Call for Papers
Traditional Concepts: New Perspectives, New Challenges
Prague, Czech Republic – 29 March 2019
International Conference on Traditional Concepts: New Perspectives, New Challenges
Faculty of Law, Charles University
Nám. Curieových 7
116 40 Prague 1
Czech Republic
Convened by
Eszter Bodnár
Miluše Kindlová
David Kosař
Jana Ondřejková
The three arguably most important pillars of liberal democracy include: (1) the rule of the people – associated with the majority principle but also with the principle of time-limited government; (2) constitutionalism (especially separation of powers and the independent judiciary) and (3) liberty of an individual and of the society at large as one of the fundamental principles enabling the plurality of life paths. All three pillars can hold, to some extent, different meanings in different societies but their combination and mutual connections provide certain guarantee that those meanings will not deconstruct liberal democracy in a political community as such. However, if any of these pillars significantly changes or weakens, the degree of this guarantee may considerably decrease or even disappear. That such important changes have occurred, was already pointed out during discussions at the successful inaugural conference of the Central and Eastern European Regional Chapter of the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S CEE) in Budapest in April 2018, which addressed the topic ‘The Power of Public Law in the 21st Century’.
This call for papers aims to follow up our discussions on that topic and aspires to attract scholars reflecting on new perspectives upon traditional concepts built into liberal democracy and on challenges these concepts face in contemporary Europe, including its Central and Eastern countries.
We welcome submissions from scholars of all levels – from senior scholars to doctoral students (especially from the Central and Eastern European region) – on one or more of the following subjects.
- The people, national identity and citizenship in the age of globalization and regionalization
- The separation of powers and the role of individual constitutional organs at the national, EU and international level
- Liberty in the public and private space – new challenges, guarantees and limits
How to Participate
Interested scholars are asked to submit an abstract no longer than 500 words by 15 November 2018 by using this form. Only members of the ICON-S CEE chapter (please find further information here) or other chapters of ICON-S can submit applications. A Conference Selection Committee will choose abstracts and notify all scholars no later than 15 December. Full drafts of papers will be due no later than 15 February 2019. Papers should be no longer than 10,000 words (footnotes included).
Costs
There is no cost to participate at the Conference. Participants are responsible for securing their own funding for travel, lodging and other incidental expenses.
Questions
Please direct inquiries in connection with this Conference to the Organisers at ICONSCEE2019conference@gmail.com.
Sponsors
We are immensely grateful to the Faculty of Law of the Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic) for supporting this Conference.
About the organizing institutions
The initiative to create an International Society of Public Law emerged from the Editorial Board of I·CON – the International Journal of Constitutional Law. The Society was officially launched at an Inaugural Conference to take place in Florence, Italy, on June 26-28, 2014.
The successful format of the Inaugural Conference has been replicated in the Annual meetings, held in New York (2015), Berlin (2016), Copenhagen (2017) and Hong-Kong (2018).
Such events both favoured the growth of the Society – which counts over 1.000 active members – and the establishment of regional and national chapters. ICON-S invites all interested scholars and practitioners – from both law and the social sciences – to formally become Members of the new society. The Society will hold its 2019 Annual Conference on July 1-3, 2019 in Santiago de Chile. The ICON-S Central and Eastern European Chapter was established in April 2018 in Budapest. Its mission is to promote the values of ICON-S, and, in particular, the commitment to an interdisciplinary approach to public law that engages constitutional, European, administrative and international law scholars and practitioners so as to better understand global and transnational legal developments.
Charles University, Czech Republic, is one of the oldest European universities, founded in 1348. The Faculty of Law belongs to its original faculties and regularly features as one of the best rated law faculties in the Czech Republic. The faculty collaborates with a broad spectrum of foreign law schools and is involved in many research and educational projects on both national and international levels.
About the Conveners
Eszter Bodnár
Eszter Bodnár has been an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law of University Eötvös Loránd (ELTE) in Budapest, Hungary since 2013. She is also a faculty member in the Master of Electoral Policy and Administration program of Scoula Sant’Anna, Pisa. In the last years, she has been teaching and researching in Canada, Germany, France, the United States, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Italy, Romania, and Australia. She graduated as a lawyer and worked at the Department of Constitutional Law in the Hungarian Ministry of Justice, and in the Hungarian National Election Office. She obtained her PhD degree in constitutional law at ELTE in 2013 with her thesis on the fundamental right attributes and restrictions of the right to vote that was published in Hungarian (HVG-Orac, 2014). In the year 2017/18, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Victoria, Canada. In November 2017, she was a Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Fellow in Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Melbourne. Her research interest is in comparative constitutional law, international human rights, and European constitutional law. She is an inaugural co-chair of the ICON-S Central and Eastern European chapter.
Miluše Kindlová
Miluše Kindlová has been a senior lecturer at the Department of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague, since 2007 and a legal assistant at the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic since 2017. Between 2012 and 2017 she was a junior member of the UNCE – Human Rights Research Centre at the Faculty of Law. Currently she participates in the research project ‘The Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic: The Guardian of the Constitution Above Politics, or in Politics?’ supported by the Czech Science Foundation. Her main research interests include issues of the separation of powers, human rights, citizenship and national identity.
David Kosař
David Kosař is the Director of the Judicial Studies Institute at Masaryk University Faculty of Law. He was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant to investigate ‘The rise of judicial self-government and repercussions for separation of powers’ (2016-2021). His areas of research include various aspects of constitutional law and politics, judicial studies, transitional justice, human rights law, and constitutional theory. His latest book ‘Perils of Judicial Self-Government in Transitional Societies’ (CUP, 2016) was awarded the 2018 Canada Prize by the International Academy of Comparative Law for the best monograph in comparative law. His recent publications appeared in the American Journal of Intl. Law | Intl. Journal of Const. Law | European Const. Law Review | European Journal of Intl. Law | German Law Journal | Hague Journal of the Rule of Law | Utrecht Law Review. He is member of the Council of ICON-S and an inaugural co-chair of the ICON-S Central and Eastern European chapter.
Jana Ondřejková
Jana Ondřejková is a senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science and Sociology at the Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague. Since 2012 she is a junior member of the UNCE – Human Rights Research Centre at the Faculty of Law. She earned her Ph.D. in legal theory in 2011. In 2015 and 2016 she coordinated students’ research projects and since 2017 she is a head of a research project entitled ‘The Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic: The Guardian of the Constitution Above Politics, or in Politics?’ supported by the Czech Science Foundation. Her research topics include the political context of judicial power, institutional aspects of EU constitutional law, constitutional pluralism and interrelations between law and politics in general.
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