Tan, Hoque and friends on constitutional foundings in South Asia

Kevin Y. L. Tan (National University of Singapore/Nanyang Technological University) and Ridwanul Hoque (University of Dhaka/Charles Darwin University, Australia) have co-edited Constitutional Foundings in South Asia, just out with Hart. From the publisher: 

This volume addresses the idea of origins, how things are formed, and how they relate to their present and future in terms of 'constitution-making' which is a continuous process in South Asian states. It examines the drafting, nature, core values and roles of the first modern constitutions during the founding of the eight modern nation-states in South Asia.

The book looks at the constitutions of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It provides an explanatory description of the process and substantive inputs in the making of the first constitutions of these nations; it sets out to analyse the internal and external (including intra-regional) forces surrounding the making of these constitutions; and it sets out theoretical constructions of models to conceptualise the nature and role of the first constitutions (including constituent documents) in the founding of the modern nation-states and their subsequent impact on state-building in the region.

Table of Contents after the break:

Kumarasingham on Commonwealth constitutional history

Harshan Kumarasingham, University of Edinburgh, has published "Written Differently: A Survey of Commonwealth Constitutional History in the Age of Decolonisation." Here's the abstract for the article, which came out in the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 46 (2018):5, 874-908:

This article provides a survey and definition of the field of Commonwealth constitutional history since 1918, especially during and after global decolonisation. It asks what is Commonwealth constitutional history and how it differs from its English and Imperial counterparts. The article puts forward a working definition of Commonwealth constitutional history and introduces key and diverse writers who illustrate the range and potential of this history. The article provides an historiography and survey of constitutional history in the Pre-Commonwealth and Post-war Commonwealth periods while also assessing the opportunities of Post-British Commonwealth constitutional history. The objective of this article is to show how Commonwealth constitutional history can contribute to the historical study of state power and to see its worth to other disciplines and fields of history. Commonwealth constitutional history is a necessity to examine the politics, power and consequences of the British empire during the long age of decolonisation.

Further information is available here. 

Karekwaivanane on Law & Politics in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is in the news, and George Karekwaivanane, University of Edinburgh has come out with The Struggle over State Power in Zimbabwe: Law and Politics since 1950. From Cambridge University Press:

The establishment of legal institutions was a key part of the process of state construction in Africa, and these institutions have played a crucial role in the projection of state authority across space. This is especially the case in colonial and postcolonial Zimbabwe. George Karekwaivanane offers a unique long-term study of law and politics in Zimbabwe, which examines how the law was used in the constitution and contestation of state power across the late-colonial and postcolonial periods. Through this, he offers insight on recent debates about judicial independence, adherence to human rights, and the observation of the rule of law in contemporary Zimbabwean politics. The book sheds light on the prominent place that law has assumed in Zimbabwe's recent political struggles for those researching the history of the state and power in Southern Africa. It also carries forward important debates on the role of law in state-making, and will also appeal to those interested in African legal history.

 Praise for the book:

This dense and powerful book reminds us that independence and majority rule (and democratization and neoliberalism) are not breaks with the past but the result of the past, and past struggles over rights and with rights - who has them, who can act on them, and who can articulate them. -Luise White

Table of Contents after the jump.

Munshi on Comparative Law and Decolonizing Critique

My Georgetown Law colleague Sherally K. Munshi has posted Comparative Law and Decolonizing Critique, which appeared in the American Journal of Comparative Law 65 (July 2017)"

Cecil Rhodes Memorial (LC)

This essay seeks to reanimate comparative legal scholarship by reorienting it towards decolonizing critique. In his critical assessment of the state of the field, Pierre Legrand suggests that comparative law has become mired in a solipsistic and outmoded style of positivism. Drawing upon theoretical insights from critical theory, Legrand argues that comparative law might render itself more generative and more relevant by engaging in a more contextualized analysis of law and encouraging active interpretation beyond descriptive reporting. In this essay, I extend Legrand’s arguments to suggest that an emancipated, incorporative, and interdisciplinary comparative law might play an important role in decolonizing legal scholarship more broadly. Founded in a commitment to constrain an ethnocentric impulse in legal discourse, comparative law might be expanded to challenge the varieties of Eurocentrism that continue to define legal scholarship and study, while providing hospitable ground for critical and interdisciplinary projects aimed at exploring the colonial roots of both the contemporary nation-state system and globalized racial formations.

Schonthal on Constitutionalism and Religion in Sri Lanka

Benjamin Schonthal, University of Otago, published Buddhism, Politics and the Limits of Law: The Pyrrhic Constitutionalism of Sri Lanka with Cambridge University Press in 2016. The book takes a historical approach in Part I, especially. From the publisher:

It is widely assumed that a well-designed and well-implemented constitution can help ensure religious harmony in modern states. Yet how correct is this assumption? Drawing on groundbreaking research from Sri Lanka, this book argues persuasively for another possibility: when it comes to religion, relying on constitutional law may not be helpful, but harmful; constitutional practice may give way to pyrrhic constitutionalism. Written in a lucid and direct style, and aimed at both specialists and non-specialists, Buddhism, Politics and the Limits of Law explains why constitutional law has deepened, rather than diminished, conflicts over religion in Sri Lanka. Examining the roles of Buddhist monks, civil society groups, political coalitions and more, the book provides the first extended study of the legal regulation of religion in Sri Lanka as well as the first book-length analysis of the intersections of Buddhism and contemporary constitutional law.

The book provides the first detailed history of the legal regulation of religion in late and postcolonial Sri Lanka, which will be of interest to scholars of religious and legal history in South Asia. It draws upon previously unexamined sources and original ethnography in Sinhala, Tamil and English, offering new data and insights into Sri Lanka's political, legal and religious history.

A review:

"There is nothing the study of law and religion needs more than deeply informed political and religious histories of postcolonial states and societies. This is exactly what this book offers. In an exhaustively researched legal ethnography of the treatment of religion in Sri Lankan constitutionalism, Benjamin Schonthal explores how Sri Lankans have wrestled with the tensions generated by a legal order that guarantees religious rights while also granting to the majority religion of Buddhism its 'rightful place'. Is it possible for the state to protect a tradition without interfering in it? Who speaks for Buddhism in these debates? This sobering story of the limits of law is a must-read for scholars of religion and politics, Buddhist studies, and comparative constitutional law." -Elizabeth Shakman Hurd

TOC after the break.

Cederlöf, Das Gupta and friends on Subjects and Citizens in India

Gunnel Cederlöf (Linnaeus University) and Sanjukta Das Gupta (Sapienza University, Rome) have an edited volume, Subjects, Citizens and Law: Colonial and Independent India, out now with Routledge. From the publisher:

This volume investigates how, where and when subjects and citizens come into being, assert themselves and exercise subjecthood or citizenship in the formation of modern India. It argues for the importance of understanding legal practice – how rights are performed in dispute and negotiation – from the parliament and courts to street corners and field sites. The essays in the book explore themes such as land law and rights, court procedure, freedom of speech, sex workers’ mobilisation, refugee status, adivasi people and non-state actors, and bring together studies from across north India, spanning from early colonial to contemporary times. Representing scholarship in history, anthropology and political science that draws on wide-ranging field and archival research, the volume will immensely benefit scholars, students and researchers of development, history, political science, sociology, anthropology, law and public policy.

Here is the Table of Contents:

• Becoming and being a subject: an introduction, by Gunnel Cederlöf 
• 1 The making of subjects on British India’s North-Eastern Frontier, by Gunnel Cederlöf 
• 2 The temperament of empire: law and conquest in late 19th-century India, by Jon Wilson 
• 3 Contagious contestations: sex work, medicine and law in colonial and postcolonial Sonagachhi, by Simanti Dasgupta
• 4 Laws and colonial subjects: the subject–citizen riddle and the making of section 295 (A), by Nishant Kumar 
• 5 A homeland for ‘tribal’ subjects: revisiting British colonial experimentations in the Kolhan Government Estate, by Sanjukta Das Gupta
• 6 Conflict and governance: participation and strategic veto in Bihar and Jharkhand, India, by Amit Prakash 
• 7 Refugees in India: a study into (un)equal status, treatment and prospects, by Anne-Sophie Bentz 
• 8 Law, agro-ecology and colonialism in mid-Gangetic India, 1770s–1910s, by Nitin Sinha
• Subjects, citizens and law: a postscript, by Tanika Sarkar 

Further information is available here.