30617 - TRANSNATIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - MODULE 2 (ANGLO-AMERICAN LEGAL SYSTEMS)

As regional integration processes progress and international dialogue becomes crucial for domestic political and legal decisions, legal systems interconnect and exchange solutions to common problems. In this context, understanding how legal traditions interplay with global process of law formation is a key component of legal education. By understanding legal traditions, lawyers are better equipped to identify challenges and opportunities for transnational dialogue and cooperation. Against this backdrop, the course aims to introduce students to Anglo-American Constitutional Law by focusing on the aspects of the legal tradition that are useful to understand transnational dialogue. The course will enable students to comprehend global challenges while emphasizing the need to entrench legal solutions in legal systems engaged in various forms of transnational integration. In particular, the course enables students to understand the distinguishing features of the Anglo-American tradition, and how these features interact with contentious issues such as protection of democracy and the rule of law, fundamental rights, and scope of judicial review. Moreover, it enables to detect how countries across the common law tradition experience similar challenges, offering common solutions. This course explores these issues by addressing the development of contemporary legal systems belonging to the common law tradition.

The main topics of the course are:

• processes of constitutional formation (customary constitutions v. written constitutions)

• the frame of government (parliamentary and presidential systems)

• the system of judicial review (UK, US and other examples)

• the articulation of powers (federalism and devolution)

• the protection of fundamental rights (case-based approach)

• trajectories of transnational constitutionalism

• the application of international law (case study on the penetration of international law as well as on circulation of constitutional decisions within the common law)

• the challenges of global security concerns (case study on terrorism)

After successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Describe the fundamental features of the UK and the US constitutional systems

• Understand how the defining elements of the Anglo-American tradition interplay with global law

• Understand the development of legal systems based on the Anglo-American tradition

• Explore the global challenges faced by contemporary legal systems in the Anglo-American tradition

After successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Identify how the legal tradition influences constitutional developments in a global perspective

• Compare the Anglo-American tradition with other legal tradition

• Interpret legal solutions in light of the interplay between legal tradition and transnational dialogue

• Develop arguments to address contemporary challenges facing Anglo-American systems

• Face-to-face lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)
• Interactive class activities on campus/online (role playing, business game, simulation, online forum, instant polls)

In addition to face-to-face lectures, which will take place mainly in the first part of the course, the learning experience of this course includes interactive class activities, in order to promote active participation in discussions in class (or within groups that have been created) and the engagement in interactive activities (e.g., role-playing, simulation, online forum, instant polls) aimed at stimulating original contributions and ideas. During the entire course, students will be strongly encouraged to bring their own views and to share their insights.

The course also includes one or more guest speaker’s talks by leading international scholars who will share their experience as attorneys, advisors or judges at international or supranational institutions, to see how Anglo-American Constitutional Law works in action and to better understand transnational dialogue.

With the purpose of measuring the acquisition of the above-mentioned learning outcomes, the students’ assessment is based on the following components:

1. In-class participation (5% of the final grade) aimed to test the students’ ability to interact in a constructive way and to think critically.

2. Continuous assessment (15%) aimed to test student’s ability to discuss cases with a focus on legal traditions.

3. Written exam (80% of the final grade), consisting of open/closed-ended questions, aimed at assessing the students’ understanding of the principles of Anglo-American constitutional law and their ability to apply them in the discussion of a specific legal issue.

The assessment method for non-attending students is based on a final exam in written form, which will count for 100% of the final grade. It will consist of open/closed-ended questions, aimed at assessing the students’ understanding of the principles of Anglo-American constitutional law and their ability to apply them in the discussion of a specific legal issue.

Peter Leyland, The Constitution of the United Kingdom, Oxford: Hart, 2021.

Mark Tushnet, The Constitution of the United States of America, Oxford: Hart, 2015.

As further reading:

M. Patrono, A. Vedaschi, Donald Trump and the Future of American Democracy. The Harbinger of a Storm?, Milan, Bocconi University Press, 2023.

Case law and further materials will be indicated and made available to students through the Bboard platform before the start of the class.

Peter Leyland, The Constitution of the United Kingdom, Oxford: Hart, 2021.

Mark Tushnet, The Constitution of the United States of America, Oxford: Hart, 2015.

As further reading:

M. Patrono, A. Vedaschi, Donald Trump and the Future of American Democracy. The Harbinger of a Storm?, Milan, Bocconi University Press, 2023.

Case law and further materials will be indicated and made available to students through the Bboard platform before the start of the class.