JPJ2041H1F L0101

Undergraduate Course Code: LAW500H1F L0101

Constitutional Design for Divided Societies

Theory and Cases

Themes

This course combines law and political science to explore the theory and practice of constitutional design and reform in a comparative context. It will focus especially on recent episodes of constitution-making in divided societies and in developing countries. It will examine the economic, social and political context for constitution-making; the processes, institutions and actors involved; the character of constitutional choices in terms of transitional justice, executives and legislatures, electoral systems, federalism/devolution; and the consequences of these choices for democracy, good governance and the management of conflict in divided societies. The course will culminate in a group project, where students will be grouped into country teams to produce a report on constitutional reform in countries emerging from conflict. Potential cases may include Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Sudan, Nigeria, India, Kenya,
Indonesia, Philippines, Ethiopia, etc., subject to the approval of the instructors. The course will be interdisciplinary, and taught by colleagues in law and political science.

LIMITED ENROLMENT: This course is offered at the Faculty of Law. Enrolment is limited to fifteen (15) Ph.D. and/or MA students

Format and Requirements

Will consist of a country team project, where team members will select a country, identify and divide up the issues, write individually authored chapters papers for the country report which are graded individually (5000 words, 60%), and collectively draft a synthetic overview that ties together their individual papers and make a presentation at a final mini-conference to a panel of experts on post-conflict constitutional design (30%); and class participation (10%).