Constitutional Statecraft in Asian Courts [ONLINE]

Professor Yvonne Tew will give a talk on “Constitutional Statecraft in Asian Courts”

Based on her recent book published by Oxford University Press in 2020. She explores how courts engage in constitutional state-building in aspiring, yet deeply fragile, democracies in Asia. Drawing from the central examples in contemporary Malaysia and Singapore, Professor Tew explains how courts protect and construct constitutionalism in the context of dominant political parties and transitions to democracy. She explores the judicial strategies for statecraft in Asian courts, including an analysis of the specific mechanisms that courts can use to entrench constitutional basic structures and to protect rights in a manner that is purposive and proportionate.

Professor Tew seeks to show how courts in Asia's emerging democracies can chart a path forward to help safeguard a nation's constitutional core and to build an enduring constitutional framework. Her account aims offers at once an illustration of some of the key challenges in the Southeast Asia constitutional context, as well as to identify themes that resonate in other countries grappling with colonial legacies, histories of authoritarian rule, and societies polarized by race, religion, and national identity.
 

Professor Yvonne Tew is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. She has expertise in constitutional law, comparative and U.S., as well as law and religion. She is the author of Constitutional Statecraft in Asian Courts (Oxford University Press, 2020). Her scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in many law journals including the American Journal of Comparative Law, Virginia Journal of International Law, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Cambridge Law Journal, and Washington International Law Journal as well as in book collections from Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Edward Elgar Publishing, and Routledge. She was a guest columnist for 2020 for the I-CONnect Blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law. Professor Tew holds a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar. She received a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School and a B.A. (First Class Hons) from the University of Cambridge. She has held research fellowships at Columbia Law School and New York University School of Law.

This event is for members only.

Click here to see details of the QS Requirements and how to be credited with the QS for this session

Learning Outcomes:

After this session, students should be able to:

• Define constitutionalism and describe the similarities/differences between Southeast Asian countries.
• Identify at least two challenges in constitutional state-building, especially in the context of postcolonial countries.
   

Links to the Professional Statement, wider workings of the Bar, administration of justice or a public interest matter

This QS will illuminate how courts engage in constitutional state-building; the challenges faced by the individuals and institutions involved in these processes; the judicial strategies used for statecraft, and how they manifest themselves, and other issues involved in constitutional statecraft. The discussion will be framed in a Southeast Asian context, but the topics and themes discussed are applicable to many countries with similar challenges and histories.

Click here to view the BSB's Professional Statement

QS Feedback

If you have any feedback on a QS you have attended or have any suggestions for future sessions, please contact the education department on education@middletemple.org.uk

If you have questions about accessibility at the Inn or if you would like to request support, please email Laura Hacon.

The Inn is committed to improving access to all its services and encourages members to get in touch with suggestions and feedback on how we can improve. If you feel your experience using the website or attending one of our events could be improved, please email Laura. Your suggestions will be treated in the strictest confidence.