果冻影院

About the Seminar

The executive makes constitutional judgment calls more often than any other branch of state, and yet very little is known about the process by which these decisions are made. Professor MacDonnell鈥檚 new empirical research takes readers inside Canada鈥檚 federal executive and offers a vivid picture of the complex intra-institutional processes by which the constitution is construed in the everyday business of government.

Photo by听听辞苍听

About the Speaker

Vanessa MacDonnell is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law (Common Law Section) and Co-Director of the uOttawa Public Law Centre. Her research examines the constitutional functions of the executive branch, inter-institutional relationships, unwritten constitutional norms and principles, and the relationship between Canada鈥檚 legal and political constitutions. Her work has been published in 迟丑别听International Journal of Constitutional Law, Law & Ethics of Human Rights,听迟丑别听University of Toronto Law Journal听and 迟丑别听McGill Law Journal,听and she is the Canadian Principal Investigator on a $1.7 million interdisciplinary, international research project on unwritten constitutional norms and principles funded in Round 7 of the Open Research Area Competition.

About the Commentators

Commentators for this seminar include:

Dr Berihun Gebeye (Chair)听is a Lecturer in Law at the 果冻影院 Faculty of Laws. Prior to joining 果冻影院 Laws, he was a Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow under the Alexander von Humboldt Chair of Comparative Constitutionalism held by Prof. Dr. Ran Hirschl at the University of G枚ttingen. He held visiting positions at the Columbia Law School, the Center for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford, and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. He is a Visiting Professor at the Central European University Department of Legal Studies from which he earned an S.J.D./Ph.D. in Comparative Constitutional Law (summa cum laude). He is the author of 鈥淎 Theory of African Constitutionalism鈥� (OUP 2021).

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Colm O鈥機inneide is Professor of Constitutional and Human Rights Law at 果冻影院(果冻影院). A graduate of University College Cork, he has published extensively in the field of comparative constitutional, humanrights and anti-discrimination law. He has also acted as specialist legal adviser to theJoint Committee on Human Rights and the Women & Equalities Committee of theUK Parliament, and advised a range of international organisations including theUN, ILO and the European Commission. He also was from 2006-16 a member of theEuropean Committee on Social Rights of the Council of Europe (serving as Vice-President of the Committee from 2010-4), and since 2008 hasbeen a member of the academic advisory board of Blackstone Chambers in London.

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Dr Ewan Smith joined 果冻影院 Laws as Associate Professor of Public Law in 2022. Prior to that he was a Fellow of Christ Church, Oxford, the Shaw Foundation Junior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, and an Early Career Fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights. Ewan read law at Oxford, at the University of Paris and at Harvard Law School. He has previously worked at Peking, Tsinghua and Renmin Universities in China and at the National University of Singapore. He is admitted to practice in New York, where he worked for Debevoise and Plimpton LLP. Between 2005 and 2015, he worked for the Foreign Office. 听Ewan was a Hauser Fellow at New York University Law School in 2023. In 2024, he will be a Visiting Professor at the University of Bologna.

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About the Group

The 果冻影院 Public Law Group is a community of scholars working in the field of public law, broadly understood. Our aim is to provide a supportive forum for the discussion and development of theoretical and doctrinal questions in constitutional theory, comparative constitutional law, human rights, judicial review, legal and political theory, and more.听

R锘縠ad more about the group and its work.

Book your place

You can attend this event in-person at 果冻影院 Faculty of Laws (Bentham House,听4-8 Endsleigh Gardens,听London听WC1H 0EG) or alternatively you can join remotely.

Please make sure you choose the correct ticket when booking your place.