Buddhism and Comparative Constitutional Law

The ECCL is delighted to host Professor Tom Ginsburg to discuss Buddhism and Comparative Constitutional Law.

In late 2022, Tom Ginsburg and Ben Schonthal published an agenda-setting edited collection of essays that has the potential to open a new sub-field within comparative constitutional law looking at the relationship between Buddhism and public law in Asia. The central theme explored in the essays is the relationship between Buddhism, constitutions, constitutional law, and constitutionalism(s), through an interdisciplinary conversation between contributions from law, politics, history, anthropology, and religious studies. These insights are of interest not only to those working on Buddhist Asia. They have wide-ranging significance for scholars of comparative constitutional law and general constitutional theory, especially at a time when the rise of Asian states may be changing the nature of the international order and with it the normative universe within which contemporary comparative constitutional law has taken shape. In this book event hosted by the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law (ECCL), the panel will offer reflections on analytical, institutional, and normative issues for public law raised by the contributors to the book.

The event will be chaired by Dr Asanga Welikala and the panel will be Professor Alice Collett (University of St Andrews) and Dr Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne (University of Dundee).

Attendance is free, but registration is necessary. To register, please email P.Reid@ed.ac.uk