Description

Constitutional comparison notoriously is complicated by the umbilical link between Constitutions and the context in which they operate. If popular sovereignty is taken seriously, the link is strengthened further still. These essentially state based perceptions are in tension with the contemporary phenomena of globalisation and internationalisation. Nowhere is this tension manifested more clearly than in making new Constitutions. On the one hand, a new Constitution is not only a framework for government but also a symbol, which may bear the burden of constituting a people or transforming the state. On the other hand, there is extensive international involvement in many constitution making processes, involving often indiscriminate transplants and, at least de facto, internationalising the pouvoir constituant. The lecture will examine this tension in both theory and practice, drawing in particular on the experiences of states in the Asia and Pacific region.

About The Speaker

Cheryl Saunders is a laureate professor and holds a personal chair in law. She teaches in both the JD and the MLM and is the founding Director of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies.

Cheryl Saunders has specialist interests in constitutional law and comparative public law, including federalism and intergovernmental relations and constitutional design and change, on all of which she has written widely. She has recently published The Australian Constitution: A Contextual Analysis (Hart Publishing, 2011) and is presently working on a monograph on comparative constitutional law.

Cheryl Saunders is an editor of the Public Law Review and a member of the editorial boards of a range of Australian and international journals, including Publius, Jus Politicum and the Constitutional Court Review, South Africa. She has held visiting positions at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Paris II, Georgetown, Indiana (Bloomington), Hong Kong, Copenhagen, Fribourg, Capetown and Auckland. She is President Emeritus of the International Association of Constitutional Law and the International Association of Centers for Federal Studies and a former President of the Administrative Review Council of Australia.

In addition to her research and teaching activities, Cheryl Saunders is active in public debate on constitutional matters in Australia and internationally. From 1991, as deputy chair of the Australian Constitutional Centenary Foundation, she was closely involved in its pioneering work to encourage public understanding of the Constitution. She has had some involvement in aspects of constitutional design in other countries, including Fiji, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Iraq and Nepal. She is a member of the Advisory Board of International IDEA.

In 1994, Cheryl Saunders was made an officer of the Order of Australia, for services to the law and to public administration. She was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2003, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Cordoba, Argentina in 2005. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.