CO-EDITORS
Elisabeth Perham
Elisabeth Perham is a Lecturer at the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law + Justice. Her research focusses on constitution making and small states. Before commencing her doctoral studies, Elisabeth worked as a Judge’s clerk at the Court of Appeal of New Zealand, as a management consultant, and as a legal policy officer for the NSW Government. Elisabeth holds LLB(Hons) and BA(Hons) degrees from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, and an LLM from Harvard Law School, where she was a Frank Knox Memorial Fellow.
Mariana Velasco-Rivera
Mariana Velasco-Rivera is an Assistant Professor in Law at the National University of Ireland Maynooth (Maynooth University). Before joining Maynooth University, Mariana was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Alexander von Humboldt Chair of Comparative Constitutionalism held by Professor Ran Hirschl at the University of Göttingen, Germany (2019-2021) and an Emile Noël Fellow at NYU School of Law (2020-2021). Mariana received her doctoral degree (Doctor of Juridical Science—JSD) and her master’s degree (LLM) from Yale Law School. She also holds an LLB from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). In 2016-2017 she was a Yale Fox International Fellow and a visiting researcher at the Center for Global Constitutionalism at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. Before her graduate studies, Mariana clerked for judge José Ramón Cossío Díaz at the Supreme Court of Mexico (2010-2014). Mariana’s research interests are in the field of public law, specifically, constitutional law, comparative constitutional law and constitutional theory. In her research, she explores the relationship between constitutionalism, constitutional design and democracy and how political norms and practices shape legal institutions.
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
The Associate Editor manages the day-to-day running of the blog and coordinates the blog team, as well as providing vital copy editing and other support to the Co-Editors.
The current Associate Editor is:
Irene Parra Prieto
Irene is an L.L.M. Candidate at Instituto Autonomo de México (ITAM), where she also completed her B.A. with honors. Previously, she worked as an internal legal researcher at Global Freedom of Expression at the University of Columbia. She is currently part of the Communications Team for the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S).
ASSISTANT EDITORS
The Assistant Editors perform initial reviews of posts and provides vital copy editing support, working closely with contributors to ensure clarity and readability of posts.
The current Assistant Editors are:
Ayesha Wijayalath
Ayesha Wijayalath is a PhD candidate in UNSW Law and is part of the UNSW Scientia PhD project ‘A Liberal Response to Populist Constitutionalism’. Her research focuses on constraining abusive constitutional change in Sri Lanka and explores the unconstitutional constitutional amendment doctrine as a potential solution. Prior to joining UNSW, Ayesha worked as a Research Associate in the Centre for Asian Legal Studies, National University of Singapore (NUS) and was an Associate Editor of the Asian Journal of Comparative Law. Ayesha graduated from NUS in 2017 with an LLM specialising in International and Comparative Law. She is also an Attorney-at-Law in Sri Lanka. She holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and a BA in French from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. Ayesha takes a keen interest in comparative constitutional law, democracy and the rule of law, international humanitarian law and transitional justice.
Toerien van Wyk
Toerien is a PhD candidate in the ARC Laureate Program in Comparative Constitutional Law at Melbourne Law School. Her interests are in comparative constitutional law, fundamental rights and access to information. Before joining the Laureate Program, Toerien was a Co-Director of the South African History Archive, a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting struggles for justice using access to information laws and archival practice. She has also previously been employed as a legal consultant, a human rights researcher, and a law lecturer. Toerien holds an LLM in Fundamental Rights and a Higher Diploma in International Taxation, both from the University of Johannesburg, as well as a Baccalaureus Legum degree (LLB) from the University of South Africa.
Joshua Snukal
Joshua is a PhD candidate at Melbourne Law School. He researches in the field of comparative constitutional law, with a focus on law in times of crisis and counter-terrorism measures. Before joining Melbourne Law School, Joshua completed articles of clerkship at the Provincial Court of Alberta and practiced criminal law. He holds an MA (Honours) from the University of St Andrews, a JD from the University of Calgary, and an LLM from the University of Southern California.
Miriam Cullen
Miriam Cullen is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Copenhagen (KU). She teaches international migration law, and migration and forced displacement from climate change, having previously taught courses in public international law and international criminal law, and supervised masters and bachelors thesis students in a wide range of subjects. Her current research explores emerging issues in human mobility, climate change and disasters. Miriam sits on the Advisory Committee to the state-led Platform on Disaster Displacement, is a member of the pool of experts to the joint European Union and Council of Europe project on Human Rights Protection of Migrants, and co-founded the Nordic Network on Climate Related Displacement and Mobility. During her PhD studies Miriam was a visiting doctoral student at Oxford University and a Visiting Professional in the Immediate Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Before joining KU, Miriam represented the Australian Government on the Third Committee (Human Rights) of the UN General Assembly, and held positions in the International Legal Division and International Security Division of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She has led and managed a number of parliamentary committee inquiries in Australia and trained parliamentary secretariats from across the Pacific in report writing and parliamentary procedure. Miriam obtained her BA(Politics)/LLB from Monash University, an LLM (International Law) from the Australian National University and a PhD from Copenhagen University. She was admitted to legal practice in the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory in 2012.
Pravar Petkar
Pravar Petkar is a PhD Candidate at the University of Edinburgh Law School with research interests in constitutional theory and how to apply it in a context-sensitive manner in specific jurisdictions. His doctoral thesis considers whether, why and how referendums might impose practical restrictions on parliamentary sovereignty in the UK, drawing from discussion of sovereignty in constitutional theory and accounts of legitimacy in political philosophy. Pravar holds a BA in Law from the University of Cambridge and an LLM in Public Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Pravar currently serves as Centre Secretary for the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law.
Marie Gren
Dr Marie Gren is a Full Professor of Public Law at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University. She specializes in comparative constitutional law and legal theory. She has taught in various fields of public law in French and in English. She has been a visiting Researcher at the University of Tel-Aviv (2013) and Columbia University (2014) and an Erasmus Scholar at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow (2022). She has worked as a Foreign Clerk at the Israeli Supreme Court and as a Public Law Advisor at the French Cour de cassation. She speaks fluent French, Polish and English and also has a good command of Hebrew and Russian. Her research is focused mainly on constitutional transformations. She also works on prisons and constitutional education. Her PhD research (published as a book in 2019) dealt with the shift of constitutional paradigms akin to the scientific revolutions described by Thomas Kuhn. The case study of this theoretical analysis was the progressive transformation of French, British and Israeli systems towards a greater preeminence of constitutional norms, under the joint efforts of judges and legal scholars. She is currently following the Chilean Constitutional Assembly, working on a general overview of Legal Traditions in the world (questionnaire online), and on a review of Constitutional Revolution (G. Jacobsohn, Y. Roznai) focusing on the notion of constitutional education. She also has several ongoing projects in the field of constitutional education.
Neslihan Cetin
Neslihan Çetin is a PhD candidate at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne in Public Law. Her doctoral thesis concerns the deterioration of the rule of law in Turkey and its implications on the protection of human rights and freedoms. She holds a Dual Bachelor’s Degree in Law and Political Science and a Master’s Degree in Comparative Law from the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. Her research areas include comparative constitutional law and human rights law, especially hybrid regimes, rule of law, states of exception as well as democratic erosion in the context of authoritarian constitutionalism. She is currently a teaching assistant at the University of Paris-Est Créteil (Paris XII) and teaches constitutional law and administrative law.
Jesse Hartery
Jesse Hartery is a Ph.D. candidate at Melbourne Law School. His research interests cover the areas of constitutional theory, multi-level governance, and legal traditions. Prior to joining Melbourne Law School, Jesse was a commercial and constitutional litigator at McCarthy Tétrault LLP in Toronto, Canada. He has also served as a Law Clerk to Justice Nicholas Kasirer at the Supreme Court of Canada. Jesse holds an Honours B.A. in History and Asian Studies from the University of Ottawa, degrees in common law (J.D.) and civil law (B.C.L.) from McGill University, and a postgraduate diploma in Federalism, Decentralisation and Conflict Resolution from the University of Fribourg. He is called to the bar in Québec, a civil law jurisdiction, and Ontario, a common law jurisdiction.
Gaurav Mukherjee
Gaurav is an S.J.D. candidate in Comparative Constitutional Law at the Central European University, Vienna (CEU) and a Visiting Doctoral Researcher at NYU Law. Gaurav's doctoral project examines the contested role of courts as agents of progressive social transformation. His research explains the increasing role of complex, multi-stage remedies in constitutional litigation, and the ways that it interacts with the separation of powers and principles of democratic legitimacy.
Gaurav has held visiting fellowships at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law & International Law, Heidelberg, as well as the Equality Law Fellowship at the University of Melbourne. He is a co-convenor of the International Association of Constitutional Law Research Group on Social Rights and an Assistant Editor for RevDem, a journal of the Democracy Institute at CEU. He has taught courses at the intersection of law & political science at CEU, University of Verona, National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore, India, and Asian University for Women, Bangladesh.
Luz Helena Orozco y Villa
Luz Helena Orozco y Villa is a DPhil candidate at the Faculty of Law in the University of Oxford. Her research lies at the intersection of constitutional law and emerging technologies, specifically on Internet governance and the process of constitutionalization of the digital environment. Prior to commencing her doctoral studies in Oxford, she worked as a career clerk at the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice for Judge José Ramón Cossío Díaz, and as a research advisor at the Gender Equality Program of the Federal Judicial Council in Mexico. Luz holds an LLM from Columbia Law School and an LLB from ITAM.
Edgar Ortiz Romero
Edgar Ortiz Romero is a Professor at Universidad Francisco Marroquín and Universidad del Istmo in Guatemala. He is mostly interested in constitutional law, comparative constitutional law and the interaction of political practices and legal institutions. He is the director of legal studies at Fundación Libertad y Desarrollo, a think tank based in Guatemala. In 2020 he published a book chapter about the role of the Guatemalan Constitutional Court in Guatemala’s institutional design. Edgar holds a MA from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain) and a BA in law from Universidad Francisco Marroquín (Guatemala).
Alexis Ramirez
Alexis Ramirez is an S.J.D. candidate at the University of Virginia School of Law. His research focuses on the relationship between informal constitutional norms and the institutional design established by the written constitution, through a comparative analysis of constitutional systems of civil law countries. Prior to joining UVA Law, Alexis worked a researcher at the Constitutional and Administrative Studies Center of the Universidad Mayor in Chile. Alexis holds a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from the Universidad de Chile and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the University of Virginia.
Francisco Javier Romero Caro
Francisco Javier Romero Caro (PhD) conducts research on Comparative Constitutional Law. He has been Senior Researcher at the Institute for Comparative Federalism of Eurac Research in Bolzano/Bozen, Assistant Professor at the Department of Law at Nebrija University and Postdoc researcher at the University of the Basque Country, focusing on territorial distribution of powers in multilevel systems (with a special focus on federal states) and territorial integration and secession in states such as Canada or Spain. He won the XVII “Manuel Giménez Abad” Award and the European Commission awarded him with the Seal of Excellence in the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie call in a joint application with EURAC in a project on fiscal federalism. He has been a visiting researcher at the CEPC, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law, the University of Ottawa and the University of Edinburgh.
Orlaith Rice
Orlaith Rice is a European Reseach Council (ERC) Doctoral Scholar at the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin (UCD), and is part of the ‘Foundations of Institutional AuThority’ (FIAT) project. Her doctoral research explores contemporary constitutional liberal democracy in Sweden, incorporating qualitative data to add a new dimension to legal theory on constitutional culture and constitutional democracy. Her other research interests include right-wing populism, institutional legitimacy, and democratic decay. She is particularly interested in the use of qualitative methods to research legal questions. Orlaith holds a BA in Criminology from University College Cork and an MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice from UCD. She is an International Guest Editor for the Cambridge Law Review.
Maria Savranina
Maria Savranina is a PhD Candidate at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, focusing primarily on authoritarian constitutionalism, particularly the specific case of the Russian Federation. Such is the subject of her thesis, directed by Professor Pierre Brunet, geared towards understanding its specific nature. Her research interests include Comparative Law (epistemology, methodology, transplants), Public Law (with a focus on French administrative and constitutional law), State Theory and Authoritarian Constitutionalism. Maria holds a Masters 1 in Public Law and a Masters 2 in Comparative Law, both from Panthéon-Sorbonne. While working on her thesis, Maria currently holds Teaching Assistant positions in Constitutional Law and Fundamental freedoms.
Paul Fisher
Paul Fisher is a practising lawyer. He has degrees in jurisprudence from the University of Oxford (BA/BCL) and a Russian Studies Masters from University College London. He is also a PhD researcher at University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies with a particular focus on the use of constitutional amendments by non-democrats to address threats to their leadership. His research is funded by an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) grant offered through the UCL, Bloomsbury and East London ("UBEL") ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership
CONTENT & COMMS ASSISTANT
The Content & Comms Assistant is responsible for critical technical tasks like the publication of blog posts and their promotion through our newsletter and social media profiles.
The current Assistant is Camille Hellesen.