There is no event in law like the Annual Conference of International Society of Public Law (ICON-S). It is a gathering of scholars and practitioners of all levels of seniority, from all around the world, in all fields of public law. ICON-S is only 12 years old, but it has already become the world's leading and largest learned society for the study of public law. 

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If you attended the ICON-S conference last week in Brazil, you will agree that it was outstanding in every way. From the opening ceremony (pictured above) to the closing session, the conference was an enormous success. Congratulations--and thank you--to the local hosts: Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, Juliana Cesario Alvim Gomes, Emílio Peluso Neder Meyer, and everyone at the Universidade de Brasília. And congratulations--and thank you--to the entire team at ICON-S and the Organizing Committee. ICON-S keeps raising the bar higher every year. Thank you!

Earlier this year, the Chicago Journal of International Law published my paper titled Decolonial Constitutionalism. In the paper, I define decolonial constitutionalism as “the use of legal, legitimate, and non-violent means to assert sovereignty, to secure rights, or to achieve recognition for a people, nation, or state that is legally or politically subordinate to domestic or foreign actors.” My objectives are to map the multiple forms decolonial constitutionalism and to identify the sites where it can be achieved. 

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The journal has commissioned responses to my paper from three outstanding constitutional scholars who combine sophisticated understanding of constitutional law and politics with robust practical experience in the field. I am grateful to all three authors for writing outstanding essays that push forward the boundaries of our knowledge about rights, recognition, sovereignty, and self-determination. Here, below, are their excellent papers, which I recommend enthusiastically: 

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1. Jorge Contesse, Professor of Law & Director of the Center for Transnational Law, Rutgers Law School, and Domingo Lovera, Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director, Public Law Program, Diego Portales Law School | Chile’s Constituent Processes: A Fault Line of Decolonial Constitutionalism?

2. Matthew S. R. Palmer, Judge of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand | New Zealand Constitutionalism

On my trip to Brazil last month, Antonio Herman Benjamin invited me to visit the National High Court of Brazil, where he sits as Chief Justice. Our group was treated a tour of his chambers and various public and private spaces throughout the Court's majestic building (including the Court's own TV, radio, and podcast recording studios). We also received a fascinating briefing from two of his top legal advisors--Giovana Carneiro and Carl Smith--on how the Court is leveraging the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Under Chief Justice Benjamin, the Court has become a global leader in the use of generative AI. This will be a big part of the immense legacy Chief Justice Benjamin will leave behind when his term ends. Here are a few photos of my visit.

Since 1990, over 30 new countries have been created. (Not all of them have been recognized by the United Nations, however.) Bougainville voted some time ago to declare independence but it is not yet an independent country. What will it take for Bougainville to take the next step?

Nominations are open until August 18 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. 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. I created the Mark Tushnet Prize in 2019 to honor Mark Tushnet on the eve of his retirement. 

The second edition of the Canadian Constitutional Law Open Access Casebook is now published. Edited by Richard Moon, Howard Kislowicz, and Asha Kaushal, the book features 26 chapters written by more than 40 contributors. I was pleased to co-author Chapter 4: The Law and History of Constitutional Amendment with Dave Guénette and Catherine Mathieu. The book is free to all for classroom instruction, professional and personal use, and other purposes consistent with the Creative Commons License.

The new edition of the International Review of Constitutional Reform will soon be published. This 2024 edition will feature reports on constitution-making and constitutional amendments in over 100 jurisdictions--the largest number of countries we have ever covered in any edition. Earlier editions of the IRCR are available in open access here: 

We are grateful to our dozens of contributors from all around the world. And thank you to our editorial team: co-editor President Luís Roberto Barroso, and associate editors Elisa Amorim Boaventura, Maria Letícia Borges, Bruno Santos Cunha, Matheus de Souza Depieri, Júlia Quintão Frade, and David Sobreira. More details to come!

 In his new paper, Jeronimo Lau Alberdi dives into the history of constitutional reform in Argentina. He observes that “although Argentina’s 1853 Constitution remains intact on parchment, successive political cycles have hollowed out its liberal‑republican design.” He illustrates precisely how the Constitution has been hollowed out – not by constitutional amendment, but by constitutional dismemberment in relation to the structure, rights, and identity of the Constitution. It is a rich, original, and important account of the life of the 1853 Constitution of Argentina. The paper is titled Argentina's Constitutional Strain and Institutional Anomie and is available here.

On my trip to Brazil, I was treated to a special tour of the Palácio do Planalto, an historic building designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1958. The Palace is where the President of Brazil and his team do their daily work. 

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My hosts were a generous quartet of representatives of the Revista Jurídica da Presidência (the Law Journal of the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil): Francielle Vieira, Fernanda Rodrigues, Ayla Santos, and Tuane Vasconcelos. Thank you so very much to each of them!

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I am pleased to be a member of the Editorial Council of the Journal. If you are interested in publishing a paper in this top-rated journal, please let me know and I will happily introduce you to the Journal's team.

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Here are some photos of the Palace, below.

Here are just a few photos from the spectacular ICON-S Annual Conference in Brazil. The photos are from dinners, receptions, meals, panels--and also from my morning jogs to the Praça dos Três Poderes.
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Special thanks to Matheus Depieri for a gift of local coconut water, to Ana Cristina Melo de Pontes Botelho for gifts of bolo de rolo and bolinho de goma from her home state Pernambuco, to Fernanda Torres Villarrubia for a gift of Barcelona Turron, and to Lucas Rocha Bertolo for another gift of local coconut water. All delicious gifts! We are all pictured separately further down below.