Transformative Constitutionalism and its Failures

Transformative constitutionalism, once seen as a progressive legal concept, originated in South Africa‘s postapartheid era and spread to other Global South countries, such as India and Colombia, to finally be employed by some to describe supranational systems like the Inter-American Human Rights System and even the EU. In spite of its increasing popularity among scholars in the West, it has also been met with
increasing disillusionment, especially in South Africa, where calls for more radical decolonial alternatives have emerged. However, transformative constitutionalism‘s promise of change was always bounded by politics and accordingly limited. To revive it, the focus should shift from courts and rights therefore to political empowerment.

Prof. Dr. Michaela Hailbronner, LL.M. (Yale), Professorin, Lehrstuhl für deutsches und internationales öffentliches Recht und Rechtsvergleichung, Universität Münster

Moderation: Prof. Dr. Olaf Zenker, Sozialanthropologe; Professor am Seminar für Ethnologie, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

Öffentlicher Eröffnungsvortrag im Rahmen des Workshops "Constituting Transformation? Ethnographic Insights into the Potentials and Pitfalls of Constitutional Law in Action" in Kooperation mit der Martin Luther Universität Halle - Wittenberg