Constitutional Cafe: Recent Episodes
Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies
Constitutional Cafe brings together constitutionalists the world over for informal but scholarly conversations about important issues in constitutional law and politics. It is brought to you by a team of comparative constitutional law scholars at the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School. Each episode one of our team assembles a group of experts to discuss recent developments, new ideas or enduring themes in constitutional studies. We are especially interested in emerging and overlooked issues and in places and institutions that are not often discussed It is produced by a team of comparative constitutional law scholars at the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School and funded by The Australian Research Council.
For more information and to continue the conversation, visit www.constitutional-cafe.org
In this episode, Centre Co-Director Professor Adrienne Stone sits down with Professor Katie Young, Professor and the Robert A. Trevisani Dean’s Faculty Fellow at Boston College Law School.
Katie researches and writes widely across international human rights law, comparative constitutional law, law and gender, and is a world leading expert on social and economic rights. In this episode, Katie discusses her nearly completed Oxford Handbook of Social and Economic rights. Co-edited by Macolm Langford, this volume presents a rich picture of social and economic rights from philosophical, historical, social scientific, and legal perspectives.
You can access the first 10 published chapters of the Oxford Handbook of Social and Economic rights via the following link:
https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/44323
Recommended reading:
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- Professor Youngs reading group at Harvard Law School: Economic and Social Rights: Prospects and Perils
- Levy, J.T. (2025) ‘The Separation of Powers’, in R. Bellamy and J. King (eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Law Handbooks), pp. 279–296. Constitutional Cafe is a podcast of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. You can find out more about the work of the Centre here.
We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which we record, learn, and live.
In this episode, Centre Co-Director Will Partlett speaks with Pavel Chikov about his experiences of protecting human rights in Russia and what lessons this has for rights advocacy more broadly around the world.
Pavel Chikov is one of Europe’s leading human rights lawyers. In 2023, he was awarded the OSCE Democracy Defender Award for his legal work protecting journalists, human rights defenders, and civil society activists in Russia. In 2014, he received the prestigious Rafto Prize for his work defending the rule of law. Currently Pavel leads a team of security and legal consultants for NGOs in Europe, South Asia, Middle East, Africa, and the U.S. He is also a member of the Expert Council on NGO Law of the Council of Europe.
Recommended reading:
- Patriot, Alexei Navalny
Constitutional Cafe is a podcast of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. You can find out more about the work of the Centre here.
We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which we record, learn, and live.
In this episode, Centre Co-Director Will Partlett speaks with Professor Abeyratne about some of the lessons of his recently published book, Courts and LGBTQ+ Rights in an Age of Judicial Retrenchment (Oxford University Press 2025).
Rehan Abeyratne is Professor and Director of Higher Degree Research and Honours at Western Sydney University (WSU) School of Law. Professor Abeyratne’s primary research area is comparative constitutionalism. He serves as an elected member of the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S) Council and as co-chair of the Society’s Committee on New Directions in Scholarship. He holds editorial positions at the Asian Journal of Comparative Law (Subject Editor) and at Comparative Constitutional Studies (Special Issue Editor).
Recommended reading:
- Ideas with Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counterrevolution, Amanda Hollis-Brusky
- Judges and Their Audiences: A Perspective on Judicial Behavior, Lawrence Baum
- The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era, Gary Gerstle
- Global perspectives on same-sex marriage : a neo-institutional approach, Bronwyn Winter, Maxime Forest, Réjane Sénac
Constitutional Cafe is a podcast of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. You can find out more about the work of the Centre here.
We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which we record, learn, and live.
In this episode, Centre Co-Director Will Partlett talks with Professor Dinesha Samararatne about the role constitutions can play in rebuilding democracy. In particular, she talks about her own experience in rebuilding Sri Lankan constitutional democracy both as an academic and member of the Constitutional Council.
Dinesha Samararatne is a Professor at the Department of Public & International Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Dinesha is a Senior Fellow at the Melbourne Law School and Editor of the University of Colombo Review. In 2023 she was appointed as an independent expert to the Constitutional Council of Sri Lanka.
Recommended reading:
- The Global South and Comparative Constitutional Law, Philipp Dann, Michael Riegner, Maxim Bönnemann
- Home in the World: A Memoir, Amartya Sen
- Upon a Sleepless Isle, Andrew Fidel Fernando
Constitutional Cafe is a podcast of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. You can find out more about the work of the Centre here.
We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which we record, learn, and live.
In this episode, Adrienne Stone sits down with her Constitutional Café co-host and Director the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies, William Partlett to discuss his new book Why the Russian Constitutional Matters: The Constitutional Dark Arts (2024).
The book argues that the roots Putin’s vast power lie in the nature of the constitutional transition of the early 1990s, which created a powerful Presidency to ensure a democratic transition and to protect the long list of rights guaranteed in the Constitution. But though effective at the time, Will traces how this Constitution has since allowed Putin to consolidate personal control over Russian politics.
William Partlett is an Associate Professor at Melbourne Law School. A specialist in Russian history, he holds degrees in Russian History as well as a law degree from Stanford University and is a Russian speaker. Professor Partlett’s research takes a historical and comparative approach to questions of public law.
Recommended reading:
- Why the Russian Constitution Matters: The Constitutional Dark Arts, William Partlett
- Latin American Constitutionalism, 1810–2010. The Engine Room of the Constitution, Roberto Gargarella
- Technopopulism: The New Logic of Democratic Politics, Christopher J. Bickerton, Carlo Invernizzi Accetti
- The Penguin History of Modern Russia, Robert Service
Constitutional Cafe is a podcast of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. You can find out more about the work of the Centre here.
We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which we record, learn, and live.
In this episode, Constitutional Café co- host Adrienne Stone talks with Professor Edward Foley, a recent distinguished visitor at Melbourne Law about democracy, polarisation and electoral systems.
Professor Foley is interested in how voting systems might help depolarize the intense partisan competition that is experienced in the United States. In a recent lecture delivered in Melbourne he shone new light on the work of Australian mathematician who in the late 19th and early 20th Century pioneered “ranked choice” or “preferential” voting, which has been in place in Australia for decades and forms part of Australia’s unique voting system.
Edward B. Foley holds the Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law at The Ohio State University, where he directs also its election law program, and is widely recognized as one of the United States’ foremost experts on election law.
Recommended reading:
- On Democracy, Robert A. Dahl
- Grant, Ron Chernow
Constitutional Cafe is a podcast of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. You can find out more about the work of the Centre here.
We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which we record, learn, and live.
Chile recently saw the defeat at a national referendum of a proposed new democratic constitution. What should we make of this result, and what does it mean for the future of democratic constitutional reform in Chile and globally? Did Chilean constitution-makers try to achieve too much, too fast? Was the vote the product of opposition disinformation, or popular misunderstanding? Or was the defeat a product of deeper forces pushing against the chances of successful democratic constitutional transformation?
In this podcast, Rosalind Dixon explores these questions with an expert Chilean and comparative constitutional panel, including Professor Veronica Undagarra, Javier Cuoso and David Landau.
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This podcast discusses the notion of ‘post-juristocracy’ – whether we're seeing the end of the broad global shift toward more powerful courts worldwide, which has been an ongoing trend for the almost 80 years post-World War II.
These developments include the declining legitimacy of apex courts in states like the USA and India, preventive actions against the expansion of judicial power in states like the UK, capture of previously powerful courts in countries like Hungary, as well as trends such as the increasing scholarly and policy focus on fourth branch institutions such as electoral commissions and the 'deliberative wave' that mark a shift in focus on rights protection and achieving constitutional change from courts to bodies like citizens’ assemblies.
While it’s not a monolithic phenomenon, these disparate but interacting political and scholarly trends raise a host of questions for constitutional lawyers about comparative methodology, constitutional design, and constitutional resilience.
Associate Professor William Partlett speaks with Marina Agaltsova about her work at Memorial Human Rights Centre in Moscow and why that organisation is now facing liquidation.
Constitutional Café returns for a second season with an interview on a bold new book. Zaid Al Ali, Senior Programme Officer for International IDEA, joins Adrienne Stone to discuss his book, Arab Constitutionalism: the Coming Revolution (2021) that examines the 2011 uprisings that swept across the Arab world in 2011. The conversation ranges widely over the nature of constitutional making, the idea of constitutional revolution and delves into the particular challenges of the Arab region.
The conceptualisation of landmark judgment and constitutional revolution is a topic that is new and to a certain extent quite original. While broadly used by scholars, lawmakers and the judiciary, until recently these two concepts have never received adequate theorisation in comparative constitutional law. In this episode, our guests, Eleonora Bottini and Yaniv Roznai, share their insights on their recent work in this area, from how they got interested in the subject, to the points of connection between the two concepts, including the challenges they have encountered when engaging in such definitional endeavour.
Constitutional Cafe comes to you from the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at the Melbourne Law School. It is a place for scholarly but informal and fun conversations about constitutions and constitutional law with a global focus. If COVID has kept you from academic travel and you have been missing informal academic conversations, join us. We will bring those conversations to you. For more information, visit www.constitutional-cafe.org
‘Academic freedom’ is an idea close to the hearts of all constitutional scholars. But what are the constitutional dimensions of the principle? Given recent attacks on academic freedom in democracies as well authoritarian regimes, a better understanding is urgently required. In this episode, we discuss the protection of academic freedom as a principle of constitutional law, its relationship to other constitutional rights and consider what it requires of us as constitutional scholars. We are joined by three distinguished scholars: Ann-Katrin Kaufhold, Renata Uitz and Liora Lazarus. For more information on the topics discussed in this episode visit www.constitutional-cafe.org
This episode of the podcast focuses on an underexplored theme in comparative constitutional law methodology: how languages shape the legal research in the field. The point of departure of the conversation is whether being proficient in a foreign language is required to engage in comparative constitutional law. The four speakers (Rosalind Dixon, Berihun Gebeye, Melissa Crouch and Francesco Palermo) are all established or emerging constitutional law scholars who have extensively worked and researched comparatively. They share their wide expertise and insights on the issue, and suggest that languages are not necessarily a barrier, as there are strategies that can be employed to overcome the lack of knowledge of a foreign language. The episode also touches upon related issues such as legal translations and foreign legal cultures. For more information on the topics discussed in this episode visit www.constitutional-cafe.org
This podcast explores constitutional law in the understudied world of post-Soviet Eurasia. The discussion between the three guests – who are themselves both scholars and advocates based in three different countries in the region— demonstrates both the diversity of the region and the critical importance of constitutional law in the region for democratic development. The podcast also demonstrates the important theoretical lessons that Eurasia holds for better understanding the relationship between constitutional law and democratic governance. In particular, Eurasia helps us understand the impact of post-colonialism, history, and populism on the success of the project of constitutionalism. For more information on the topics discussed in this episode visit www.constitutional-cafe.org
Why talk about the ‘global south’ in comparative constitutional law? In what ways does it matter and to whom? In this podcast episode Dinesha Samararatne, Senior Research Associate of the Laureate Program explores these and related questions, in conversation with Prof Cheryl Saunders,Laureate Professor Emeritus, Melbourne Law School. For more information on the topics discussed in this episode visit www.constitutional-cafe.org
Comparative constitutional law scholars often find themselves working for a period of time, or even their entire career, in a legal system that is different from the one in which they were first educated and with which they are most familiar. Moving jurisdictions presents a range of opportunities, such as the ability to develop a deep familiarity with more than one constitutional system, and challenges, such as the difficulty of adjusting to a new scholarly culture. To discuss this topic, we are joined by Professor James Fowkes, Chair of Foreign and International Law at the University of Munster in Germany. For more information on the topics discussed in this episode visit www.constitutional-cafe.org
Constitutional Cafe brings together constitutionalists the world over for informal but scholarly conversations about important issues in constitutional law and politics. It is brought to you by a team of comparative constitutional law scholars at the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School. Each episode one of our team assembles a group of experts to discuss recent developments, new ideas or enduring themes in constitutional studies. We are especially interested in emerging and overlooked issues and in places and institutions that are not often discussed It is produced by a team of comparative constitutional law scholars at the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School and funded by The Australian Research Council. For more information and to continue the conversation, visit www.constitutional-cafe.org