Conversations on Innovative Constitutional Design

Conference on Promoting Cooperative Democracy: Constitutional Empowerment of the Political Opposition and its Value to Democratic Progress and Resilience, 11-12 July 2022 

Any global survey of constitutions reveals a high degree of similarity in the design of institutions and procedures, even in vastly differing contexts. Constitutional designers are often unaware of unorthodox, innovative approaches – in particular from Global South countries which may not be the focus of the comparative constitutional law academia. Further, constitutional designers are often reticent to design their own innovative solutions which differ from the mainstream.

Launched in 2021, Conversations on Innovative Constitutional Design seeks to identify, explore and showcase innovations in institutional design, with the potential to contribute to some of the most pressing social, political, economic and cultural challenges around the world.

The series aims to particularly bring forth innovations from countries and regions that have not attracted sufficient scholarly and practitioner attention. In this way, this series seeks to contribute to a more enriched cycle of ‘migration’ of constitutional ideas, as well as encouraging more innovation in general.

The first webinar in this series dealt with ways in which constitutional design could help to address the ‘incumbency advantage’, using the case studies of Bangladesh, Cape Verde and Madagascar.

The second webinar focused on the role of constitutionalized institutions in advancing a safer environment and combatting climate change, using Brazil, Kenya and Hungary as case studies.

The third webinar explored the role of media/communication commissions and in addressing contemporary challenges of dis/misinformation and advancing fair, balanced, and diversified media coverage, with case studies from Armenia, Ghana, Poland, and Tunisia.

The fourth iteration of the series was an in-person conference from 11-12 July 2022 on "Promoting Cooperative Democracy: Constitutional Empowerment of the Political Opposition and its Value to Democratic Progress and Resilience".