The Global South and Comparative Constitutional Law: (Oxford Comparative Constitutionalism)

This volume makes a timely intervention into a field which is marked by a shift from unipolar to multipolar order and a pluralization of constitutional law. It addresses the theoretical and epistemic foundations of Southern constitutionalism and discusses its distinctive themes, such as transformative constitutionalism, inequality, access to justice, and authoritarian legality. This title has three goals. First, to pluralize the conversation around constitutional law. While most scholarship focuses on liberal forms of Western constitutions, this book attempts to take comparative law's promise to cover all major legal systems of the world seriously; second, to reflect critically on the epistemic framework and the distribution of epistemic powers in the scholarly community of comparative constitutional law; third, to reflect on - and where necessary, test - the notion of the Global South in comparative constitutional law. This book breaks down the theories, themes, and global picture of comparative constitutionalism in the Global South. What emerges is a rich tapestry of constitutional experiences that pluralizes comparative constitutional law as both a discipline and a field of knowledge.

Table of Contents:
1: Philipp Dann, Michael Riegner, Maxim Bönnemann: The Southern Turn in Comparative Constitutional Law: An Introduction Theorizing the Global South in Comparative Constitutional Law 2: Florian Hoffmann: Facing South: On the Significance of an/other Modernity in Comparative Constitutional Law 3: Christine Schwöbel-Patel: (Global) Constitutionalism and the Geopolitics of Knowledge 4: Zoran Oklopcic: Comparing as (Re-)imagining: Southern Perspective and the World of Constitutions 5: Jedidiah Kroncke: Legal Innovation as a Global Public Good: Remaking Comparative Law as Indigenization Themes of Constitutionalism in the Global South 6: Heinz Klug: Transformative Constitutionalism as a Model for Africa? 7: Diego Werneck Arguelhes: Transformative Constitutionalism: A View from Brazil 8: Sujit Choudhry: Postcolonial Proportionality: Jahar, Transformative Constitutionalism and Same Sex Rights in India 9: David Bilchitz: Socio-Economic Rights and Expanding Access to Justice in South Africa: What Can Be Done? 10: Roberto Gargarella: Inequality and the Constitution: From Equality to Social Rights 11: Weitseng Chen: Same Bed, Different Dreams: Constitutionalism and Legality in Asian Hybrid Regimes 12: Roberto Niembro Ortega: The Challenges of Transforming Mexican Authoritarian Constitutionalism

About the Author :
Philipp Dann is full professor at the Law Faculty of Humboldt University Berlin. He received his law degrees from the state of Berlin (1. and 2. state examination), Frankfurt University (PhD and post-doctoral habilitation) and Harvard Law School (LL.M.). He has published three monographs and several edited volumes in the area of public international law, European Union law, and constitutional law theory. He is the co-editor-in-chief of the quarterly journal 'Verfassung und Recht in Übersee / World Comparative Law', a journal on comparative constitutional law and the Global South. In recent years, he has published intensively in the area of law and development, comparative constitutional law, and institutional law. Michael Riegner is a postdoctoral researcher at the Law Faculty of Humboldt University Berlin. He holds a PhD in law from Humboldt University, an LLM from New York University School of Law, and studied law in Germany and Switzerland. He has published a monograph on international institutional law, a co-edited volume on comparative constitutional law in Southeast Europe, and articles on international and comparative law in the Yale Journal of International Law, Transnational Legal Theory, International Organizations Law Review, and other journals. He is the co-editor-in-chief of the quarterly journal 'Verfassung und Recht in Übersee / World Comparative Law' and is currently co-leading a multinational research project on contestations of liberal constitutionalism. Maxim Bönnemann is a research fellow at Humboldt University Berlin. He was a visiting researcher at National Law University Delhi in 2015 and at the Centre for Policy Research (Delhi) in 2017. He has completed a monograph on constitutionalism and economic transformation in India and several articles and book chapters on comparative law and legal theory. He is managing editor of 'Verfassung und Recht in Übersee / World Comparative Law'.

Review :
This must-read work celebrates, and confronts the advent of the Global South's 'turn' in comparative constitutional law and jurisprudence, and bristles with rich distinctions between studies for, with, and from global South perspectives, and constitutionalism as sites of access, denial, and struggle. The global drift towards authoritarian constitutionalism here insightfully interrogates legal orientalism, epistemic colonization, and delineation of our new uncommon futures.