Dr Asanga Welikala

Dr Asanga Welikala is Lecturer in Public Law at the School of Law, University of Edinburgh, and the Acting Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law. He is also a Research Associate of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, and Research Fellow of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), Sri Lanka. Asanga's research interests lie in comparative constitutional law, applied constitutional theory, and Commonwealth constitutional history. He teaches and supervises across the public law field in Edinburgh, at Ordinary, Honours, masters, and doctoral levels. Asanga has been involved on both sides of transnational influence on constitution-making: as a member of the Office of Constitutional Support, United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq; in various international advisory capacities in other countries on constitutional and legal reform issues; and as an active civil society voice and an independent expert in the current constitution-making process in Sri Lanka.

Current Research Interests

• Plurinational constitutionalism and secession
• Comparative federalism and devolution
• Constitutional transitions and incrementialism
• Dialogic constitutionalism in the Commonwealth
• Public law of the United Kingdom and Scotland
• Sri Lankan constitutional law and reform
• Conservative and Burkean constitutional thought
• Unitary states in plural polities
• The constitutionalisation of socioeconomic rights