This is the fourth essay in a special eight-part series on Feminist Constitutionalism, organized by Melina Girardi Fachin as part of the project ‘Transforming Judicial Outcomes for Women in Canada and Brazil’, which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). For more information about Feminist Constitutionalism, please email Melina...

--Aparna Chandra, Associate Professor of Law and M. K. Nambyar Chair Professor on Constitutional Law, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. [Editor’s Note: This is one of our ICONnect columns. For more on our 2024 columnists, see here.] The Autocrats’ Playbook This is the year of elections. Sixty-four countries, representing over forty-five percent of...

--Miguel Schor, Professor of Law, Associate Director of the Drake University Constitutional Law Center, and the Class of 1977 Distinguished Scholar [Editor’s Note: This is one of our ICONnect columns. For more on our 2024 columnists, see here.] Presidentialism has a comparatively poor democratic track record. In a famous essay entitled “The Perils of Presidentialism”...

This is the third essay in a special eight-part series on Feminist Constitutionalism, organized by Melina Girardi Fachin, as part of the project 'Transforming Judicial Outcomes for Women in Canada and Brazil,' which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). For more information about Feminist Constitutionalism, please contact Melina...

This is the second essay in a special eight-part series on Feminist Constitutionalism, organized by Melina Girardi Fachin as part of the project ‘Transforming Judicial Outcomes for Women in Canada and Brazil’, which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). For more information about Feminist Constitutionalism, please contact Melina...

This is the inaugural essay in a special eight-part series on Feminist Constitutionalism, organized by Melina Girardi Fachin, as part of the project 'Transforming Judicial Outcomes for Women in Canada and Brazil,' which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). For more information about Feminist Constitutionalism, please contact Melina...

New Scholarship Showcase is a brand new format promoted by the ICON-S Committee on "New Directions in Scholarship". We will periodically invite a public law scholar to discuss his or her newly published book. Our inaugural edition of this new format features Stephen Tierney, Professor of Constitutional Theory and Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional...

—Gautam Bhatia, Advocate, New Delhi, and independent legal scholar [Editor’s Note: This is one of our ICONnect columns. For more on our 2023 columnists, see here.] The previous five posts in this series have examined the Indian Constitution as a terrain of contestation around five axes of power: federalism, legislative/executive relations, pluralism, guarantor institutions, and...

--Gautam Bhatia, Advocate, New Delhi, and independent legal scholar [Editor’s Note: This is one of our ICONnect columns. For more on our 2023 columnists, see here.] The previous four posts in this series have examined the Indian Constitution as a terrain of contestation around three axes of power: federalism, legislative/executive relations, pluralism, and guarantor institutions. In this penultimate...

--Alfonso Herrera García, Professor of Constitutional Law, Universidad Panamericana (Mexico City); Irene Spigno, General Director, Inter-American Academy of Human Rights; Mauro Arturo Rivera León, Assistant Professor, University of Silesia in Katowice I. INTRODUCTION On November 7, 2022, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) issued the judgment in the case of Tzompaxtle Tecpile et al....

–Temelso Gashaw, Inter-Party Dialogue Coordination Expert at the National Election Board of Ethiopia  Recently, Dr. Abadir M. Ibrahim published a thought-provoking article titled “The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission: A Champion of Transitional Justice?” on Harvard Human Rights Reflections.  This blog post aims to defend fairly broad objections to Dr. Abadir's article.  It attempts to take arguments opened up in...

--Gautam Bhatia, Advocate, New Delhi, and independent legal scholar [Editor’s Note: This is one of our ICONnect columns. For more on our 2023 columnists, see here.] The previous three posts in this series have examined the Indian Constitution as a terrain of contestation around three axes of power: federalism, legislative/executive relations, and pluralism. In this...

--João Vitor Cardoso, Universidad de Chile [Editor’s Note: This is one of our ICONnect columns. For more on our 2023 columnists, see here.] In The Black Jacobins, James (1989, 317)  recounts an absolutely dramatic scene as part of a confrontation between the French Army and the people of Haiti: “The [French] soldiers still thought of...

--Gautam Bhatia, Advocate, New Delhi and independent legal scholar [Editor’s Note: This is one of our ICONnect columns. For more on our 2023 columnists, see here.] In my previous two columns, I examined the Indian Constitution as a terrain of contestation across two axes of power: the centre-state [“federal”] axis, and the legislature-executive [“parliamentary”] axis....

  --Gautam Bhatia, Advocate, New Delhi and independent legal scholar [Editor’s Note: This is one of our ICONnect columns. For more on our 2023 columnists, see here.]  In the opening post of this series, I proposed  an approach to the Indian Constitution that views it as a terrain of contestation between different – and opposed...

--João Vitor Cardoso, Universidad de Chile [Editor’s Note: This is one of our ICONnect columns. For more on our 2023 columnists, see here.] This column offers a discussion about moving beyond theoretical abstractions and exploring the tangible manifestations of constituent power in real-world contexts. By distinguishing between defining constituent power and identifying its empirical manifestation,...

--Teresa Violante, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg Women’s meaningful representation in the judiciary has gained visibility in national and international fora.  Still, women remain under-represented in the top echelons of the judiciary. Although international courts have traditionally been the focus of attention for initiatives to counter the low percentage of women occupying judicial posts, more recently national...

--Antonio Moreira Maués, Federal University of Para During the 2022 elections, another actor stood out in Brazil in addition to the candidates and political parties: the Superior Electoral Court. Part of this prominence was due to the behavior of the President of the Republic and candidate for reelection, Jair Bolsonaro. Following the guidelines of other...

—Irene Spigno, Academia Interamericana de Derechos Humanos How to make States compliant with their legal obligations with reference to international human rights law (henceforth IHRL)? The volume edited by Rainer Grote, Mariela Morales Antoniazzi, and Davide Paris tries to give an answer to this crucial question, with important practical implications regarding the effectiveness of human...

--Teresa Violante, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg [Editor’s Note: This is one of our ICONnect columns. For more on our 2023 columnists, see here.] Universal conscientious objection in the health sector challenges the provision of legally guaranteed services, thus possibly jeopardizing the right to health of affected persons. Selective conscientious objections have been proposed as a remedy...