ORCID Profile
0000-0003-3661-4832
Current Organisations
NYU Law school
,
University of Oxford Bonavero Institute of Human Rights
,
University of Melbourne Law School
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Research Topics
In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Top 5 Research Topics
ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)
Comparative Law | Constitutional Law | Law | Legal Institutions (incl. Courts and Justice Systems)
ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)
Ethnicity, Multiculturalism and Migrant Development and Welfare | Understanding Asia's Past | Political Systems |
Related Links
Publications
Areas of Law: Three Questions in Special Jurisprudence
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 26-10-2022
DOI: 10.1093/OJLS/GQAC025
Abstract: This article addresses three fundamental questions about a key phenomenon in special jurisprudence, ‘areas of law’: (i) what is an area of law (ii) what are the consequences of iding law into distinct areas and (iii) what constitutes the foundations of an area of law. It claims that (i) ‘an area of law’ is a set of legal norms that are intersubjectively recognised by the legal complex as a subset of legal norms in a given jurisdiction (ii) the sub- ision of law into multiple areas matters to the content and scope of legal doctrine, to law’s perceived legitimacy and possibly to its effectiveness and (iii) the search for the normative foundations of an area of law is typically an inquiry into its ‘aims’ or ‘functions’. This article systematically articulates, explains and answers these three questions generally, ie in relation to areas of law as such.
A Theory of Discrimination Law
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date: 05-2015
K oushal v N az: Judges Vote to Recriminalise Homosexuality
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-2015
Equality
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date: 06-02-2017
DOI: 10.1093/LAW/9780198704898.003.0039
Abstract: This chapter examines the grounds of legislative review under the general constitutional guarantee of the right to equality as embodied in Article 14 of the Indian Constitution. It first provides an overview of the traditional narrative on the transformation of Article 14, before turning to a discussion of two doctrines that have evolved to test the constitutionality of a measure when faced with an Article 14 challenge: the ‘classification test’ or the ‘old doctrine’ (‘unreasonable comparison’) and the ‘arbitrariness test’ or the ‘new doctrine’ (‘non-comparative unreasonableness’). It examines differences between the nature and application of these two tests, and current shortcomings within India’s equality framework.
THEORIZING AREAS OF LAW: A TAXONOMY OF SPECIAL JURISPRUDENCE
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 12-2022
DOI: 10.1017/S1352325222000192
Abstract: This paper provides a taxonomy of the different kinds of theory that may be offered of an area of law. We distinguish two basic types of philosophical accounts in special jurisprudence: nonnormative accounts and normative accounts. Section II explains the two central subspecies of nonnormative accounts of areas of law: (i) conceptual and ontological theories and (ii) reason-tracking causal theories. Section III explores normative theories of areas of law. Normative accounts sub ide into detached and committed normative accounts. Detached or committed normative accounts can be sub ided further into the following cross-cutting categories: (i) pro tanto or all-things-considered, (ii) hyper-reformist or practice-dependent, (iii) taxonomical or substantive. Section IV shows that our taxonomy does not presume a prior commitment to any particular school in general jurisprudence. This paper clarifies methodological confusion that exists in theorizing about areas of law, and contributes to the subfield of thinking generally about special jurisprudence.
Should Britain Have a Written Constitution?
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 10-2007
Political insurance for the (relative) poor: How liberal constitutionalism could resist plutocracy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 27-08-2019
DOI: 10.1017/S2045381719000200
Abstract: Fair value of equal political liberties is a key precondition for the legitimacy of a regime in liberal thought. This liberal guarantee is breached whenever a group is permanently or semi-permanently locked out of power. Given the convertibility, subtlety, and resilience of power, gross material inequality – produced by neoliberal economic policies – effectively locks the relative poor out of political power. Such lockout breaches the legitimacy constraint on a liberal constitutional democracy. Neoliberal democracies, sooner or later, become plutocracies. This possibility should concern not only liberal political theory but also liberal constitutionalism. The usual objections to a constitutional concern with gross inequality and plutocracy – based on concerns relating to transparency, counter-majoritarianism and flexibility – are useful design instructions, but do not rule out the constitutionalisation of egalitarian and anti-plutocratic norms. A whole panoply of legal and political constitutional measures – already familiar to or incrementally developed from liberal constitutional thought and practice worldwide – could be marshalled to effectively promote material equality and resist plutocracy. These measures – documented to map the possibilities rather than as a manifesto – seek either to prevent material inequality from becoming excessive or to prevent its conversion into political inequality. Good constitutional design, depending on the context, is likely to deploy several tools from both these toolboxes.
Guarantor Institutions
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 22-09-2021
Abstract: The last few decades have seen a proliferation of constitutional institutions, especially in the Global South, that do not neatly fit within any of three traditional branches of the state. These supposedly ‘fourth branch’ institutions may include electoral commissions, human rights commissions, central banks, probity bodies such as anti-corruption watchdogs, knowledge institutions such as statistics bureaus and census boards, information commissioners, auditors general, attorneys general and so on. In this paper, I will argue that some of these new institutions are best understood as “guarantor institutions”. I will show that in a given political context, a guarantor institution is a tailor-made constitutional institution, vested with material as well as expressive capacities, whose function is to provide a credible and enduring guarantee to a specific non-self-enforcing constitutional norm (or any aspect thereof). Section I explains why polities need credible and enduring guarantees for specific norms, and claims that the expertise, independence, and accountability of guarantor institutions are likely to be key ingredients that determine their effectiveness in serving that purpose. It also argues that constitutional entrenchment of the guarantor institution is entailed in the independence requirement. Section II shows that in order to credibly and enduringly guarantee a norm, certain primary and secondary duties need to be discharged by relevant actors in relation to the norm's content as well as its impact. It further argues that while some of these duties may be performed by institutions that possess expressive capacity alone (roughly, the capacity to speak, express, communicate), others require material capacity (i.e. the physical capacity to effect material changes in the world). Guarantor institutions, unlike integrity institutions, can shoulder primary as well as secondary duties. Furthermore, they are typically vested with expressive as well as material capacities, which is key to their classification-defying hybridity. Section III argues that guarantor institutions are constitutionalised in two respects: the norm they seek to guarantee is constitutional, and the institution itself has constitutional status. What matters for a norm or institution to be constitutional is that it is entrenched , i.e. protected from change from the ordinary political and legal processes of the polity to some extent. It is their doubly constitutional character that distinguishes guarantor institutions from ordinary regulators. Section IV explains how some constitutional norms are non-self-enforcing, in the sense that powerful actors are likely to have the will as well as the capacity to frustrate or erase them. It also shows that the three traditional branches, whether acting severally or jointly, cannot provide a credible and enduring guarantee to all non-self-enforcing constitutional norms. Hence the need for constitutional guarantor institutions. Section V highlights that guarantor institutions are typically tailor-made to guarantee specific constitutional norms. Their specificity has important consequences for their internal design and their mode of functioning, which distinguish them from key institutions in the three traditional generalist branches. Section VI concludes. Attention to guarantor institutions by constitutional scholars may help the discipline escape its blinkered worldview, which sees judicial review as the only game in constitution-town.
Constitutional Directives: Morally‐Committed Political Constitutionalism
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-03-2019
The Indian Supreme Court’s identity crisis: a constitutional court or a court of appeals?
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-01-2020
Preserving Curious Institutions
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 10-2007
Directive principles and the expressive accommodation of ideological dissenters
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 04-2018
DOI: 10.1093/ICON/MOY025
Philosophical Foundations of Discrimination Law
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date: 28-11-2013
Religion in human rights law: A normative restatement
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.1093/ICON/MOAA008
Abstract: In a companion article published in the preceding issue of this journal, “The Right to Freedom of Religion and the Right against Religious Discrimination: Theoretical Distinctions,” we focused on the theoretical differences between the right to freedom of religion and the right against religious discrimination. We explained that the right to freedom of religion is best understood as protecting our interest in religious adherence (and non-adherence), understood from the committed perspective of the (non)adherent. On the other hand, the right against religious discrimination is best understood as protecting our non-committal interest in the unsaddled membership of our religious group. This follow-up article builds upon these theoretical insights to show how key doctrinal implications follow from this distinction between our interest in religious (non)adherence and our interest in unsaddled membership of a religious group. Doctrinal implications arise for the respective scope of the two rights, whether they may be claimed against non-state actors, and their ergent tolerance levels for religious establishment. We explain that these theoretical distinctions imply that the scope of religious freedom is extremely broad, whereas that of religious antidiscrimination is relatively narrow. Moreover, religious freedom should be restricted as a claim solely against the state (or, possibly, other state-like bodies), whereas a claim of religious discrimination may be permitted against certain non-state actors as well. Third, we demonstrate that certain forms of religious establishment, and other non-zero-sum benefits to particular religious groups, breach the antidiscrimination guarantee but not (necessarily) the religious freedom guarantee. In the final section of this article, we map the areas of overlap between the two rights and identify cases where one of these rights might be engaged but not the other.
Executive aggrandizement in established democracies: A crisis of liberal democratic constitutionalism
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 2019
DOI: 10.1093/ICON/MOZ018
The 'Constitution' as a Statutory Term
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2012
DOI: 10.2139/SSRN.2155065
The right to freedom of religion and the right against religious discrimination: Theoretical distinctions
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 10-2019
DOI: 10.1093/ICON/MOZ087
Abstract: This article argues that while they are often conflated, the right to freedom of religion and the right against religious discrimination are in fact distinct human rights. Religious freedom is best understood as protecting our interest in religious adherence (and non-adherence), understood from the committed perspective of the (non)adherent. This internal, committed perspective generates a capacious and realistic conception of religious adherence, which reflects the staggering plurality of forms of religiosity (or lack thereof) as extant in contemporary societies. The right against religious discrimination is best understood as protecting our non-committal interest in the unsaddled membership of our religious group. Thus understood, the two rights have distinct normative rationales. Religious freedom is justified by the need to respect our decisional autonomy in matters of religious adherence. The prohibition on religious discrimination is justified by the need to reduce any significant (political, sociocultural, or material) advantage gaps between different religious groups. These differences reveal a complex map of two overlapping, but conceptually distinct, human rights which are not necessarily breached simultaneously.
Related Organisations
University Of Oxford Bonavero Institute Of Human Rights
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Related Funding Activities
ARC Future Fellowships - Grant ID: FT170100358
Start Date: 09-2017
End Date: 08-2021
Amount: $988,852.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityConstitutional Resilience In South Asian Democracies
Start Date: 2017
End Date: 2021
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity