TLI Focus Seminar Series: The End of Globalization?

TLI Focus Seminar Series 2019 - 2020

The End of Globalization?

Resurging Nationalism, Authoritarian Constitutionalism and Uncertain Futures of Democracy. A Roundtable

The Transnational Law Institute at King’s College London (TLI) invites faculty and students at King’s and beyond for a new, interdisciplinary seminar series. The TLI Focus Seminars explore ‘hot button’ issues as well as long-standing challenges in law and regulatory governance. A particular emphasis lies on exploring law’s relationship to, its engagement with and its impact on social developments. The Seminars are held as Roundtables with opening statements by the conveners, followed by an open discussion. Selected advance readings are made available.

These questions, and others, will be addressed in the roundtable discussions:

1. What are some of the key symptoms of an alleged End of Globalization and a Return of Nationalism?

2. What place holds the study (and, ideology) of Comparative Constitutionalism?

3. What are some of the prevalent symptoms and phenomena of what has recently been called “Authoritarian Constitutionalism”?: 

a. What are the sites, the loci of this emergence? Courts, Executive Branches? Corporate Power Players? Populist Movements?

b. What are the battle grounds of authoritarian constitutionalism? Civil Rights, Social Rights, Religious Rights? All of the above?

c. Is the study of AC truly transnational or is it based on a hidden consensus regarding a “good” model and those considered “rogue” or “failed”?

d. In other words, how can a transnational study of AC avoid the parochial risks of Global Constitutional Law projects in the early 2000s?

4. What are the core ingredients of a forward-looking discipline of “Constitutional Law in a Global Context” (CLiGC)? To what degree must it be different from and yet connected to domestic constitutional law? How far must CLiGC heed and build on the lessons of Legal Realism, Law in Context and Law & Society? How important are post-colonial legal theories?

 

Speakers:

• Penelope Andrews (New York Law School, NY, author of ‘From Cape Town to Kabul: Reconsidering Women’s Rights’, Ashgate 2012)
• Günter Frankenberg (Goethe University & Excellency Cluster, Frankfurt; Co-editor, Authoritarian Constitutionalism)
• Nimer Sultany (SOAS, University of London, Contributor to Authoritarian Constitutionalism, Author of ‘Law and Revolution. Legitimacy and Constitutionalism after the Arab Spring’, OUP 2018)

Convener: Peer Zumbansen (Transnational Law Institute, King’s College London)