The comparative constitutional law project aims to contribute to increased interest in and knowledge about comparative constitutional developments among constitutional scholars, and particularly, lawyers and legal policy-makers in Australia. To increase scholarly engagement, the project will host a range of international experts each year in comparative constitutional law and theory, and encourage dialogue between scholars with a more domestic constitutional focus and these visitors. A key priority in this context will be to promote dialogue focused on other Centre project areas.
To increase public awareness, the project will co-host, with the Australian Association of Constitutional Law, an annual “Final Courts’ Roundup”. This event will draw on the expertise of comparative constitutional scholars hosted by the Project to provide barristers, solicitors, policy-makers and judges working in the public law field with an outline of recent constitutional developments in key jurisdictions of interest to Australians– such as the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, and other Commonwealth and regional constitutional counterparts. It will also seek to put those developments in context, by considering changes in the composition and politics of relevant countries' highest court, issues of constitutional reform; and the relevance of these comparative developments for current issues in Australian constitutional law.
The Resource Page for the Centre’s Comparative Constitutional Law Project is available here.