IXth World Congress of the IACL

IXth World Congress of the IACL CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGES: GLOBAL AND LOCAL Oslo, Norway, 16-20 June 2014
MONDAY 16 JUNE 2014
Morning Registration
Meeting of the outgoing Executive Committee of the IACL	09:00
Opening ceremony	13:00 – 14:00
Tea break with snack	14:00 – 14:30
Afternoon session
Plenary session 1 The Quest for Constitutional Harmony: From the Enlightenment Constitution to a Legally Pluralistic World In the traditional Westphalian era, based on the Enlightenment ideals, nation-states were endowed with constitutions that provided both hierarchical order and unity. In the last generation, there has been a massive shift as a consequence of globalization, the proliferation of transnational legal orders, such as the European Union, and of worldwide and regional segmented legal regimes such as the WTO, the ECHR, American Convention of Human Rights, Mercosur etc. Consequently, every legal person is currently subjected to a plurality of competing and at times contradictory legal orders. This presents numerous new hurdles involving many of the key processes and institutions that relate to constitutional ordering, including constitution-making, constitutional adjudication and constitutional harmonization of fundamental vertical and horizontal apportionments of power. This plenary session will address fundamental philosophical and theoretical issues, concerning the new challenges posed to key concepts such as sovereignty, legitimacy, constitutionalism, democracy, pouvoir constituant and pouvoir constitué’ in relation to the quest to weave competing aspirations to unity, diversity and plurality . Chair • Susanna Mancini University of Bologna, Italy Speakers: • Seyla Benhabib Yale University, USA • Wojciech Sadurski University of Sydney, Australia • Martti Koskenniemi University of Helsinki, Finland	14:30 – 17:00
Reception at the Parliament of Norway	18:00 – 20:00
TUESDAY 17 JUNE 2014
Morning session	09:30 – 13:00
Tea break	11:00 – 11:30
Workshops
1. Constitutional responses to terrorism • David Cole (USA) • Lech Garlicki (Poland)
2. Sub-national constitutions in federal and quasi-federal constitutional states • Bob Williams (USA) • Giacomo Delledonne (Italy)
3. Constitutional studies of free trade and political economy • Gonzalo Villalta-Puig (Australia) • Armand de Mestral (Canada)
4. Social rights group • George Katrougalas (Greece) • Marcelo Figuieredo (Brazil)
5. Constitutional dialogues • Tania Groppi (Italy) • Marie-Claire Ponthereau (France)
6. The constitutional challenges of immigration • Cesar Landa (Peru) • Andrew Le Sueur (UK)
Lunch	13:00
Afternoon session	14:00 – 17:00
Plenary session 2 Embedding the Constitution in Society (Challenges from Below) From a formal standpoint, constitutions tend to resemble one another, but their actual operation, scope and legitimacy depend on the prevailing culture of the polity in which they are instituted. Consistent with this, multiculturalism, whether autochthonous or promoted through migration, poses a series of conflicts and quandaries. This plenary will address the challenges confronting those who strive to combine constitutional unity and cultural, ethnic, and ideological diversity. Among the subjects to be addressed is the contrast between homogeneous and heterogeneous polities, and conflicts and tensions between majority and minority cultures as well as other major bases for contestation. Emphasis will be placed on gender and sexual orientation issues, as well as on ethnic, linguistic and ideological differences. Chair • Vicki Jackson Harvard University, USA Speakers: • Etienne Le Roy Université de Paris I (Sorbonne), France • Tariq Modood University of Bristol, United Kingdom • Daniel Weinstock McGill University, Canada • Catherine McKinnon University of Michigan, USA
WEDNESDAY 18 JUNE 2014
Morning session	13:00
Tea break	14:00 – 17:00
Workshops
7. Sexual and reproductive rights : liberty, dignity and equality • Vicki Jackson (USA) • Eva Brems (Belgium)
8. The internet and the Constitution • Adrienne Stone (Australia) • Djedjro Meledje (Côte d’Ivoire)
9. Constitutional identity and constitutionalism beyond the nation state • Susanna Mancini (Italy) • Manuel Cepeda (Colombia)
10. The constitution and illiberal democracies • Javier Couso (Chile) • Christina Murray (South Africa)
11. The new spring of constitution-making • Nadia Bernoussi (Morocco) • Mo Jihong (China)
12. Constitutions and financial crisis • Cheryl Saunders (Australia) • Elena-Simina Tanesescu (Romania)
Lunch	13:00
Afternoon session	14:00 – 17:00
Meetings of research groups and regional associations
Meeting of the Council of the IACL	16:00
Reception at Oslo City Hall	18:00
THURSDAY 19 JUNE 2014
Morning session	09:30 – 13:00
Tea break	11:00 – 11:30
Workshops
13. Constitutional dimensions of political parties and elections • Charles Fombad (Cameroon) • Claude Klein (Israel)
14. New challenges to the freedom of the media • Giuseppe de Vergottini (Italy) • Yasuo Hasebe (Japan)
15. The mutations and transformation of division of powers: the constitutional organisation • Bertrand Mathieu (France) • Javier García Roca (Spain)
16. Direct democracy • Enyinna Nwauche (Nigeria) • Kostas Mavrias (Greece)
17. Federalism, community identity and distributive justice • Miguel Maduro (Portugal) • Jean-Francois Des-Biens (Canada)
Lunch	13:00
Afternoon session	14:00 – 17:00
Plenary session 3 Religion and the Constitution Present day religion squarely poses new and in many respects unique challenges to constitutionalism and its Enlightenment based underpinnings. This phenomenon stems from intense and extensive questioning of the continued viability of traditional notions of secularism both in theory and in practice. In some settings, the accommodation between religion and secularism becomes unsettled due to the implantation of new religions through large-scale immigration. In other settings, constitutional ordering or transformation is squarely confronted with a political revival or reinforcement of religion. Some of the principal questions that these often rapidly evolving developments raise and that will be addressed in this plenary include: can constitutionalism and secularism encompass and manage religious pluralism? Can religious pluralism be harmonized at the national or transnational level? Would such pluralism be more amenable to management from below (e.g., religious courts)? Entirely novel questions arise primarily but not exclusively in non-Western polities (one instance being the wake of the “Arab spring”): what is the proper or optimal place of religion in emerging forms of constitutionalism? Can constitutionalism survive or thrive in a post-secular age? Chair • Eivind Smith University of Oslo, Norway Speakers: • Gustavo Zagrebelsky Università di Torino, Italie • Raul Pangalangan University of the Philippines • Awn Shakat Al-Alkasawneh Ancien juge de la CIJ • Léna Gannagé Université de Paris II (Panthéon-Assas)
Meeting of the incoming Executive Committee of the IACL	18:00
FRIDAY 20 JUNE 2014
Morning session	09:30 – 13:00
Tea break	11:00 – 11:30
Plenary session 4 Judges’ Panel: Proportionality in Constitutional Adjudication Some constitutional scholars argue that modern constitutional review ultimately boils down to proportionality analysis. This raises several key questions. Is all constitutional review ultimately submitted to the same standard, which means that proportionality should be viewed as a judicial common currency susceptible of being set from above? Does proportionality inevitably differ from one cultural setting to another, which would suggest that proportionality is necessarily constrained from below? Is there congruence or analogy between proportionality as used by transnational courts and national constitutional courts? A panel of judges from different parts of the world who engage in constitutional review at both national and a transnational level will tackle these issues from the standpoint of judicial theory as well as from that of judicial practice in constitutional adjudication. Chair • Lech Garlicki Judge of the European Court of Human Rights (Retired) Speakers: • Susanne Baer Judge of the Constitutional Court of Germany • Francoise Tulkens Former Judge and Vice-President of the European Court of Human Rights • Diego Garcia-Sayan Judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights • Frank Iacobucci Judge of the Supreme Court of Canada (Retired) • Mohamed Achargui President of the Constitutional Court of Morocco
Closing ceremony
For full information on the World Congress of the IACL, please visit the official website of the Congress http://www.uio.no/wccl