Hybrid | The Failures of Others: Justifying Institutional Expansion in Public Law

About the Seminar

In public law around the globe, we often encounter what is best described as arguments from failure, i.e. the idea that one institution may expand its powers in a situation where another institution is failing to do its job. Examples range from structural reform litigation in the United States and many Global South countries to the Uniting for Peace Resolution of the UN General Assembly. In her forthcoming book (CUP 2025), Hailbronner argues for recognizing arguments from failure as a public law concept, ranging on a continuum between implied powers/effective realization- and emergency arguments. She shows that such arguments may under certain, narrowly defined, conditions legitimately be used, taking into account scholarship on the separation of powers and democratic theory.

Image by Walter Frehner from Pixabay

About the Speaker

Michaela Hailbronner is a Professor of German and International Public Law and Comparative Law at the University of Münster. Michaela is interested in the way in which public law frames inter-institutional relationships in different legal systems as well as connected questions of legal history, culture and theory. Her analysis of German constitutionalism against a broader comparative background appeared in a paper that won the I.CON Inaugural Best Paper Award 2014 and in her first book Traditions and Transformations: The Rise of German Constitutionalism (Oxford University Press, 2015). Her more recent work has been in the field of comparative constitutional law and human rights, appearing inter alia in the American Journal of Comparative Law, the University of Toronto Law Journal and the International Journal of Constitutional Law. She is also involved in a number of international collaborations and networks, and has recently been elected as Co-President of the International Society of Public Law (term starting in July 2024).

About the Commentators

Commentators for this seminar include

Dr Silvia Suteu is Associate Professor at UCL Laws, having joined the Faculty in September 2016. She teaches and researches in the areas of comparative constitutional law, constitutional theory, gender and law, and UK public law. She is a recognised expert on the theory and practice of constitutional change, gender-sensitive constitution-making, and participatory and deliberative constitutionalism. (Chair for this event)

 

 

 

Jeff King has been Professor of Law at UCL, Faculty of Laws, since 2016. He is currently Director of Research at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and was between 2019-2021 a Legal Adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution. He sits on the Editorial Committee of Public Law, the General Council of the International Society of Public Law (ICON Society), and is a member of the Study of Parliament Group. His book Judging Social Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2012) won the Society of Legal Scholars 2014 Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship, and in 2017 he was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Law. He is currently working on the use and abuse of delegated powers, comparative legal responses to Covid-19, and is writing a book on the social dimension of the rule of law. Among his recent publications are The Democratic Case for a Written Constitution, (2019) Current Legal Problems; The Province of Delegated Legislation (2020), The Foundations and Future of Public Law Essays in Honour of Paul Craig Oxford University Press, USA (King J., Fisher, E. & Young A (eds.); and The Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory, forthcoming: 2024 Cambridge University Press. (Chair)

Colm O’Cinneide is Professor of Constitutional and Human Rights Law at University College London(UCL). 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.

About the Group

The UCL 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. 

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Book your place

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

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