pleased to share our latest report on Yemen, entitled: “Yemen’s peaceful transition from autocracy: Could it have succeeded?”.

  • What’s New in Comparative Public Law

    –Sandeep Suresh, Research Associate, Daksh India (Rule of Law Project) In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in comparative public law. “Developments” may include a selection of links to news, high court decisions, new or recent scholarly books and articles, and blog posts from around the comparative public law blogosphere.

  • Varieties of Constitutionalism (I·CON 14, Issue 1: Editorial)

    —Mark Tushnet, Harvard Law School Political scientist Diana Kapiszewski has begun a study of the rise of what she calls “adjectival constitutionalism,” the study of constitutionalisms identified by some modifier. That there are varieties of constitutionalism seems undeniable. Outlining a preliminary taxonomy may be useful to scholars in the field, in helping us organize our thinking—and perhaps in provoking us to think about constitutionalism as such, and what our field of study encompasses.

  • I·CON’s Current Issue (Table of Contents)

    I·CON  Volume 14 Issue 1  Table of Contents Editorial Articles William Phelan, Supremacy, direct effect, and Dairy Products in the early history of European law Michèle Finck, The role of human dignity in gay rights adjudication and legislation: A comparative perspective The Changing Landscape of Australasian Constitutionalism: A Symposium Claudia Geiringer, Cheryl Saunders, and Adrienne Stone, Introduction Elisa Arcioni and Adrienne Stone, The small brown bird: Values and aspirations in the Australian Constitution Rosalind Dixon, An Australian (partial) bill of rights Andrew Geddis, Parliamentary government in New Zealand: Lines of continuity and moments of change Janet McLean, The unwritten political constitution and its enemies Paul Rishworth, Writing things unwritten: Common law in New Zealand’s constitution Claudia Geiringer, What’s the story?

  • What’s New in Comparative Public Law

    –Simon Drugda, Nagoya University Graduate School of Law (Japan) In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in comparative public law. “Developments” may include a selection of links to news, high court decisions, new or recent scholarly books and articles, and blog posts from around the comparative public law blogosphere.