Pozen faculty board members Tom Ginsburg (Law) and Monika Nalepa (Political Science) led a research initiative on constitutional crises and struggles in new democracies, organized around the question: How can those seeking to defend human rights in new democracies respond to these moments of constitutional crisis?
In May, Ginsburg and Nalepa convened a two-day conference titled Defending Human Rights in Times of Constitutional Crisis,which explored responses to political crises in new democracies where hard-won constitutional principles are in jeopardy. Using the ongoing constitutional crisis in Poland (where the independence of the judiciary is the target of executive encroachment) as a case study, the group discussed the international community’s response. The conference was cosponsored by the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies, the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory and included academics from Europe, North America, and Asia.
The project’s faculty organizers have been dedicated to sharing their collective scholarship with the broader public. The Pozen Center organized a Polish-language presentation by visiting legal scholar Marta Derlatka on Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal for Chicago-based Polish expatriates. In addition, Nalepa published a piece in The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog about the Polish Supreme Court, and will publish further insights from the research project.