Regional organizations increasingly transform the constitutional space of their member states. To develop a deeper understanding of these processes this project is aimed at developing a theoretical and empirical research agenda under the heading ‘comparative regional constitutionalism’. This concept is used as a framework to explore and interrogate possible tensions and channels of interactions between regional organizations and constitutional law. The research agenda aims to bring together legal and political analyses of different regions, including Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia, while paying close attention to the respective particularities of regional integration in the different parts of the World. The starting point of these analyses is that the tensions between the national and regional structures are an inherent and necessary occurrence in the process of regional integration. In fact, practices at the regional level are shaped by and dependent upon the nature of constitutional regimes at the national level. Our argument is that it is exactly the relationships between these two structures that need to be better understood.

Publications

Comparative regional constitutionalism: Towards a research agenda (P Cebulak and M Wiebusch) Paper presented at the International Society of Public Law (ICON·S) Conference, Berlin, 2016. 

The Role of Regional Organizations in Protecting Constitutionalism (M Wiebusch) International IDEA, 2016.

Conferences

• International Conference, “Regional and Constitutional Structures in Tension: Latin America and the Caribbean”, iCourts/University of Copenhagen, University of São Paulo and University of Brasília, 11-12 January 2018, São Paulo, Brazil.
• Judicial Dialogue, “Regional and Constitutional Structures in Tension”, iCourts/University of Copenhagen, University of São Paulo and University of Brasília, 10 January 2018, São Paulo, Brazil.
• Practitioner Dialogue, “Regional and Constitutional Structures in Tension”, iCourts/University of Copenhagen, University of São Paulo and University of Brasília, 10 January 2018, São Paulo, Brazil.
• Methodology Workshop, “Regional and Constitutional Structures in Tension”, iCourts/University of Copenhagen, University of São Paulo and University of Brasília, 8-9 January 2018, São Paulo, Brazil.
• Methodology Workshop, “Regional and Constitutional Structures in Tension”, iCourts/University of Copenhagen, University of São Paulo and University of Brasília, 12-14 June 2017, Copenhagen, Denmark.
• Panel: “Regional and Constitutional Structures in Tension”, at I-CON International Society of Public Law (ICON·S) 2016 Conference “Borders, Otherness and Public Law”, New York University (NYU), European University Institute (EUI) and Humboldt University (HU), 17-19 June 2016, Berlin, Germany.
• Exploratory Workshop: “Regional and Constitutional Structures in Tension”, consortium of different universities, 4-5 April 2016, Geneva, Switzerland.
• Panel: “Regional and Constitutional Structures in Tension: Setting an Agenda for Research”, at Institute for Global Law and Policy (IGLP), Harvard Law School, biennial 2015 Conference “Heterodox Traditions: Global Law and Policy’, 1-2 June 2015, Cambridge, US.