Last week, we hosted our 3rd Graduate Conference on Constitutional Change. Limited by design to roughly 20 participants, this gathering advances a core mission of the Constitutional Studies Program here at the University of Texas at Austin: to provide a forum for early-career scholars to develop their ideas in a supportive and intellectually stimulating setting. Topics at this latest edition of the Graduate Conference included the basic structure doctrine, the recent judicial reform in Mexico, the role of the African Union in defending democracy, and many other cutting edge issues of great importance to our understanding of constitutions. This conference confirmed again what I have long believed: the most exciting ideas in constitutional change today are being incubated in the work of graduate students. We will host our 4th Graduate Conference on Constitutional Change in 2025. Details to come. For now, here are a few photos from last week.

On Friday, I interviewed Jeong-In Yun about President Yoon Suk Yeol's declaration of martial law in South Korea earlier this month. We also discussed the failed impeachment vote against him last week, and what these dramatic developments reveal about the state of democracy in the country. The video of our discussion is linked below.

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Update: Just a few hours after our interview, the Parliament of South Korea voted to impeach the President.

We typically associate emergency powers with retrenchment on rights. But in their new paper titled Emergency Powers for Good, Berkeley law professors Elena Chachko and Katerina Linos argue that emergency powers can be deployed – and indeed have been – to transform public policy for positive social and legal ends.

A new book, published just last month, edited by Akritas Kaidatzis, Eleni Kalampakou, Ifigeneia Kamtsidou, Christos Papastylianos, and Costas Stratilatis: The People's Constitution: The Populist Transformation of Constitutional Law? The book contains 13 chapters across three sections respectively titled Populist Constitutionalism and Authoritarianism, Populism and the Courts, and Populist Constitutionalism and Representation. Among the many strengths of the book is that it shines a spotlight on jurisdictions that are understudied in the literature on comparative constitutionalism, including Southern Europe and the Balkans.

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.

In her new paper Populist Secularism appearing in the Minnesota Journal of International Law, Seval Yildirim traces the historical tension between religion and secularism in Turkey, beginning with the Ottoman Empire through the modern ascendancy of the AKP led by current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Yildirim contrasts the old model of militant secularization with the present model of populist secularism, concluding that each model marginalizes different groups of persons in Turkey. 

Law students at Dhaka University have produced an impressive report for the Constitutional Reform Commission convened to advise the Government of Bangladesh on the future of the country's constitution. The report spans 125 pages and proposes reforms to every branch of government. It also devotes substantial attention to fundamental rights and freedoms. This degree of student engagement with the Constitution augurs well for the future.

The 8th edition of the Global Review of Constitutional Law is now published! A first-of-its-kind collaboration across jurisdictions, the Global Review features reports written by scholars and judges on constitutional rulings in 80 countries over the past year. Thank you to the nearly 170 contributors (identified below) who worked often in multi-member teams to produce these invaluable jurisdictional studies. If you are interested in joining the Global Review team for the 2024 calendar year, we welcome expressions of interest here to write a report on unclaimed jurisdictions.

This coming week, Carlos Ayala, Jesús María Casal and Margarita Escudero, will lead a discussion on Venezuelan constitutional law and politics in the next installment of our virtual course on challenges to democracy and constitutionalism in the Americas. All are welcome. Thursday, December 19, at 7pm Toronto/NYC time.

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To register your attendance, 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.

Many countries have two or more official languages. In most if not all of these jurisdictions, official languages are commonly given equal status under law. In their new paper, two scholars – Michael M.K. Cheung and Anne S.Y. Cheung – examine the differential treatment of Chinese and English in Hong Kong. They find that both languages have not been treated equally under law. And this, they explain, raises a problem for the rule of law.

Earlier this month, we welcomed Jaime Olaiz-González as a Visiting Resource Professor here at the University of Texas at Austin. His visit was sponsored and hosted jointly by the Constitutional Studies Program and the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, one of the oldest and largest Latin American Studies programs in the United States. While here on campus, our guest gave a lecture to my class on the recent judicial reform in Mexico, delivered a lecture at LLILAS on the future of US-Mexico relations, and held office hours for students and faculty. 

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Here is a photo taken after his visit to my class. His presentation on amendments in Mexico featured a fun reference to one of the most creative movies of all-time: Back to the Future.