The State of the Comparative Constitutional Law Field and the Re-Launch of Constitutional Studies – UK Constitutional Law Association

Over the past three decades or so, comparative constitutional law has greatly advanced both as a site of scholarly inquiry and professional practice. As the field’s jurisdictional and thematic focus continues to expand, engagement with comparative constitutional material has become a global phenomenon. This proliferation is manifest in the exponential growth of comparative academic research and constitutional borrowing in both constitutional change and constitutional adjudication around the globe. This enormous diversity goes hand-in-hand with the cross-pollination of constitutional ideas, especially in these challenging times characterised by growing social polarisation, armed conflict, democratic backsliding, constitutional degradation, rising inequalities, and climate breakdown.

The constitutional challenges faced by an increasingly fragmented, yet interconnected world require both context-sensitive and transnational solutions informed by truly inclusive exchanges. This is the vision that informs the pathbreaking re-launch of Constitutional Studies as a multilingual, open-access, and interdisciplinary peer-reviewed global platform for the comparative study of constitutions. The journal has been recently reconfigured as a joint publication by the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL, to which the UKCLA is affiliated) and the Comparative Constitutions Project (CCP)– an initiative led by Professors Tom Ginsburg and Helle Krunke. In line with the United Nations language policy, Constitutional Studies’ six working languages are Arabic, English, French, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish. By the end of 2025, authors will be able to submit their manuscripts in any of these languages. Additionally, authors will be able to submit their manuscripts to the journal in English and any of the following languages spoken by the journal’s Editorial Team: Bengali, Bosnian, Catalan, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Georgian, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Montenegrin, Norwegian, Persian, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish, and Ukrainian. Moreover, as an entirely open-access online journal, Constitutional Studies does not charge any fees for authors to publish their contributions or for readers to access the work that we publish. This unique and innovative publication model seeks to remove the many barriers that persist in the production and fruition of constitutional knowledge around the world. Constitutional Studies also deliberately adopts an interdisciplinary approach to address the theory and practice of constitutional government around the world.

The first re-issue of Constitutional Studies (issue 11:1) aims to explore the state of the field of comparative constitutional law. The issue is organised in five sections. After an Introduction by IACL President Helle Krunke and CCP Co-Director Tom Ginsburg, along with a Preface by the Editorial Team, the issue’s first section features nine substantive articles on the state of the field. In these contributions, leading scholars reflect on the relationship between recent salient constitutional developments in their respective regions and key scholarly interventions in the field of comparative constitutional law. Authors were invited to reflect on the intersection between constitutional praxis and constitutional scholarship from their specific vantage point in terms of geographic positioning, jurisdictional expertise, linguistic access, and thematic interests. The result has been a kaleidoscope of deeply contextual perspectives on different regions of the world with a diverse thematic focus. Nonetheless, significant common threads run through these contributions: the intimate relation between violent conflict and constitutional change, multiplying instances of democratic backsliding and constitutional degradation, the development of an increasingly transnational abusive constitutional playbook, the role of constitutional structures and rights in responding to demands for redistribution and recognition in the face of growing intersectional inequalities, and the manifold threats posed by authoritarianism around the globe.

Drawing on both her scholarship and mediation work for the United Nations, Marie-Joëlle Zahar’s contribution ‘Constitutional Reforms and Peace Processes: An Odd Couple?’ – published in both English and French in line with the long-standing bilingual tradition of the IACL – examines the relationship between post-conflict transitions and constitutional change understood as both constitutional reform and replacement. She focuses on the inner tensions between the processes of reaching a political solution to military conflict and that of crafting a constitutional framework. Zahar argues that the main risk of wedding peace accords with constitution building is that post-conflict constitutions may end up entrenching the interests of particular political actors and create permanent power asymmetries. In turn, this might ultimately result in the loss of the transformative potential of constitution building exercises. Zahar’s article also helpfully offers a roadmap to avoid post-conflict constitutions becoming mere extensions of peace agreements. The main solutions provided revolve around the design of the constitution-making process, which ought to be transparent, open, and inclusive. In this light, inclusivity becomes the main antidote against the authoritarian tendencies of the political actors involved in the conflict once they engage in the process of constitutional change. Through a compelling comparison of the case-studies of Lebanon, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sudan, and Kenya, Zahar compares the key elements of post-conflict constitutional change in these jurisdictions: power-sharing and inclusion.

Focusing on Africa, Markus Böckenförde provides a comparative mapping of the constitutionalisation of the doctrine of unconstitutional constitutional amendments (UCA) in the aftermath of the post-1990 third wave of constitution building in his article ‘(Unconstitutional) Constitutional Amendments in Africa: Mapping the Field’. Ultimately, the aim of this comparison is to assess the status of constitutional democracy in the region. Amidst the enduring threat of authoritarian regression, Böckenförde analyses the application of the UCA doctrine vis-à-vis two common features of African constitutionalism: the strategies deployed by incumbents to circumvent (or even eliminate) presidential term limits and the potential of supranational African institutions to enhance the rule of law. He argues that while colonial legacies remain highly significant across different African legal traditions, there is scope for cautious optimism in the overall trajectory of constitutional democracy in the region.

Assessing recent developments in the Arab world, Zaid Al-Ali examines in his contribution ‘The Arab Region 15 Years after the Uprising: Regression, Conflict, and Residual Hope’ – published in English and soon in Arabic – the complex challenges that jurisdictions in the region continue to face in the wake of the 2011 uprisings in terms of constitutional design and praxis. Al-Ali critiques the framing of the post-2011 constitutional debates, which failed to properly take into account the damaging impact of a century of colonial and post-colonial rulers on the region’s political culture and state institutions. He concludes that in the current context of conflict proliferation, the issue of constitutional design remains critical to securing peace and fostering democratic institutions. In particular, the trajectory of Syria’s post-conflict transition will be crucial not just for the region’s stability, but also for broader lessons about viable paths to constitutional reform following violent uprisings. Ultimately, looking to the future, Al-Ali argues that only good-faith commitment to inclusive democratic principles by both domestic political elites and international actors can break the cycle of constitutional instability in the region.

Reflecting on Asia from a comparative perspective, Jiunn-rong Yeh and Wen-Chen Chang argue in their article ‘Changing Dynamics of Constitutional Progress and Regression in Asia: Interplay of Electoral, Civic, and Judicial Constitutionalism’ – published in both English and Mandarin – that the development of constitutional democracy across twenty-six Asian jurisdictions has been articulated through both constitutional politics and ordinary politics. In fact, Asia’s constitutional dynamism is particularly significant in light of the difficulties in igniting constitutional change through the formal avenues of constitutional replacement and even constitutional amendments. As a result, informal avenues anchored in electoral politics and social mobilisation have played a crucial role in bringing about significant constitutional change across Asia. Thus, in this context constitutional culture and informal incremental adjustments deserve specific attention. Yeh and Chang conclude that the future of constitutional democracy in Asia remains uncertain, but that the regular conduct of elections in the majority of Asian jurisdictions has strengthened the role of civil society in the constitutional mechanisms of accountability, which are in turn supported by regional cooperation on election monitoring and transnational democratic deliberation.

With respect to Europe, Silvia Suteu in her contribution ‘Democratic Backsliding and Constitutional Soul-Searching in Europe’ analyses the diagnoses and solutions provided by various strands of recent comparative constitutional scholarship to democratic backsliding in the context of recent developments in the Eastern European region. She focuses on gender as a prism to analyse democratic backsliding, but not merely as a site of constitutional degradation; rather as a crucial element shaping our collective understanding of constitutional democracy itself. Thus, Suteu concludes that there is a pressing need for a more contextually-sensitive and long durée approach to democratic backsliding, one that moves beyond the constraints of both the transition 2.0 literature and the material critique. This new approach ought to take into account, and respond directly to, the intersectional nature of marginalisation and the politicisation of the grievances stemming from it, which are fuelling the rise of populist and increasingly authoritarian politics in Europe and beyond.

Focusing on Latin America, Roberto Gargarella in his contribution ‘The “Democratic Problem” in Latin America and the “Narrow Suit” of Constitutionalism’ – published both in English and Spanish – analyses the current crisis of democratic constitutionalism in the region. He puts forward the argument that Latin America’s historical consolidation of institutional organisation schemes has been hostile to collective self-government. Gargarella identifies three causes of Latin America’s ‘democratic problem’: first, the persistence of archaic constitutional frameworks designed for small homogeneous societies, which no longer exist; second, the endurance of constitutional frameworks designed around the concept of ‘democratic mistrust’, which are unjustifiable today; and, third, a practice of undermining the system of checks and balances. He concludes by charting a roadmap for future constitutional reform anchored in a deliberative view of democracy, which remains distinct from constitutionalism.

Analysing recent constitutional developments in North America, Ran Hirschl in his contribution ‘Comparative Constitutional Inquiry: The North American Angle’ focuses on the increasingly diverging constitutional trends in Canada and the United States and the lessons that they impart. He examines the patterns of democratic backsliding and constitutional retrogression, alongside the rise of a distinct “us first” constitutional approach to climate change in the United States; and recent developments in Canadian constitutional law and politics with respect to section 1 and section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Hirschl concludes that while there has been a drastic increase in US constitutional exceptionalism, Canadian constitutional praxis remains fertile ground for comparative inquiry.

With respect to Oceania, Elisa Arcioni and Kirsty Gover in their article ‘Can Private International Law Methods Facilitate Indigenous-Settler Legal Pluralism? Possibilities in Australia and Aotearoa’ examine the implications of the co-existence of indigenous laws with colonial-settler legal systems in the same territorial space through a comparative analysis of two case studies in the region. Drawing on the legal pluralism literature, they sketch an innovative framework to assist settler-colonial courts in their adjudication so that they can do justice to the priority and authority of Indigenous Law. Arcioni and Gover conclude that the lessons from applying foreign law in private law proceedings through expert evidence would provide a fruitful avenue for settler courts to navigate the plural legal systems of Australia and New Zealand.

Examining trends in the post-Soviet world, Alexei Trochev and Alisher Juzgenbayev in their contribution ‘Diverging Trajectories of Post-Soviet Constitutional Courts’ – soon to be published in both English and Russian – argue that the role and impact of constitutional courts in the region depends greatly on the type of regime in which they operate. They conclude that, in the wake of the USSR dissolution in 1991, the divide between post-Soviet hybrid regimes, which have witnessed an expanding role of constitutional adjudication, and personalist autocracies, where constitutional courts are severely constrained and aligned with the government, is likely to grow further and lead to radically different forms of constitutional praxis within the region.

The second section of Constitutional Studies’ re-issue is titled ‘Dispatches from Practice’ and features an in-depth interview with former UK Supreme Court President Baroness Brenda Hale, conducted by Mara Malagodi and Sebastian Payne, in which Baroness Hale discusses her judicial career and outlook, as well as her insights on UK constitutional law developments and potential reform, the Brexit litigation, the inner workings of the UK Supreme Court, and constitutional borrowing and judicial backlash. The interview was conducted in English, and is available in French, Mandarin, and Spanish translation. This section also showcases Cheryl Saunders’s reflections on ‘Parameters of External Constitutional Assistance’. She focuses on three of the characteristics of states emerging from conflict or authoritarianism, with which external support must necessarily work in a new constitution-making process: first, local leadership that may not be ideal for transition to democratic, civilian government; second, a shortfall in institutional infrastructure; and, third, understandings and expectations of governance that are shaped by local conditions, at least some of which might be captured by the idea of a social imaginary. Saunders concludes that the effective parameters of external support can be derived both from principle —  in the form of respect for local ownership of the process for making  a new constitution that in any event must be implemented by state actors over time —  and from the practicalities of external support, which operates within logistical constraints and with imperfect local knowledge.

In the third section on ‘Constitutional Law and Culture’, Nong Putachad offers a fascinating and compelling view on constitutional iconography through the lens of art in her piece ‘Constitutional Systems of the World: Uncovering the Art of the Cover’. She explains the process of representing constitutions and constitutional polities through artwork with specific reference to the 40+ covers that she has conceptualised, designed, and painted for the Hart series Constitutional Systems of the World since its inception. 

The ‘Book Reviews’ section features a book review by Chun-Yuan Lin and a book review by Zoltán Pozsár-Szentmiklósy.

Under the final ‘IACL Noticeboard’ section, contributors share ways to connect across the field. Elisabeth Perham, Pravar Petkar, and Mariana Velasco-Rivera discuss the IACL Blog mission and how to publish in it. Eva Brems and Magdalena Inés Correa Henao introduce next year’s IACL World Congress of Constitutional Law that will take place in Bogotá, Colombia, on 6-10 July 2026. 

To conclude, as Constitutional Studies’ Co-Editor in Chief, I believe this first re-issue of the journal will both help ignite debates and reflections on the constitutional issues that societies around the world face, and spark hope about the solutions available to us – both locally and globally – to meet the many challenges of our embattled times. This hope is beautifully encapsulated in Putachad’s striking painting on this issue’s cover, ‘Moonlight Sonata’, which she describes as an image that ‘radiates a sense of peace and prosperity that the promise of constitutional rule holds out while its vivid colour and poetic form also evoke the qualities that centuries of constitutional theory and praxis have created, fostered, and propagated’.

Dr. Mara Malagodi, Reader, Warwick Law School,

Co-Editor in Chief, Constitutional Studies.

(Suggested citation: M. Malagodi, ‘The State of the Comparative Constitutional Law Field and the Re-Launch of Constitutional Studies’, U.K. Const. L. Blog (3rd July 2025) (available at https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/))