Major constitutional reforms were adopted in North Africa and the Middle East following the outbreak of the so-called Arab Spring. However, most of these constitution-making processes were characterized by serious flaws and shortcomings, a fact that not only contributed to weakening the democratic nature of the new constitutions, but that also had a negative impact on the legitimacy and sense of ownership of these texts and, ultimately, on the transition processes as a whole. More recent processes – such as the one that led to the adoption of the 2022 Tunisian Constitution – confirm this trend. This workshop will discuss post-Arab Spring constitution-making processes and will take up other constitutional developments in the region.

Francesco Biagi is Associate Professor of Comparative Public Law at the University of Bologna Department of Legal Studies, Research Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Studies and Democratic Development (a partnership between the Johns Hopkins University SAIS Europe and the University of Bologna), and Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law. From 2015 to 2017 he was Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law (Heidelberg), where he now works as a legal consultant. He has provided trainings and consultancies to governmental and judicial institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America (since 2013). Recently, he provided legal assistance to the members of the Constituent Assembly of Chile (2021-2022).

His latest publications include European Constitutional Courts and Transitions to Democracy (Cambridge University Press 2020); Comparative Constitutional History. Volume 2: Uses of History in Constitutional Adjudication (edited with J.O. Frosini and J. Mazzone, Brill, 2023); “Constitution Drafting After the Arab Spring. A Comparative Overview”, 29 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 1 (2022); “Foreign Law in Constitutional Interpretation”, in R. Wolfrum, R. Grote, F. Lachenmann (eds.), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press 2021).

Lunch will be provided.