Disadvantages of a Federal Constitutional Convention

The Role of the Philadelphia Convention in Constitutional Adjudication

Max Farrand’s Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 shed light on the intricacies of the debates of the framers over the text of the Constitution. They do not, however, provide authoritative evidence of constitutional meaning. The Philadelphia Convention, after all, was conducted in secret, and the ratifiers, operating in thirteen distinct conventions in culturally and politically diverse s...

The European Convention on Human Rights and National Constitutional Reordering

State Legislative Ratification of Federal Constitutional Amendments: An Overview

The Fall and Rise of Specialized Federal Constitutional Courts

Most constitutional challenges in federal court to federal statutes are litigated in the familiar pattern of a decision by a single U.S. District Judge, followed by an appeal to a three-judge panel of one of the U.S. Court of Appeals, followed by the filing of a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court, which has discretion to grant or deny the writ. Sometimes, however, Congress requires a ...

The constitutional miracle on the Rhine: Towards a history of West German constitutionalism and the Federal Constitutional Court

Justin Collings. Democracy’s Guardians: A History of the German Federal Constitutional Court, 1951–2001. Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. xli, 331. £65. ISBN: 9780198753377. Michaela Hailbronner. Traditions and Transformations: The Rise of German Constitutionalism. Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. xi, 211. £60. ISBN: 9780198735427. Falk Jaeger (ed.). Transparenz und Würde: Das Bundesverfass...