Thank you to all who registered for The Global Summit on Constitutionalism, to be held here at the University of Texas at Austin on March 20-22, 2025. The Summit will truly be global: over 490 registrants from more than 70 jurisdictions, including Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Kuwait, Lesotho, Lithuania, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Senegal, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Türkiye, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

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It has been a joy to plan the Global Summit with my dear friends on the Organizing Committee: Antonia Baraggia (Italy), Vicente F. Benítez R (Colombia), Catarina Santos Botelho (Portugal), Hui-Wen Chen (Taiwan), Cristina Fasone (Italy), and Yaniv Roznai (Israel). We host this event biennially. The first edition of the Global Summit was held in 2021. The second in 2023. The 2025 Global Summit will be the third.

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Many thanks to our generous Summit sponsors:

1. Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center

2. Center for Constitutional Studies and Democratic Development

3. Center for European Studies

4. Comparative Constitutions Project

5. International Forum on the Future of Constitutionalism

6. Latin America Initiative

7. Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies

8. Texas Global

9. Università degli Studi di Milano Statale and Antonia Baraggia

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If you will attend the Global Summit, see you soon! If you are unable to join us this time, we look forward to seeing you in Austin before too long.

Catherine Marshall and Céline Roynier have assembled an illustrious group of 20 scholars to interrogate the work of one of the most important constitutional thinkers of all time, Albert Venn Dicey. Born in 1835, Dicey published his classic study on The Law of the Constitution in 1885. To this day, it remains assigned in constitutional law courses worldwide. Marshall and Roynier's book is titled Twenty-First Century Perspectives on the Scholarship of AV Dicey. It will be published later this month.

Registration is now open for the 2nd edition of our course on Constitutionalism in the US and the World, a unique collaboration with the UEES Graduate School of Law, led by Pablo Alarcón Peña. Faculty, students, all interested persons are welcome to register. Join us! 

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The 1st edition featured lectures in constitutional law and politics, and included excursions to the Supreme Court of Texas, the Texas State Capitol, and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library.  The 2nd edition will feature 10 faculty lecturers, all pictured below. In addition to lectures and excursions, the program will (of course) feature Texas BBQ. 

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Here are some photos from the last day of the 1st edition, when students made group presentations on subjects of their choice in U.S. Constitutional Law, drawing from course lectures and readings.

More and more scholars are now reading and writing about constituent power, a centuries-old sociological concept of political authority. To understand the concept well, one must confront both its historical origins and its normative foundations. I recommend two books. Most importantly, Qu’est-ce que le Tiers état ? (1789) by Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, an essential pillar to understand the origins of constituent power. For a normative justification of constituent power, I recommend the award-winning book Sovereignty Across Generations: Constituent Power and Political Liberalism (2023) by Alessandro Ferrara, Professor Emeritus of Political Philosophy at Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, President of the Italian Association for Political Philosophy, and currently professor at LUISS Guido Carli.

After two years of research, deliberations, interviews and public consultations, the Constitutional Reform Commission of Barbados has released its long-awaited report. The report fulfills the Commission's mandate to advise the Government of Barbados on reforms to the Constitution, in light of the country's transition from constitutional monarchy to parliamentary republic. The report doubles as a chronicle of the country's constitutional journey and a series of recommendations on the people's constitutional future. 

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I was pleased to appear as a witness before the Commission and separately to give a public lecture on constitutional reform as an invited guest of the Commission. I congratulate the Commission on its meticulous research, comprehensive analysis, and careful deliberations. This historic report will be read by the people of Barbados for generations to come.

Daniel Rodriguez, former dean of Northwestern Law School, excavates the history and builds a theory of the police power in his new book Good Governance, published by Cambridge University Press. The police power refers to the power of a state government to protect the health, safety, morals, and welfare of its residents. This book probes how the police power can be marshalled to improve democratic outcomes, solve difficult social and economic problems, and enhance quality of life.

In April, Routledge will publish Sabina Garahan's book on Detention and the Right to Liberty: Addressing Gaps in Protection at the European Court of Human Rights, a study of the underdeveloped right to liberty and security in the European Convention on Human Rights. Garahan focuses her inquiry on the detention of vulnerable groups, including children, immigrants, and dissidents. The Chair Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention speaks highly of the book, noting that it “provides a compelling account of the need to develop Article 5 of the Convention. Dr Garahan’s finely tuned analysis will contribute to the European Court's distillation of the elements of Article 5 in the coming years during this critical era of global crisis.”

In the next installment in our virtual course on challenges to democracy and constitutionalism in the Americas, former Justice of the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic, Hermógenes Acosta de los Santos, will lead a discussion on constitutional law and politics in the Dominican Republic. All are welcome. Tuesday, December 3, at 7pm Toronto/NYC time.

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To register for this free webinar, please email Jorge Madrazo at madrazojorge@yahoo.com. This virtual course is co-sponsored by the UNAM School of Law, UNAM San Antonio, UNAM PAME, the Instituto Iberoamericano de Derecho Constitucional, and the International Forum on the Future of Constitutionalism.

Join us on Zoom on Tuesday, December 3, as we launch two new books on the constitutional powers of cities, featuring comments from contributors Erika Arban, Erin Crandall, Joanne Heritz, Konrad Lachmayer, Emmett Macfarlane, Emmanuelle Richez, Amal Sethi and Zack Taylor. Both books are co-edited by the brilliant Alexandra Flynn, the Hon. Justice Nathalie Des Rosiers, and me, with sincere thanks to McGill-Queen's University Press and Series Editors Kristin Good and Martin Horak.

Who are the professors teaching at U.S. law schools? Where were they educated, what was their academic journey to law teaching, what did their parents do for a living, and do they enjoy their career? The Association of American Law Schools has released a detailed report on the teachers shaping the next generation of lawyers in the United States. The full report is now available. And so is an executive summary. The AALS also hosted a webinar to contextualize the results.

I visited the law school at the University of Florida for the first time last month, to speak at a conference on “America's Next Constitutional Convention.” In my remarks, I drew from state constitutional conventions to suggest how a national constitutional convention might work. It was a truly valuable conference; each and every presentation taught me something new. 

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I grew up watching the Florida Gators football team. They were one of the dominant teams at the time, and made a lasting impression on me. I therefore jumped at the invitation during my visit to Gainesville to tour the football facilities and to jog in and around Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, an enormous facility with a seating capacity of over 88,000.