CCPL Talk: Changing Modes of Constitution-Making in Africa: Do the means define the ends?
6 December 2024 (Friday) 12:30 – 13:30
Room 723, 7/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, HKU
Abstract:
Africa has experienced several waves of constitution-making with the most recent post-cold war wave extending into the first two-defaces of the twenty-first century. The focus of this chapter, however, is not on these waves of constitution-making but rather on the different forms of constitution-making within these different waves. Each wave, from the colonial era through independence and into the post-colonial era has provided examples of different forms of constitution-making, While a particular form may dominate a specific wave, such as the imposed constitutions of the colonial era, the most recent post-cold war wave present a number of constitution-making forms that seem to promise a more sustainable constitutionalism in the counties that have embraced greater democratic involvement in their constitution-making processes. My hypothesis is that greater degrees of public participation and democratic processes in each of these constitution-making waves has brought greater legitimacy to both the process and product of constitution-making across Africa. If this is the case, I would assume that we should see an increasing resilience in the lives of these constitutions and thus a strengthening of constitutionalism across the continent.
Bio:
Heinz Klug is the John and Rylla Bosshard Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. He is a member of the California Bar (inactive) and is admitted as a Advocate in South Africa. Growing up in Durban, South Africa, he participated in the anti-apartheid struggle, spent 11 years in exile and returned to South Africa in 1990 as a member of the ANC Land Commission and researcher for Zola Skweyiya, chairperson of the ANC Constitutional Committee. He was also a team member on the World Bank mission to South Africa on Land Reform and Rural Restructuring. He has taught at Wisconsin since September 1996. For the 2024-2025 academic year Professor Klug is a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Ghana School of Law in Accra, Ghana.
Professor Klug taught law at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg from 1991-1996, offering courses on Public International Law, Human Rights Law, Property Law, Post-Apartheid Law and Introduction to South African Law, among others. He also worked as a legal advisor after 1994 with the South African Ministry of Water Affairs and Forestry as well as the Ministry of Land Affairs on water law and land tenure issues. In 2013 Professor Klug was awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa from Hasselt University in Belgium.
Professor Klug has presented lectures and papers on the South African constitution, land reform, and water law, among other topics, in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Germany, South Africa, the Netherlands, and at several U.S. law schools. His research interests include: constitutional transitions, constitution-building, human rights, international legal regimes and natural resources. His teaching areas include Comparative Constitutional Law, Constitutional Law, Constitution Making, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Property, and Natural Resources Law.
Professor Klug has published a number of books: on South Africa’s democratic transition, “Constituting Democracy” Cambridge University Press in 2000; on the “The Constitution of South Africa” Hart in 2010; on “The New Legal Realism: Studying Law Globally” (with Sally Merry) Cambridge University Press in 2016; and the Research Handbook on Modern Legal Realism (with Shauhin Talesh and Elizabeth Mertz), Edward Elgar in 2021.
Prior registration is required for this in-person event: https://bit.ly/3YudxTB