Overcoming obstacles to North-South dialogue: Transformative constitutionalism and the fight against poverty and institutional failure

Abstract

Global South legal comparison is taking off, and transformative constitutionalism has become one of its key slogans as a description of the expansive constitutional jurisprudence of many Global South courts. This is an important development. But its celebration as a distinctively Southern model risks foreclosing debate with the North/West, whose supposedly more traditional liberal model of constitutionalism is treated as an unappealing counterpoint by Southern scholars. This paper sets out to challenge this conceptual bifurcation, calling on both Northern and Southern scholars to engage more seriously with each other. In particular, it argues that a number of perceived obstacles to North-South exchanges, such as more widespread problems of poverty and institutional failure in Southern countries, should not be understood as obstacles to mutual learning.

Transformative Constitutionalism in Post-Colonial Africa: A Framework for Democracy and Human Rights Protection

“…As Hailbronne rightly said, "if there is a concept that embraces the ideal of constitutions as society"s new political and moral foundation, this concept is transformative constitutionalism." (Hailbronne, 2016).…”