Faculty Seminar | The Southern Turn Towards World Comparative Law

The first faculty seminar for the November 2022 term will be on the topic “The Southern Turn Towards World Comparative Law” by Dr. Philipp Dann, Professor, Humboldt University (Faculty of Law), Berlin.

About the speaker

Prof. Philipp Dann received his law degrees from the state of Berlin (1. and 2. state examination), Harvard Law School (LL.M.) and Frankfurt University (PhD and postdoctoral habilitation). He has published three monographs and several edited volumes in the area of public international law, European Union law, and constitutional law theory. He is the co-editor-in-chief of the quarterly journal ‘Verfassung und Recht in Übersee / World Comparative Law’, a journal on comparative constitutional law and the Global South. In recent years, he has published intensively in the area of law and development, comparative constitutional law, and institutional law. (From: The Global South and Comparative Constitutional Law, co-edited by Prof. Dann)

Abstract

This contribution argues that comparative constitutional studies have only in a rather superficial way reflected the constitutional experiences in the Global South and imperial / colonial dimensions of constitutionalism globally. Doing that would provide a much better understanding of the complex varieties of constitutionalism around the globe, their respective limits, borderlines and entanglements. Pursuing such a broader understanding, however, demands a new awareness about the global encounter of North and South, about colonialism and its legacies in our comparative constitutional approaches and repertoires. This would start with a Southern turn, i.e. the attempt to theorize the diverse experiences in the South and to reflect its epistemological demands. It would continue by turning back North and to the entanglements between South and North. And it could ultimately result in a reconfigured comparative study of constitutionalism and a world comparative law.