This is the second country study in Tom Ginsburg and I’s ongoing project to identify the potential risks and rewards of a constitutional Right to Rebel – Venezuela has had 26 separate constitutions since independence and the most recent have included various justifications for a popular right to rebel. Case Study 2: Venezuela The seeds

New Hungary Constitution: New Opinions
Our contributor Andrew Arato, along with other leading academics, submitted an amicus brief to the Venice Commission concerning the new Constitution of Hungary. It is in many ways a devastating critique of the new document on both substantive and procedural grounds. The Venice Commission itself released an Opinion on the Constitution earlier this week, arguing

The Constitutional Right to Rebel – advice for Egypt?
The ripple effects from Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” are still making themselves felt throughout the Arab World. Earlier today, Egypt’s Mubarak stepped down after weathering large-scale protests and civil disobedience for over two weeks. Elsewhere in the region Lebanon, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan (and to a lesser extent Mauritania, Sudan, Syria, Libya, and Morocco) have also seen

Supreme Court Presidents: Administrative or Jurisprudential Influence?
The justices of the Mexican Supreme Court (MSC) have just elected, as they do every four years, a new president. Whereas the President of the US Supreme Court can exert considerable jurisprudential influence (with, for instance, its power to assign cases to fellow justices), the president of the MSC wields considerable influence over the administration

Enacting Constitutionalism
For readers who might be interested in a paper on the constitutional enactment of independent judicial institutions, may I suggest a paper just published entitled “Enacting Constitutionalism,” in which my coauthor and I focus on the political composition of the constituent body and its implications for the type of institutions enacted. The paper is available

Renewing the Upper Chamber in Canada
The Canadian Prime Minister has recently appointed a slate of five new Senators to the Upper Chamber. Two things are significant about this latest round of Senatorial appointments. First, the governing Conservative Party now holds a plurality of seats in the Senate after spending years in the wilderness of minority status. Second, the prospect that the

Out with the old, in with the new
The newly minted Supreme Court of the UK handed down its first decision this week, after coming to power on October 1, 2009. There is no doubt that Brits (and the rest of us) are still getting used to the idea of new branch of government in the UK. There is even some question (in

State Constitutionalism and the Comparative Project
First, thanks to Zach Elkins and Tom Ginsburg, master scholars, impressarios of the great comparative constitutionalism project, and all-around good guys, for inviting me to guest blog on state constitutionalism and state con law. Second, by way of introduction, I am the Minerva House Drysdale Regents Chair in Law at the University of Texas, recently