Dr Jo Murkens NAB7.31

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time) and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course is capped at 30 students. Students must apply through Graduate Course Choice on LSEforYou.

This course examines the central issues in comparative constitutional law across a range of jurisdictions and from a variety of perspectives. The course opens with an introduction on the purpose of comparative constitutional law. The first substantive part discusses various approaches to the study of CCL as well as the migration of constitutional ideas (and related notions of constitutional borrowing, transplants etc). The second part of Term 1 deals with key constitutional concepts (constitution; rule of law; presidentialism, parliamentarism) which are discussed from a historical and comparative perspective. The point of these sessions is not to compare for the sake of comparing, but to equip you (the researcher) with the conceptual tools to do insightful, critical, and original comparative work of your own. The third part challenges the assumptions of liberal constitutionalism by examining constitutions in divided societies as well as authoritarian constitutionalism. The overall aim of the course is to develop students’ understanding and use of many general theoretical explanations surrounding debates in CCL, and to develop students’ critical/analytical approach to many of the questions facing judges and scholars in the next decade.

22 hours of seminars in the MT.

One 2,000 word essay.

There is not set book for this course. All materials will be made available in advance on Moodle.

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours, reading time: 15 minutes) in the summer exam period.