The Centre for European Legal Studies (Cambridge) kindly sponsored a Comparative law workshop in honour of John Bell, who is retiring in September 2019. The workshop, which was organised by Dr Turenne, was a small gathering of colleagues and former students from Australia, Chile, France, the Netherlands, the USA in addition to colleagues and former … Continue reading Reasons and Context in Comparative Law: Workshop to mark the retirement of Professor John Bell
Comparative constitutional law is a thriving field of scholarship, with an increasing presence on Law School curricula across the world. The Cambridge Companion to Comparative Constitutional Law thereby seeks to provide readers with a detailed introduction to central topics and themes in comparative constitutional law. How can one go about that? The ‘objects’ of comparative … Continue reading The Cambridge Companion to Comparative Constitutional Law – R. Masterman and R. Schütze (eds), 2019
Last November, New Caledonia rejected, albeit with a less than expected majority (at 56.7% of the vote), the possibility of becoming a sovereign nation. The indication of a leaning towards secession was confirmed in the last elections in which loyalist political parties held on to a two-seat majority in the New Caledonian Congress. External observers … Continue reading Vito Breda – The New Caledonia 2018 Referendum: Crisis in Consociative Democracies Redux
Unlike breach, withdrawal from an international treaty is in principle a lawful act. Article 54 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of the Treaties allows a State to withdraw from a treaty either in conformity with the relevant provisions or by consent of all parties. In that sense, Article 50 TEU that provides for … Continue reading Brexit as a secession
Why are federal and regional systems looked at with increasing interest? What are their objectives? How do these systems look like in times of globalization and supranational integration? How are powers divided legally and exercised in practice? How do courts interpret intergovernmental relations? Which are the lessons to be learned and applied by practitioners, policy-makers … Continue reading Why Federalism Matters – Francesco Palermo and Karl Kössler, Comparative Federalism Concepts and Case Law, Oxford, Hart, 2017, 478 pp.
Last November, the Spanish Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that it would ask for long-term prison sentences for the Catalonian politicians who organised and supported the illegal referendum on the 1st of October 2017. The criminal prosecution of political leaders who acted with a clear electoral mandate is worrying for all those who perceive that the … Continue reading Catalonian Independence: Unbounding a Blood and Belonging Constitutional System
Based on his research on comparative constitutional law, Professor Ian Cram (Leeds) gives here an analysis of the travel ban orders issued by President Trump. His analysis charters some of the constitutional arguments that may make their way to the US Supreme Court in the future. Introduction A serious criticism of the US Courts during … Continue reading Ian Cram – Travel Bans and the US Constitution: Executive Orders in the Federal Courts
