The next Global Summit on Constitutionalism will be held on March 17-19, 2027, here at the University of Texas at Austin. We hosted the first edition in 2021, the second in 2023, and the third in 2025. This will be our fourth. All are welcome. Stay tuned for registration details!

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Would you like to sponsor the 2027 Global Summit? You might sponsor a plenary speaker, a featured panel, a group meal, or our commemorative t-shirts, for instance. There are many ways to be involved as a sponsor. Please contact me if you would like to learn more!

My newest paper is now available: Should AI Write Your Constitution?

Kevin Frazier and I explain that there is an important role for Artificial Intelligence in making and reforming constitutions. We illustrate in detail how constitutional designers can – and should – use AI in each of the key steps in the process of constitution-making. Crucially, we insist on necessary protections for popular sovereignty, sociological legitimacy, and participatory democracy. These protections take the form of what we call the Democracy Shield. We welcome your comments. The full draft is here.

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Thank you to Larry Solum for “highly” recommending our paper on his famous Legal Theory Blog. And my thanks René Ibraham Cardona Picón for this insightful analysis of our paper in one of Mexico's oldest and largest daily newspapers. 

Congratulations to Elena Simina Tănăsescu, the new President of the Constitutional Court of Romania. Prior to her appointment to the Court in 2019, President Tănăsescu built a distinguished career in academia and public service. She has published several important scholarly works namely Droit constitutionnel de la Roumanie (2024), Constitutional Law and the EU Balanced Budget Principle (2022), Governance and Constitutionalism: Law, Politics and Institutional Neutrality (2019), Droits fondamentaux, équilibre budgétaire et protection juridictionnelle (2017), among many others, in addition to dozens of scholarly articles and reviews. A graduate of the University of Bucharest in Romania and l'Université d'Aix-Marseille in France, President Tănăsescu becomes the first woman to preside over the Court. 

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In 2024, President Tănăsescu was appointed a Distinguished Senior Fellow in the Constitutional Studies Program here at the University of Texas at Austin. We join Romanians in celebrating her appointment.

August 1 is World Constitution Day! How will you mark the day?

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Once a year, people come together across the world to celebrate all that is good about constitutions. From open houses to forums, from meetings to lectures, and from blog posts to Zoom discussions to networking events and beyond, World Constitution Day is a global celebration of one of the humanity's greatest inventions. My colleague James Scherrer created World Constitution Day. We owe him a debt of gratitude for his vision in inspiring us all to join hands to mark this important day in all parts of the world.

In 2019, I created the Mark Tushnet Prize in Comparative Law to honor Mark Tushnet on the eve of his retirement. The Tushnet Prize is awarded annually by the Section on Comparative Law in the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) to an untenured scholar at an AALS Member School in any subject of comparative law.

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Nominations are now welcome for the next Tushnet Prize, to be awarded at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the AALS. Eligibility details, submission protocols, and further information are available here.

Prior to the election, two-thirds of Mexicans expressed their support for the idea of judicial elections. We certainly need more time to assess the impact of judicial reforms in Mexico, but some observers have voiced their concerns about the erosion of democracy and the political capture of courts. 

Congratulations to Guy Baldwin, the 2025 winner of the Yorke Prize awarded by the Faculty of Law at Cambridge University for his doctoral thesis on The Justification and Limits of Liberty of Conscience. As he explains it, his thesis “reconsiders the conceptual basis of liberty of conscience (often called religious freedom), and applies the theoretical insights to address challenging issues involving the interpretation of this human right, focusing on the law of the US and UK.” He was supervised by Alison Young, advised by Lars Vinx, and examined by David Feldman and John Adenitire. Since 2023, he has been a Lecturer in Public Law and Human Rights at the University of Manchester. Congratulations Dr. Baldwin!

A new book, just published last month: Hate Speech and the European Court of Human Rights. Authored by Natalie Alkiviadou, the book appears in the series Routledge Research in Human Rights Law. The author makes the case for expanding the scope of speech to permit even those hateful views that may be offensive, shocking, or disturbing, consistent with the right to freedom of expression. 

There has been a lot of excellent research on fourth branch institutions in constitutional democracies. The most recent addition to the literature is an important study by Cristina Fasone on fiscal councils as a novel fourth branch institution. In her new book Le istituzioni fiscali indipendenti tra Unione europea e Stati membri (published in open-access), she explains the role and importance of fiscal councils in Europe, with a focus on France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the European Union. For those who cannot read Italian, rest assured: she is currently planning to publish an English-language book that takes a global perspective on fiscal councils as a fourth branch institution.

Congratulations to Javad Yahyazadeh on completing his doctoral dissertation titled A Comparative Study on the Classification of Constitutional Unamendability, an outstanding analysis of unamendable rules, norms, and practices in constitutional states. Drawing upon his ambitious and systematic study of 193 constitutions, his research identifies and assesses different types of unamendability around the world. He completed his dissertation at Allameh Tabataba'i University under the supervision of Hassan Vakilian. His dissertation earned a remarkable score of 19.91 out of 20. Congratulations Dr. Yahyazadeh! 

We spent the Fourth of July holiday week in Durango, a quaint city in southwestern Colorado. The air is clean, the water is clear, the trees are tall, the mountains are enormous, and the people are welcoming. Here are a few photos of the sights nearby – including a hen-house called “The Whole Hen-Chilada” located on the property we rented.