This panel focuses on LGBT‘s fundamental rights judicial process of acknowledgement in Europe both at national and supranational level. In particular, it unfolds along three lines of thought: firstly, from a general and comparative perspective, the contribution of the vertical division of powers – as indicated by the contributory action of subnational legislation, administrative practice...
JUDICIAL GUARANTEES, IMPEACHMENT AND POLITICAL JUDGMENTS: INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS AS DEMOCRACY PROTECTOR?
There is a close bond of interdependence between State, Constitution, Democracy and Human Rights. Based on this intrinsic relationship, international bodies, such as the Inter-American Human Rights System have built substantial standards of the democratic rule of law in the region. Within the material nucleus of democracy there are judicial guarantees -especially those contained in...
MANAGING INTERFACE CONFLICTS: ENTANGLED LEGALITIES BEYOND THE STATE
As spheres of authority in the global order increasingly overlap and provoke conflicts between them, this panel explores the ways in which these interface conflicts are dealt with and produce a new order ‘at the margins‘. Interface conflicts arise when actors have conflicting views about international norms and rules associated with international authorities. Actors from...
EQUAL RIGHTS PROVISIONS IN CONSTITUTIONS WORLDWIDE: WHICH GROUPS ARE LEFT OUT, AND WHAT WORKS TO STRENGTHEN LEGAL PROTECTIONS?
Over the past 50 years, explicit protections against discrimination on the basis of certain aspects of identity, such as gender, race, and religion, have become increasingly common in constitutions worldwide. Today, 85% of constitutions explicitly prohibit gender discrimination, compared to just 50% of those adopted before 1960. Yet far fewer include language guaranteeing equal rights...
EXTERNAL ASSISTANCE TO CONSTITUTION MAKING IN THE 21ST CENTURY
The proposed panel will discuss external assistance to constitution making. The panelists all have recent experience in delivering such advice in dozens of countries around the globe. Reflecting on their own experiences, the panel will discuss questions such as: – Does external constitutional advice contribute to a growing global constitutionalism? Is this a problematic or...
CHIEF JUSTICES IN SEMI-DEMOCRACIES: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON JUDICIAL (DIS)EMPOWERMENT
This panel will examine the role of chief justices in semi-democratic judicial systems. The global expansion of judicial power has seen a concomitant expansion of court presidents‘ powers. But to date there is no systematic efforts to compare or theorize the new powers and roles of these judicial leaders and their effects on judicial empowerment....
JUDICIAL REVIEW AS CONTESTATION – FORMS AND JUSTIFICATIONS
This panel considers theoretical justifications for the institution of judicial review as democratic contestation, as well as the forms of judicial review that those justifications might suggest. The papers are connected by their apparent reliance on non-epistemic justifications; that is, justifications that recognize that judges have neither abnormal moral insight nor abnormal capacity to reason...
CONSTITUTIONAL COURTS AND ‘FOREIGN’ JUDGING
The traditional model of constitutional judge is a local citizen and resident, and an individual appointed for life, until a certain age, or a non-renewable fixed term. Not all judges, however, conform to this archetype: judges in a surprisingly large number of countries are in fact foreign citizens and residents. Many of these – and...