VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee

Post-colonial legal theory has tended to focus on the binary of the Global North and the Global South, but it may also be helpful to understand constitutional development and “democratic backsliding” in Eastern Europe. This is shown by William...

Despite the formal end of colonial rule in Africa, (neo-)colonial structures continue shaping parts of the continent. Against this situation, the concept of an African Renaissance envisions the rebirth of the continent and its rise from oppression....

With the establishment of the military regime in Brazil in April 1964, the military achieved its long-standing objective of exerting lasting influence as a key political actor. Despite its commitment to “restore the rule of law” and fortify...

The 1988 Constitution promoted the expansion of social policy in Brazil, but other constitutional rules on fiscal policy limited the sources and funding of social spending. This paper discusses how the original text of the Constitution and its...

This paper examines how democratic institutions respond to disinformation when it is weaponized by elected officials for illiberal purposes. It focuses on the role of courts in countering disinformation in Brazil from 2018 to 2022, when the country...

This article explores the varieties of law and memory in Brazil and Germany, aiming to understand how and to what extent each country juridified their past. In doing so, we strive to understand this phenomenon from a contemporary perspective and...

The concept of an “open society of constitutional interpreters”, originally formulated by Peter Häberle, is one of the most overused clichés in Brazilian constitutionalism. In this paper, drawing on (i) criticisms formulated against Häberle's...

Constitutional objectives are often general and vague. They constitute future-oriented norms that usually have a high political content and are binding on all branches of the state, despite not providing exhaustive clarifications about who is to...

This overview article introduces the special issue on “Varieties of Constitutionalism: Contestations of Liberalism in Comparative Constitutional Law”, which concludes a collaborative research project with the same theme. The project mapped...

In his insightful paper, Theunis Roux argues that there are two dominant narratives about the constitutional transitions in India and South Africa. The Liberal Progressivist Narrative (“LPN”), understands these constitutions as the application...

There are currently two contrasting ways of narrating the Indian and South African constitutional transitions. The first contends that they were moments when liberal constitutionalism was adapted to the circumstances of the Global South. In contrast...

This comment takes up the invitation to critically engage Theunis Roux’s paper “Grand Narratives of Transition and the Quest for Democratic Constitutionalism in India and South Africa”, focusing only on the latter of his two subject countries....

Theunis Roux’s “Grand Narratives of Transition and the Quest for Democratic Constitutionalism in India and South Africa” is an important piece of comparative constitutional scholarship that will be of interest not only to scholars of the...

Constitutionalism has been in crisis in India and in South Africa in recent times. Theunis Roux, a South African comparative constitutional scholar who has also written extensively on the Indian constitutional experience, is particularly well-placed...

Studies of constitutionalism in the Global South often chart the rise and achievements of liberal constitutionalism. In this contribution, I suggest that we also need to consider the decline of constitutional democracy as part of studies of...