Editorial: Return from Hiatus – Feb 2020

Welcome to 2020: Already a Landmark Year

A meme doing the rounds right now says: “January was a long year, but we made it.” Certainly, with 2020 a mere 5 weeks old we have already witnessed two era-defining constitutional moments: the effective end of the impeachment process against President Trump in the USA with the decision not to call further witnesses in the trial; and the UK’s final departure from the European Union – the biggest change to its constitutional arrangements for almost 50 years.

Beyond the global attention garnered by these developments, 2020 has already seen acute constitutional ferment elsewhere. In Poland, the crisis of the constitutional order has been laid bare with diametrically opposed apex court judgments on the government’s transformation of the judiciary and intensifying international oversight: Poland is now the first EU Member State to be simultaneously subject to the EU’s rule of law monitoring process (Article 7 TEU) and a special Council of Europe monitoring process. In Russia, President Putin’s announcement of major constitutional changes in mid-January has raised the central question of whether he will permanently leave the presidency in 2024.

Beyond the Global North, India’s Republic Day on 26 January 2020 was marked by widespread protests against the effects of the citizenship law on Muslim communities, while Malawi’s constitutional court has just decided yesterday that last year’s presidential election will have to be re-held due to vote tampering, sparking widespread unrest. Those are just a few examples, of course.

But it’s not all about bad news and crises. Across the world, 2020 also promises to be a year of constitutional hope and transformation; from the ongoing constitutional transition in The Gambia to the spread of new mechanisms for citizen participation across Europe. We also start the year with the possibility of a new state on the horizon: following the 98.31% vote for independence in Bougainville at the very end of 2019, independence will now need to be negotiated between the leaders of Bougainville and Papua New Guinea.

Nor is it all about the big questions or dramatic shifts: every day, the quieter work of constitutional law continues, with doctrines being incrementally re-shaped, rights and constitutional meaning litigated, and the details of constitutional devices and arrangements fine-tuned, questioned, and reconsidered. 

Starting the Year: Announcements and New Symposium

We’re vaulting into this year with renewed energy to address the need for informed, incisive, and useful analysis of the nature and context of constitutional developments worldwide. In keeping with our usual practice, we will keep you up to date with these developments as well about relevant academic events. To that end, we would like to highlight two forthcoming IACL events previously announced, and announce for the first time two new events scheduled for this year.

Previously announced

• IACL Roundtable on ‘Constitutional Identity’ in St Petersburg, Russia, 10-13 June 2020.

• IACL Junior Scholars Forum 2020 at the National University of Singapore, Faculty of Law, 2-3 July 2020.

New

• Summer School on “Algorithmic State, Market and Society” (FLOS) in Florence, 13-17 July 2020.

• IACL Roundtable on ‘Democracy 2020: Assessing Constitutional Decay, Breakdown and Renewal Worldwide’ in Melbourne, 10-12 December 2020.

Next week we begin a month-long Symposium on an often-overlooked issue precipitated by the Brexit process: the potential unification of the island of Ireland, which until recently seemed a distant prospect. Designed by Guest Editor Prof. Oran Doyle, the Symposium will aim to think through the constitutional implications of unification, with sections devoted to processes, substantive issues, and external perspectives.

And that’s just the start. With our readership having grown over tenfold since we re-launched the Blog in 2018, we are serving an ever more diverse global audience. As we always say, this is your Blog, and we want to hear from you! We always welcome your submissions – whether individual posts, book reviews, author interviews, symposia, announcements, or calls for papers. We also welcome your broader feedback: what would you like to see on the Blog, or see more of? What works in your view, and what doesn’t?

With very best wishes to you all for 2020,

Erika ARBAN, Tom Gerald DALY, and Dinesha SAMARARATNE

Co-Editors

Suggested Citation: Erika Arban, Tom Gerald Daly and Dinesha Samararatne, ‘Editorial: Return from Hiatus – Feb 2020’ IACL-AIDC Blog (4 February 2020) https://blog-iacl-aidc.org/2020-posts/2020/2/4/editorial-return-from-hiatus-feb-2020