Description

There has been an exponential growth in Asian constitutional scholarship in recent years. However, most scholars tend to focus on contemporary constitutional issues and constitutional history has largely remained understudied. This project seeks to fill in this scholarly gap by focusing on the making, nature, and role of first modem constitutions during the period of founding the modem nation-states in the Southeast Asian countries by asking these major questions :

1. How were the first modern Constitutions in these countries made?
2. What are the internal and external factors that influence the making of these constitutions?
3. How were the constitutions related to founding modem nation-states?
4. What are the subsequent impacts of these constitutions on the state-building?

Convened by Prof Kevin Tan and Dr Bui Ngoc Son of NUS Law, this Workshop looks at the historical, political and social forces that led the the drafting of the ‘first’ or foundational constitutions of the ten ASEAN states and East Timor. In this Workshop, scholars and experts analyse how the first modern constitutions in the Southeast Asian states were drafted, as well as their roles in the constitutionalising of these new states. Constitutions covered in this project are:

• Thailand (1932)
• Vietnam ( 1946)
• Malaysia (1957)
• Singapore (1958/1963/1965)
• Philippines (1935)
• Myamnar (1947)
• Brunei (1959)
• Cambodia (1947)
• Indonesia (1945)
• Laos (1947)
• East Timor (2002)